Well its been a few weeks since i have made an update. To be honest i had no money to make the dodecagon chassis tilter so everything came to a standstill until i had more money. I managed to get 2 homers fabricating gates, each one took about 2 weeks to make and fit, only because i have a full time job 8-5 and i can really only fabricate my own stuff after work and on Saturdays. The first one i made was for some retro shop on cockburn street in Edinburgh. I'm not sure if anyones familiar really with Edinburgh but cockburn street is just of the royal mile so its good to be getting my work in a classy area (i.e., more money).
After that one his neighbor wanted me to fabricate a couple of gates for the front of his shop too, so, more money is better than no money and i done that too.
Finally i could start on my own stuff for the van. I bought 4 lengths of 50x50x3 box section for the frame and struts, 2 lengths of 25x25x3 for bracing the inside of the van, a 8x4 sheet of 1.2mm for the body and some 1.6mm for the underside and any other areas i want to protect a bit more. Last time i got as far as drawing the idea of the dodecagon.
I know that there is other ways for me to work on the underside of the van, from rolling it over onto old mattresses/tyres to make a proper rotisserie. The reason i decided on the dodecagon was its simplicity, i don't have to jack it up **** loads to rotate it and i can mount it straight onto the chassis using the suspension mounting points.
I decided before i go cutting anything to check over all my measurements and see if i can adjust the sizes. I went to the garage and made a cardboard template of the outline of the front of the van, after messing around with the sizes i realized i could make the bottom and top rail 37" the side rails 32" and the corners 20", meaning instead of the overall height and width being 104" its now only 87" (if my memory serves me right). I then got 2 sheets of 3mm plate from my work and laid them flat on the ground and tacked them together to make a 8ftx8ft working area. I traced around the cardboard template (you can vaguely see that) and then made a full size drawing of how the dodecagons should look in chalk. Once that was done and i was happy with it i cut 24 bits of 50x50 at 50 long angle and tacked them around the perimeter of the dodecagon. That way once everything was cut i could clamp the box to the angle and know its not going to move and warp.
I then started to cut the 50x50 box to the sizes i need with a 7inch grinder, Its not my chop saw so to save the blade a bit i cut them with the grinder square, so when it comes to cutting the 15 degree angle im only cutting 3 faces, therefore using less of the blade.
This photo is a bit******but you get the idea, with everything cut i could place the metal on the sheet and using a **** load of clamps, clamp everything in place and start tacking. Once it was all tacked i kept the clamps in place and welded the top face.
I then stood it up so i could weld the inside and outside.
After that i then laid it back down with the other non welded face pointing up onto the jig to make sure it never warped and i laid the other bits of metal on top and tacked them to the complete dodecagon, that way i know both will be the exact same (or close enough anyway).
I then broke the tacks holding the dodecagons together and welded everything up completely.
The next again weekend i went back to finish them off but i forgot my camera so I'll need to show what i done later. I wanted to add strength to the corners so i cut some 25x10 flat bar and welded them in place like gussets. The other thing i done was to cut them in half and sleeved an insert inside both cuts. Unfortunately once i cut them in half they bowed in, so i had to cut 4 corners and pull them out a few degrees and weld them back up. Easy enough to do but time consuming.
The weekend after that i decided to fabricate trolley dollies so can move the whole thing around a lot easier. I bought 8x125mm castor/brake wheels, and 2 x 65x130 U channel @ 40" long. Using some left over 50 box i joined the whole lot together and im quite happy with how they turned out. I left a 60mm gap from the floor to the channel. Im hoping that when i go to roll the dodecagons i can roll them into the channel, I'll just need to see how it goes. The wheels should be strong for the job, they hold 160Kg each, so altogether thats 1280kg in total and im guessing the van isn't even going to be 700Kg fully stripped.
I got them down to my garage and with the help of my beautiful although slightly unenthusiastic assistant got to see how they would look in place. It was exciting to see all the hard work starting to make sense and feeling worthwhile.
My brother and I went to the garage last Wednesday after work and started to strip the front suspension out. We got the whole front end out but by that time it was getting quite late and i had an operation the next day so thats as far as we got. Im hoping next week to get back along and bolt the plates i have cut to the mounting points and weld more box to join the chassis to the dodecagons and fingers crossed it should go to plan. I also have to brace the inside of the van extensively as i plan to chop the roof of first. Thats why i have 3 sheets of MD, im going to join my 2 benches together and make a huge 12ft x8ft table, screw the roof down and repair it.
Hopefully I'll have another update next week and a video of it in action.
