Making a Roll Cage

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M

munarin

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Hi I am pretty new to this and love my savage. Only problem is that I can't stop doing things to it. I have read so many posts and threads on making roll cages etc so I am going to give it a go and make one out of delrin or acetal rod (5/8 inches thick) which I got from http://www.indplastic.com/ industrial plastic supply inc. Great to deal with and at $3.58 for 2 feet pretty cheap. I will post all pics and tools with as much detail as I can. Forgive me if I don't get around to answering any questions or posting often but I don't get much time on the computer with work taking up most of my time. So I will take some pics and post them in the next post I do.

Some details about my plans:

I am going to bend it all with a heat gun and make a jig up to do so. The mounts will be out of aluminium. My savage is fairly well standard, the only changes that will effect this is I have a chassis from new era models which extends 1 inch in the rear which allows me to fit the mounts behind the standard tank location. Hope this helps, please bare with me as I will post successes and failures as I go. I don't mind screwing up so someone else doesn't have to.
 
Pics

Here are a few pics. Pretty basic stuff but hopefully helpful.
This is how I got what shape to cut the aluminium for the mounts. I traced the chassis on a piece of paper and then with a pencil and eraser found the best shape and then cut it out.

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Here is one of my savage for the hell of it.

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Now I have fairly well done a mock up of the cage out of aluminium. From here I will make a jig from timber and dowel and use this to bend the delrin.
The pics you will see below are just ones I took along the way. Here are the tools I used.

Dremel (not necessary)
Drill
Drill bits
Files and a file cleaner
Pliers
Tin snips
Hammer
Hacksaw
Screw drivers
Heat gun
GLOVES
Blow torch
Marker pen
Steel punch

Now I am sure most of you will have these bits.

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The most importand part. A Blow torch and a durafix Rod

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This pic is a very rough outline of how the mounts were to going to fit. As you see later I made some major changes to the shape.

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This one is where I marked to out on 1.5mm aluminium and cut it out. Steel would be stronger but this has exceeded my expectations in strength so I stuck with it. After I cut them out roughly I used a couple of files (no. 6 would be all you need) to trim it up to the final shape. Then I used a hole punch mark the holes to match the chassis and drilled them. You can see the one I did for the other side here. The tube has an internal diameter (ID) of 5/8 and all I did was cut them on a 30 degree angle.

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Now the most important part for those without a welder. There is this wonderful product called durafix. Here is the website. http://www.durafix.com.au/index.php?content=home.htm from here you can see that you need a stainless steel brush to rub the surface, (which they give you) the rods themselves and any of the gases they have listed that will reach 400 degrees C or 730 degrees F if thats more your style. I used a torch with MAPP gas and it worked a treat. It is suppose to be 70% stronger that the material and it was. I made a simple butt joint with two pieces of aluminium and no matter what I did I could not separate them, hammer pliers you name it. The website shows you how to use it so have a look.

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Now a trial fit and there you go, mounts made. Fairly simple.

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Now I made a mock up out of aluminium (5/8) to make the jig and all I did was made one from trial and error. A bit of measuring goes a long way. Then made a matching one to fit. This is the bit that takes a while but seeing I had a blow torch I used this to heat the aluminium and it bent beautifully. Just have a bucket of water handy to cool it down. Just remember to use gloves!!!!! Make it anyway you please and here are the pics. I know the shape looks like another members cage but it looked like a good place to start.

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For those of you interested in delrin, here are my conclusions. I heated to with a heat gun and tried to bend it, it bent alright but as many of you know, it bubbles and creases. What WORKS is I heated it more on the outside (which stretches the most) and then using some muscles bent it in shape and dipped it in a nearby bucket of water and VOILA!!!! Smooth bends. That is the secret I think to bending this stuff. I used a MAKITA heat gun on the high setting which is 525 degrees C or 1000 degrees F. But I DID NOT heat the delrin to that. This stuff melts at 180 degrees C so use some common sense with heating, it doesn't have to be completely flexible (so that it will bend under it's own weight) before you bend it but at the first point you think you can bend and hold it in the shape that you want DO IT! and remember to COOL IT ( a bucket of cold water worked fine) while your holding it. It may take a few goes to get the final bend but what is it that you want. To hurry it thru or smooth bends. I know what I want. Now I am sure that there are other ways to bend it but this worked for me. It's cheap stuff so have a go and see. From this pic you can see the smooth side that was dipped in water and the other way of doing it.

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No Cooling

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Cooled immediately in water

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That is about all I could be bothered with for now hope this helps.
 
Innovations - When a member steps up and shows a step by step process for doing a project I'm impressed. Take it one step further when a member does soemthing Unique and have it turn out as being functional I'm more than impressed. Great job. Have you had a chance to bash around and see how it holds up? Weight wise what are you looking at on the cage setup?

Thx for taking the time to do all this.

Hop
 
Thanks for the reply, I am glad you liked it. It has held up fairly well so far. Hasn't bent out of shape at all and I think this is due to the cage being fitted well in the mounts and the mounts being strong. However being aluminium even with a 2.5mm thick wall is does tend to dent if you hit a rock or anything but only slightly.
I believe it would only weight few hundred grams, it is very light, lighter than delrin or acetal. I will keep giving it a hard time and then finally replace the aluminium rods with the delrin when I get around to it.

Cheers
 
I wish I could say I got the idea all by myself but it is very similar to integras rollcage.
 
Looks good Iam glad you took the time to show us... I started a thread on this a long time ago and.. Had some issues w/ integra... I will leave it at that.. So the thread was closed.... Witch was a good thing I guess... But iam glad u showed us what needed to be done. in the process... THANKS AGAIN !!!!!!!!!
 
Yeah I read that thread, wont ask anymore! No secrets here just trying to help out.
 
Totally cool and you'll only get better at making them. I enjoyed checking it out and I am impressed. Great job!
 
that looks so cool. i like the cage and the chassis!
4x4
 
No not really I am thinking that they will pop out for some reason, call me stupid !!! iam not sure
 
I have not put any screws in them yet because they hold in fairly well and I was going to see how it all went. The reason they don't come out of the holes is that they are on an angle. Now to pull them out they would have to come out on the angle that they went in which is the 30 degrees, the main reason they stay where they are is solely because of the 4 screws in the top that join the 2 sides of the aluminium rod. These stop the cage from going out at 30 degrees. It would be a completely different story if the mounts where straight up and down because they would slide in and out but they are on any angle. I don't know if that makes sense but there you go.
 
Thanks Man It does make sense.... another ? is there anyway to make a cage from a STOCK length tvp!!???
 
Sure either you make it attach elsewhere in the rear, maybe on the shock towers or relocate the fuel tank and your away. Mounts would be the same shape just shorter aluminium bars.
 
thanks for the info bud !!!!! I gave u some rep.. for the good thread (should be a sticky)
 
All I can say is nice job, well done, and thanks loads for sharing your experience with the project, instead of just telling people how hard it is...LOL
 
First post here and thanks to munarin, with the walk thro i knocked this up tad more tricky as its on a standard savage x tvp, so had to get around tank and shocks, seems to be pretty strong, time will tell.
Cheers,
Talcy
 
Yes that was very cool I learned some things there bud that you I too want to build a roll bar of sorts so thanks I love it........
 
Wow, Munarin. What a good job on the cage with a great presentation to boot. I hope you don't mind if I send ya a PM so I can get some presentation tips from you.....lol. I really had this kind of layout in mind for one of my own project threads, but I haven't found a good place to start learning the post tools, as of yet. Anyhow, great demo thread, Munarin.
 
Thanks I appreciate the feedback good work on your cage looks great. PM all you want by the way.
 
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