Cheating The Reaper
- Thread starter DRIVEN
- Start date
I've been back at it. Here's a little confession. I'm a believer that honest build threads should also chronicle the failures and not just the successes. So here's the deal; I thought I was done with the frame but while I was doing the final cleanup with a flapper disc I noticed something odd. The dust was acting like magnaflux and showing some invisible (with the naked eye) cracks where I had insufficient penetration and essentially had ground away all the weld strength. If I wiped away the dust -- you absolutely could not see anything. It wasn't until I took a hammer and smacked the box plates that I could tell that they weren't solid. It wasn't all the welds, but probably 30% needed to be redone.
I flipped it up on the side and started cutting slots where all the weak welds were and then went about an inch beyond in each direction.
I opened the slots up to about 3/32" and then rewelded them. This time I cranked up the heat a bit. After that I ground everything smooth and performed the hammer test again.
Honestly, I don't think anything bad would have happened if I just left it but I wanted it to be solid. Probably the worst thing that might happen is that maybe those areas might crack the paint and possibly some rust might have developed. Structurally speaking I don't think it would have been an issue.
Once I had everything to my liking, I rolled the sand blaster out of the corner and laid out some wet sand to dry for the next couple days. Going by the weather forecast, it looks like Wednesday after work I'll give it a quick cleanup pass then slide it into the booth for a sealer coat. Then the prep work begins.
Jerod will be in town for the swap meet and is really anxious to do some work on it. My goal is to have the frame done and the components ready to hang on it by then. Hopefully there won't be any more distractions.
I flipped it up on the side and started cutting slots where all the weak welds were and then went about an inch beyond in each direction.
I opened the slots up to about 3/32" and then rewelded them. This time I cranked up the heat a bit. After that I ground everything smooth and performed the hammer test again.
Honestly, I don't think anything bad would have happened if I just left it but I wanted it to be solid. Probably the worst thing that might happen is that maybe those areas might crack the paint and possibly some rust might have developed. Structurally speaking I don't think it would have been an issue.
Once I had everything to my liking, I rolled the sand blaster out of the corner and laid out some wet sand to dry for the next couple days. Going by the weather forecast, it looks like Wednesday after work I'll give it a quick cleanup pass then slide it into the booth for a sealer coat. Then the prep work begins.
Jerod will be in town for the swap meet and is really anxious to do some work on it. My goal is to have the frame done and the components ready to hang on it by then. Hopefully there won't be any more distractions.
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What brand and color on the chassis? I like the shade. I need to use that on my 55s chassis. Chassis looks awesome
Did you seriously come to my build thread to get toughguy with me and every member on the forum? Wow. Bold move.🙄
Thanks. That's only a epoxy primer though. It's Omni MP172. I still need to smooth all the seams and welds before it gets the actual paint. Not sure what product will get used for that but it'll just be standard chassis black.so I suspect it'll look pretty much the same. Just cleaner. I briefly considered color keying the chassis but decided that I'd rather have the frame not be a focal point.
According to google you dont walk past your driveway to your front door though nice house though.
