Originally posted by muleskinner
boogerwelds posts. He tried DOM, HREW and bent it everytime he flopped. He now uses pipe and is trouble free. Ask 1/4 Elliptical how many times he's rolled, or drove on his side on the rock, and see how his pipe exo has held up. I used pipe on my last rig and flopped it and it barely scratched it. I have it in my runner now with my family inside and I don't worry one bit. MY .02
Well here goes the skychrome.
1. the cage that tracy (1/4 eliptic) runs was built by an old freind of mine. There is way more pipe than is necesary and he had built a MANY a thing with his HF bender. That being said.....
2. If you PRACTICE with your HF bender (above person scrapped easy 600$ worth of practice over 3 years) you can get the same basic bends a JD will give at twice the labor and time.
3. I use pipe on my sliders and my bumpers. Well as of last trip beating the PISS outa the sliders my booger welds broke. There in itself lies a HUGE problem. I also had some bending of the sliders earlier because of lack of decent building skills (dont start
) I didn't propperly brace the sliders and they bent when tested.
4. Any I mean ANY good cage has HOURS of research and design into where and how to brace and cross brace.
5. Circle track racers did use pipe in the 70's and early 80's. Now they usuallly run .065 to .095 dom. But they run three across the doors and brace and rebrace to the chassis and then to itself. Go look into a wrecking yard and poke into one of there old cars. you'll be surprised. They now have there welds inspected and i think on NHRA drags they X-ray the welds.
6. WELDS ARE CRITICAL. If you cant weld with decent confidence then practice on bumpers and stuff. One of my FIRST bumpers outa square (like a brush guard) litterally vibrated itself apart in a few months.
7. go bend some bumpers with the HF and see if you can build what you want at all before tossing to the wayside. it's also good for compound bends that the JD cant get to. ask factory tubular.
