The Holidays are over and it's time to get back to business. Here are the test bends that Vigilante Dave did at his place of employ. The tubing is 3/4' X .065" and they look great. We are design building a bike rack for Joshuas moto. As soon as Josh gets me the dimensions for the mounting perimeter for the rack, dave and I will bend them up. I'm thinking hard about brazing the rack together, so there is the frame building tie in.
And this is just one of the reasons why. Eons ago when I was very involved in off road racing, I fabbed many components and brazed them all. The roof rack on the Ghia was bent out of electrical conduit with an aluminum floor pan pop riveted in. I carried a full 5 gallon gas can, a spare front suspension, a tow bar, etc. for 2000 miles with little or no pavement. It never broke. Same with the engine cage and skid pan. On the other hand, I built a lift kit and quadra shock set up for the van out of stainless steel, and the shock mounts broke after a couple of hundred miles. The stainless extra long u-bolts I fabbed for the lift kit kept stretching and the rear axle would come loose. I believe that a properly fillet brazed joint is as strong as or stronger than a welded joint on hot rolled steel. Of course, if Josh wants it welded, then we shall.
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