Rescued attachment like this.JPG
I was playing with one of the grandkid's toys today and had a bright light bulb experience!
Rather than cutting complex fishmouths where round tubes join, why not weld square cut round tubing to steel balls the size of the
tubing (or larger depending upon the angles and number of tubes coming together)?
If the idea's not clear with this brief explanation, I can either confuse the issue with a detailed exposition or sketch it out.
ok a 4 second effort on paint but do you mean like this
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Yep - your drawing shows four tubes (one coming toward the viewer).
There might be a bit of a problem welding relatively thin wall tube to a solid one inch steel ball. If I understand you correctly.
And how much weight would a sack of 1" steel bals weigh???
Pat...
I assume the idea is to not cut the tubing other than square. That means to join some 25mm tubes at right-angles you'd need a ball about 35mm
diamemeter, each ball would weigh 11.87ozs/336grams each
Sounds a basis for the new R*bin H**d.
Imagine panelling that with all those bumps!
ok well your calculations are wrong somewhere because a once inch steel ball would weigh 64 grams
Messanjah, you're right I used the diameter^3, not rad. Too early for hard sums; 35mm diameter=132g/4.7ozs
I think you will find that this has already been done ..................
............ afew billion years ago
And Here
Ray
it is a bit early for sums but im ment to be in an a level physics lesson lol im just feeling REALLY REALLY ill 
So was God building a Locost then ! I missed that bit of the Bible
"And on the eighth day, God created His locost chassis"
v = 4/3 PI r^3
35mm diameter, 8 tonnes / m^3 = 180g for a solid steel ball.
It's a nice idea if you can find ball bearings to weld to but it might be a bit heavy.
perhaps you could take an angle grinder to the faces that are not being welded to make them more flat for paneling over.
perhaps you could just buy a chassis if you didn't want to go to the trouble.
quote:
perhaps you could take an angle grinder to the faces that are not being welded to make them more flat for paneling over.
quote:
Originally posted by jestre
Good luck with that, hardened steel balls a very difficult to grind down.
quote:
Originally posted by ayoungman
"And on the eighth day, God created His locost chassis"
Taking all the wonderful input into account:
- the steel balls would be mild steel, not hardened, thanks to jester,
- the balls would be hollow, with wall thickness equal to wall thickness of tubes connected to them, thanks to kissy (et al), and
- sides would be ground down flat (and patched with sheet metal) for lumpless skin appearance, thanks to smart51.
Now, where would we find these mild steel hollow balls? I think I've seen some in Chinese shops, sold in pairs, for some reason, but I
don't know the metal used.
[Edited on 9/1/06 by carcentric]
quote:
Originally posted by carcentric
Taking all the wonderful input into account:
- the steel balls would be mild steel, not hardened, thanks to jester,
- the balls would be hollow, with wall thickness equal to wall thickness of tubes connected to them, thanks to kissy (et al), and
- sides would be ground down flat (and patched with sheet metal) for lumpless skin appearance, thanks to smart51.
Now, where would we find these mild steel hollow balls? I think I've seen some in Chinese shops, sold in pairs, for some reason, but I don't know the metal used.
You can't turn a steel that can be hardened into a mild steel by normalising or annealing ..... anymore than you can unstir the milk and sugar
from a cup of tea.
Steel is an alloy --- any quench hardenable steel is a very different alloy from plain mild steel.
This idea is a total non-starter for lots of reasons mainly to do with basic metalurgy and welding technology.
You need big balls for small angles
quote:
Originally posted by carcentric
Now, where would we find these mild steel hollow balls? I think I've seen some in Chinese shops, sold in pairs, for some reason, but I don't know the metal used.
Some of the older guys
, might remember this method was and probly still is is some cases used on hand rails and the steel balls are avalible from
some iron mongers.
Just to clear that up.
Mike
I always like a bit of lateral thinking....but, fishmouths aren't that difficult to do....for example they only involve one angle in the cut, no compound angles that square tubes need.
Just get "Magnetix" to make the kit bigger and we can all have magnetic chassis. Stick 'em together in half an hour
ATB
Simon
you may need ball that are biggerf than 1 inch in diameter otherwise some of the square tubing will abut space.
not convinced this is a good idea