Correct on the duckbill spreader
Hi Bob
I bolted the rail down to the floor plate, then with the end to be bent loosely clamped to the floor plate used the duckbill spreader to walk it around the curve. Had the whole thing clamped on my big bench with it up against some vertical block so that the spreader had something to push against.
If I did it again I would not cut the door end to length until it was bent to shape, that way it would be easier to get the length correct with out a lot of measurements. I did bend some scrap angle to shape just to for practice also welded the test version and then tried to straighten it back out with the porta-power to see how the welds held. It broke the weld at the notch where there was no space so that the weld was sitting up on top of the steel. That’s why I increased the spacing of the gap. Even ran a cutting wheel down a couple of them after they were bent to give more welding space.
With the angle iron clamped and bolted to the floor plate along the back it was pretty easy to get two of them to come out identical. Side point all the angle iron I bought was made in Canada which is nicely stamped along its length.
Now I’ll need to go add all this text to my web site.
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