Starting small with a post of some inspiration

Hopefully I'll get back to making my own.

Truck Rack 3 of 3

For those who know me, building a set of three truck racks (those things mounted on the backs of pickup trucks designed to hold lumber, ladders, and whatever else) has been the bane of my existence. I've struggled with equipment malfunctions, missing materials, and bad measurements. I engineered the heck out of these things, but they took way longer than expected to complete. Check out the two I've already completed Here.

Today I headed out to the Alameda warehouse hoping to make some major progress on rack #3. First I had to cut an 81 degree angle in the verticle supports.

Using my trusty angle grinder I flew through this task in about 30 minutes. Tacking them to the frame using a MIG welder took another 25 because I had to go back and forth positioning them plumb, square, and angled outward so that the widest point was exactly 61 inches. The angles I cut guided me, but I had to tweak them into perfection.

After tacking the two six foot lengths of angle iron that would be bolted to the bed of the truck I was ready to flip it right side right. Now I could add the triangle structure that makes these racks so tough.

This next part was tricky. I had to bring out the oxyacetalyne torch and cut my two inch box tube at about a 15 degree angle. The better I was able to make this cut the fewer beads I'd have to lay down mith the MIG to patch it up. I ended up doing fine, as you can see there was a little arch in the middle, but that's actually a lot better than ending up with a gap on either end.

In the four hours I spent welding today I basically framed out the whole rack. I still need to add some hardware, tie-down hooks and a removable rear lateral, prime, paint, and install the thing, but I'd say I did a lot today. Now I'm off to the bars: Jupiter on Shattuck in this weather...heaven.

Welcome

I plan to chronicle the ups and downs of trying to make it as a freelance artist right here: Juggling a day job with completing commissioned projects on-time, wrestling with my welding gear and fuse boxes and paint sprayers, ceramic vases three weeks in the making blowing up in the kiln, cracking the shelf in half with a volcanic force. I hope this blog provides a little perspective on the body of work I’ve created.