Saddle Up

 

Back in the fabricating saddle again, not like I haven't been doing some, but I'm working on the soccer goal repair and the boss has a bunch of material on order for future work. 

Actual saddles made from a 2" sch 20 pipe I split. The saddles need to fit over a 2" tube. The ID on the pipe before splitting was 2-1/16" so they should bolt up nicely. I used the plasma to split them. I used a straight edge to guide my cut and was able to cut quickly enough to get a nice cut without wandering all over - hardly any clean up. Now I need to figure out how to free hand cut some more pieces for the side hustle without a bunch of grinding.

Note the shop math on the plate. Since I needed to get the holes spaced equally on the saddles, I worked out from the center line an equal distance - nothing new here - but to find the distance from the center, instead of multiplying the denominator times the whole number and adding the numerator and then dividing by 2 like they teach you in math class, just find half of the whole number, half the fraction and then add them together. Remembering of course anytime you want to find half of a fraction, just multiply the bottom number (denominator) by 2. And since every self-respecting welder/fabricator will have a piece of soapstone, finding half of 3-3/8 shouldn't take longer than about 5 seconds. For those of you who've been doing math with your young-uns, give them a couple of fraction problems and see how they solve it. If they do it the long way as normally taught, show them the easy way. You never know, they may have to find half of 17-5/8 some day without taking all day.

Took a good look at the front end on the Rickati project. I loosened up the fork legs and the axle nut and spun the legs by hand and the tubes appear to be bent. Normally they bend just below the bottom clamp but if not too bad they can be straightened. I've done a couple of these in the past with satisfactory results. I'll take these apart and see if I can do some good. If I can get them close, just put them back together so they're parallel and they should work. The trail might be off a bit but this is going to be a slow speed rig - that's what vintage trials is all about anyway.

Speaking of which, I went to the AHRMA website the other day to check on the vintage trials rules and they have a beginner's class. The results don't count for the championship and the course is the "easy line". I saw that they are going to have an event this weekend in Illinois. I didn't bother to look up how close to me it is but I did note they are running a cross country event as well. My original plan with the Rickati was to take it to the AHRMA events and compete in the trials and then spectate the road racing events. Plans haven't exactly worked out that way but they might still. I just need to finish up the frame and then send the motor out to my buddy. Paint the frame while he's got the motor and then button it all back up when he's done. Simple enough.