A weeks worth of fabrication...but no bikes

Yep, just what it says, here's a weeks worth of work and not a stinking lick of bicycle work.  When you own a shop and folks find out you've "got an awesome set of tools and a welder", you will be inundated with requests.  I try to fend these off with the fervor of a childlike tantrum, but alas, some slip through due to necessity.  So, here are the latest sat on the back pile for too long gotta have them done yesterday can you PLEASE do this favor for me I'll owe you big time shouldn't take you longer than a couple of hours fabrication projects (yes, that run on sentance is how it sounds in my head).

Most structural fabrication means means dirty hands...

The guys at the Edge were good enough to loan me their van to get to Colorado for Nahbs this year, so I was indebted to them for my business soul.  Out of the bargain came the need for a safari rack for their 15 passenger van;  it will carry 6-8 bikes and has an expanded metal basket with spider netting to hold duffel bags of gear.  A removable ladder let's them access any point on the rack. I designed it to have 4 LED Spotlights on the front and room for two weatherproof speakers to be mounted on the side, so she'll party as well as be functional.  She's getting powder coated right now with a nice textured/slip resistant polyester black.  I look forward to the guys getting the customers out into the wilderness for some epic cycling.

For the Fire department, I had three projects.  The first was to repair two ladders that had damaged rungs.  As these have to pass a lot of loaded stress testing, not just any guy with a garage and a set of tools can do the repair.  Unfortuantely for us, there is no one local to take on the burden at a reasonable price (read cheap), so I strapped them to the top of the Volvo and brought them home.  Each ladder had to be fixtured, the old rungs machined out, and new rungs press fit, swaged, and welded into place.  All ladders passed the testing... glad that AWS certification I have finally is of some use :)

I also fabricated a new Stokes Basket tray to carry the rescue sled on the top of a fire truck's roof.  I picked through the scrap yard in my Birks for over an hour to find scrap aluminum that would do the job.  Not bad for $5.80.  Gonna be powdercoated in fire engine red and mounted up.

I also machined a new pump panel drain interface out of a piece of 3.00 x 2.00" x .850" aluminum to replace a rusted piece of crap on another engine.  Had a pic of it, but lost it somewhere in the great 1's and 0's that make up the internet, so you'll just have to imagine it. 

Many builders take on these normally invisible projects, helping keep the doors open for what we really enjoy doing.

Back to bike stuff tomorrow, thanks for watching this public service announcement.

rody