Quote Originally Posted by JunkieHobbo View Post
it will make life ALOT easier for me if there is not alot of welding to do.
Actually doing it the way I have means in the terms of building it makes it harder and longer bolting to together, there's actually no less welding required.?
Welding takes minutes per joint.! . Cutting the plates, Drilling the plates, Drilling the matting sections and welding/grinding in the plates/nuts etc takes meny hours.

You have to take much care when cutting the steel that the ends are square so when you weld the plates they are square. If the plates are not perfectly sqaure then when you bolt the sides to the base pieces they wont be square and much shimming will be needed. The goal is to reduce shimming as much as possible.
The way I do it is to tack the plates top & bottom then bolt them together to check fit, If far off then grind either the top or bottom tacks off and adjust with No1 special re-alignment knocking stick.:naughty:.
Then when happy weld full joint. This gets me very close thou the plates can and do move with the heat from welding so need rechecking/adjustment, for the final adjustment and close fit I can just skim a little of the plates with grinder. After this I'm pritty much spot on square and if not then just minor shimming will be required.

So as you can see it's not easier by any means.!! . . . BUT . . it should also show you how important I feel and know having this adjustment abilty matters to a accurate machine because NO WAY would I go to all this trouble if I could just weld the bugger up.:nope:

That said my way of building makes it harder because I didn't want lots of bolts and external plates showing so used the mix of welding and bolting.
If you wanted could build using just plates/bolts and very little to non welding if you wanted, it's just lots of plates,drilling and bolts because the plates would have to be both sides of each joint. . . . It would still be very strong and have lots of adjustment just not so good looking.!!