Torchmate 2x2 Table Build

[Disturbed]

I found this site earlier this week and it took me all of five minutes to pony up the $20 and become a member, wow what a deal!

I just thought you guys and girls might want to see what I am working on. I purchase a TorchMate 2X2 table in March but other projects and 9 month old twins meant it stayed in the crate. I have finally got around to getting it set up.

Plans are for a 2X4 water table so I can do index cutting on a 2x4 sheet. I purchased the steel for this project 2 months ago but still had got it building the table. Last week I finally got it out of the crate and put together. I decide that before I started cutting up $200+ worth of steel I wanted to make sure I had everything set up correctly, and also that it would be nice to have the CNC to cut parts for the water table. Over the last two night I build a temporary table for the machine for testing purposes before I built the water table. I had some thin wall tubing laying around that I built the table out of. I will ad some bracing and a steel top when I am done with my testing and the water table is buit and use it as a welding/fab table.

Here are a couple of pictures of the table and TorchMate.




Yes that is my home shop with an automotive lift in it, what can I say, my wife is very understanding. I don?t run a business and although I used to work in the off road industry fabricating parts I haven?t been involved in any fabrication other than my own stuff in about 4 years. Both of the shops I worked at had CNC plasma tables and I really missed having access to them, cutting stuff wuth a jig saw and grinder really sucks when you know what a CNC plasma table can do.

I used a CNC plasma extensively when I built this competition rock crawler. I haven?t completed in years but am hoping to pull it out of moth balls in the next year or so and redo the setup for KOH style racing.



I have other drawings that I have done and am working on and will post them up when they are finished. I am sure this site will be a huge help to me and I hope I can be a help to the members here.

[Scratch]

Nice table build and even nicer rockcrawler! I don't compete but am big into trailriding and rock crawling also. With that 2' X 2' table you should have just enough room to cut some weld on beadlocks for that thing! Welcome to the site.

[Disturbed]

Nice table build and even nicer rockcrawler! I don't compete but am big into trailriding and rock crawling also. With that 2' X 2' table you should have just enough room to cut some weld on beadlocks for that thing! Welcome to the site.

Yeah, beadlocks....thats a story, order custom wheels, the sent me the wrong bolt pattern, then said I told them the wrong pattern, funny, I never owned anything with the bolt pattern they sent me. Had to order another set of wheels(from some else), and that pretty much killed the beadlock budget. The wheels and tires in that picture were borrowed, while my 37s sat because I could get wheels in time for that comp.

No long after that picture was taken I quit where I was working with the cnc plasma and the place I went to didnt have the cnc yet, so I had to run with what I had. That was the last year I competed because it got too expensive running all over the east coast to the comps. When I start running that buggy again I will cut bead locks.

[elkriverfab]

Disturbed...

Nice table setup.
Hope you get it up and running with the water table soon.

I have a question for you.

I have been wanting to slowly start building a tube frame rock crawler for some time now.
I have had several cj7's over the years and love playing with them.

I think a tube frame crawler would be a great project to look into though.

Do you know where I can find some info on building one of these.
Frames, cages and stuff like that.

I understand it may be hard to point someone in the right direction on such a project but the basics would be what I am looking for.

All of the equipment I use for bending and plasma cutting is here and I would like to learn the in's and out's of starting a project like this.

If you know of any web sites or other places where I can find some detailed info, would be great.

Thank you.

[Disturbed]

I can't say that I have ever seen instructions per say for building a tube frame crawler as the are all different. My best advise would be to look at other builds online to get ideas. The one in the picture I build was started from a Jeep YJ frame that was shortened and dove tailed in the back. Hind sight being 20/20 I should have start with 2x4 or slightly smaller tubing for the main frame rails instead of using the YJ frame. The only thing the using the frame gained over building from scratch was a mount for the steering box, but the problems it caused were not worth is.

The complete tube frame ones I have helped to build we started with the driveline and built from there. Build for the suspension at full compression, not at ride height, to be sure there is no interference with anything. Some of the sanctioning body, WeRoc, RCRocs, KOH, etc can give you an idea of how to build the cages and materials to use for saftey reasons.

You can check out Pirate4x4 for some good builds but be cautious, they are not the most politically correct group, I spend alot of time on there and is where I found the link for this site. The is also a company call Blue Torch Fab, that has some amazing builds they have done, one in particular that is a KOH car that the main frame rails were CNC plasma cut and welded together, very slick.

There is also a company that sells something called "Formula Toy" chassis. A tube chassis mean to sit on top of an old Toyota truck frame, we build one of those that we set on a custom 2x4 frame rather than a toyota truck frame, it gives you somewhere to start.

Also depends what you want to build is how it is best accomplished. Single, two, three, four seater? front engine, rear engine? Leaf springs, coil springs, coil overs, air shocks? Single triangulated four link, double trianguled four link, three link with track bar, radius arms? Regular, hydraulic assist, or full hydraulic steering? Manual or Auto Trans? It is really best to have all the components on hand if you are building from scratch but that is not always and option.

Took me about 3 months to build that buggy, but I was working on it about 30 hours a week. 5pm - 11pm weekdays and about 10 hours a day on the weekend. I took Friday nights off of building to get parts and materials. Some week more, some less.

It was a great project and I would love to do another one when I have time, you have the equipment and know how to use it that is the hardest part.