[How do I?] Square Hole ?

[RedOak]

No, I'm talking about a hateful 4 wheeled Delta stock feeder, way too big and heavy. I have a 3 wheeler and couldn't live without it. It's funny when people first see one chugging along at 26 FPM and comment how slow it is until they try to keep it fed. They are awesome for consistency.

Ah, now I understand. You’re referring to a 4-wheel stock feeder. We manage a fairly large parcel of forest land. A while back, I sold our UTV (always repairing the damned thing)...and, ever since, the Mrs has been after me to get another one. Consequently, I see the term “4-wheeler” and I automatically start thinking about UTVs.

 

[RedOak]

Here's Momma's Best Friend:



As I hope you can see, our forest land is on the side of one of those mountains in the background. This machine gave us a lot of great service, but it also added a skill to my resume that I never wanted: UTV Mechanic. Luckily, we had a great way to hoist it, but I worked up underneath this machine more times than I really want to think about.

Those tracks you can see in the trailer behind the Ranger once took out a set of CV joints, for example. I also had the pleasure of replacing a transmission in this machine, as well...but the kicker was having to replace a heavy stabilizer in the chassis. The Mrs is a white-knuckle type driver, so how she managed to break that part of the chassis is beyond me.

As you can see from these final photos, we took pretty good care of this UTV, but our mountain skid roads proved to be too much for it. Lucky for us, the first person to take a look at it bought it for the asking price, but, in the end, I was glad to see it being pulled down our steep driveway on the buyer's trailer.

 

[deakin]

Okay, so the diehards that stuck with this thread can take a ganders at what I hope is the solution to the rack issue we've been discussing herein. It's a 3-axes welding clamp made by Strong Hand Tools.

View attachment 378670

Although I know which end of a welding whip plugs into the welder, I'm certainly not skilled enough to weld up all of the right angles in the design. In the end, I'm sure that, by having the "three extra hands" that this thing provides, we have a much better chance of getting a quality end product.

By the way, I went for this clamp over the [blue] clamp, pictured earlier in the thread, because of the quick releases you can see attached to each adjustment screw and, even more importantly, the beefier pivot assembly that comes with this particular clamp.

FWIW i have that style and the 2D style but haven't used either since i built my holie table. today for fun i clamped up 2 pieces in the 2D and tacked them then compared with a square and my welding table (with the stops). welding table was square, the pieces tacked in the fixture clamp were off (by eye) about 3/32 in 12"
my 2D fixture clamp is a wilton ac-325
fixture shows to be square tho' . i remember having this issue in the past

 

[deakin]

another fwiw
i played around a bit and found that when i tightened the jaws the tubing lifted slightly. something to watch out for

 

[RedOak]

another fwiw
i played around a bit and found that when i tightened the jaws the tubing lifted slightly. something to watch out for

When you say that you "...tightened the jaws...," Deakin, are you referring to the jaws of a particular clamp? If so, would you let the thread know which clamp you were using at the time?

 

[deakin]

in this instance my 2d clamp. wilton. if i just snug it up it is ok

 

[RedOak]

in this instance my 2d clamp. wilton. if i just snug it up it is ok

Believe it or not, I just received the last of the steel we'll need to start this project. The local steel supplier was having a lot of trouble getting thin-wall steel; hence, the long delay. Now that the materials are here, I can go back to planning to start the actual work.

Deakin ~ As I recall, you have the 3-axis clamp pictured (below). Would you say that, given the right shims, this clamp will do a good job of keeping the 90-degree angles in the rack we've been discussing in this thread square? It would seem that you're warning me not to tighten the clamp too much, but I'm a bit confused at this point.

 

[deakin]

just fixture it then check it to see if it moved