About how many hours does it take to weld a Deuce frame??

...including boxing the rails and welding in the crossmembers (front, middle and rear)???

***ume an already set-up frame jig, brand new ASC or JWG rails, boxing plates & crossmembers, and an experienced weldor.

Be sure to indicate TIG or MIG.

Thanks, guys!

 

This should be good. Bob

 

It will also depend on the welder. I used to produce parts. Had several welders working for me. Same parts, same jigs, the production numbers where everywhere. Some guys drop the hood and fly, others, not so much. It wasnt like one was on his cell phone slacking off, they just ran at different speeds.

 

How long is a rope?

 

About three full work days, if you know what you are doing.

Jig,tack,weld,grind box plates - 5 hours

square up in jig and tack in crossmembers, bend/fabricate tubular X-member( the way I do most of them) - 10 hours

T.I.G. weld all this stuff - 4 hours

+ another half a day or so for off the shelf shock mounts, Vega box mount, off the shelf engine mounts.

Give or take 4-6 hours

 

Three to four days if you don't have problems. Boxing is the most time consuming.

 

I had a job interview once and part of it was estimating the time it would take to build a repeat project on a jig. I told the guy 3 days for the first one and I could probably get it down to 2 a week for him in less than a months time once I got acclimated to the shop and equipment. I got hired and a chance to prove what I said. Nice easy pace for me and was at 3 days. Didn't even crack a sweat, drank coffee, then had to pee. The guys spot I took was at 10 days each and he busted his ***! These were 25' x 7' x 3' with about 10x as much welding a 32 frame but it wasn't tig welded either.

 

The frame for my Deuce pickup was completely welded up in a weekend,,all day Saturday & Sunday.

I used a original frame,replaced the front crossmember with a model A,removed the K-member and replaced it with a ch***is engineering X member,boxed the entire frame and installed the Pete & jakes ladder bar mounts to the X-member.

Probably spent a good 8 hours on Saturday and about 6 hours on Sunday.

There was two of us doing the work and we ain't pros but we don't goof off,we stop for lunch but get right back to work. HRP

 

So that wedkend included some demo and removal in those 2 days?

 

8+6=14 X. Two guys= 28 hours . Sounds about right.


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Exactly 38 X square root of pi + A squared+ B squared= C squared

If you figure that out than you got it all figured out...
But if your just wanting a number... Say 8-16 hours...
I couldnt see it taking 28 hours...

 

There is a local person here that does some really nice frames mostly model a and 32 type stuff, he has all of the stuff laser cut and each side of his frame rails start from 4 pieces of flat steel that are jigged and welded then ground smooth, center section is similar to original style no tubing, usually model A front cross member and the rear varies from coil overs to original style.

He can crank out 2 frames a week(40 hrs) from start to finish by himself including all of the grinding, I saw him sweat once but he said that it was humid outside.

 

That's a bunch more work than asc rails and I'd bet most of his time is in those 4 pc. rails he builds.

 

Yes the welding and grinding of the rails. I think he mentioned one time that it is in the grinding, he went through a bunch of testing with several different types of disc and finally found one that he preferred and said that it cut down a lot on the time it takes to finish.

 

Whatever it takes to do it right. Its not a race. If your hiring it done, get a price upfront. Any experienced welder should be able to tell how many hours it will take. IF they cant, and they say "Ive never done a ch***is like this", move on. Might be better off buying a jig welded perimeter with crossmembers of your choice and you finish the rest.

 

Just pay the damn welder when he is done.

 

Correct, HRP

 

As some people above hinted at. A lot depends on prep work. Are all boxing plates cut and fitted before the welder gets there? Is the x member store bought or is that to be fabbed up as the job progresses? Every hour you spend before the welder shows up saves you 40 minutes of welding time.

 

0 hrs. Buy it from Speedway...

 

I agree. buy It and be done. There are a lot of nice frames to be had out there, some with pretty good price tags for what you get. SPEEDWAY MOTORS has some cool frame choices!

 

If I got started now, I could probably get it done by spring.

 

Strange there's such a spread.
First few slides of this explain some of this.

http://www.nsrp.org/6-Presentations/WD/051006_Welding Metrics.pdf

 

31Vicky, thank you for that post. That was a very informative read. Now I understand why my buddy gave me such a hard time about my welding skills at his race shop.



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I was talking to a couple buddies the other day, I've come to realize that I don't know how anyone can survive without knowing how to weld. Of course this is skewed, but that's how much I relied on and use this skill.

 

I tigged boxing plates on a buddies '32 ch***is a few years back. I think it took me about 4-5 nights of probably 4 hours a night.

 

I agree I learned in high school and bought a cheap little buzz box at a garage sale. I don't consider myself a professional but I've welded frames for multiple cars trucks and bikes and have never had a failure. For the cost of paying someone to do it I'm sure you could take some cl***es and buy a decent used machine.



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let me check my hot rod building chart . . . checking. . .well it says here no more than 23 hrs.-16mins. good'ol hot rod building chart. now 18 percent more delinquentness.

 

The last thing you want to do is "taco" your ch***is. I once witnessed a Deuce ch***is that was built on a garage floor. This ch***is was like a parallelogram. Both front and rear cross members were welded in crooked. We spent hours with a tape measure and when we figured it out and after we told the owner what we found he almost broke down and cried. By time you add up the cost of rails and cross members you are better off with a TCI, Speedway or other make ch***is.

 

I just can't agree with this. For me its different.
I've built some of the most intricate things on sawhorses, on the floor, in the dirt, hanging upside down, in other various places where humans shouldn't go. Built huge precision fixturing jigs on the floor for the precision prototype weld ment we built on the floor.

The less you have to work with the more meticulous you need to be. Measure 7 ways from Sunday- double check. At a very young age I was apprentice to two fitter-layout men who wouldn't let me get away with anything. Everything off my table had to be perfect. Not within spec, not close enough, not within reason, it had to be dead nuts to the drawing. At first they didn't care how long it took me, but eventually they started pushing for faster. What I had to work with was a tape measure, a square, marking tools, cross peen hammer, a 8" grinder, a Harris torch, 6 steel sawhorses 300 lbs each, a pile of 12" pipe cut offs 24" long, a 5x10 1" steel plate, and a shop full of beams and angles and a pile of clamps & turnbuckles. Build any thing in that shop.

So I got really frustrated with these two guys about everything needing to be perfect and they are letting a lot of stuff fly. In unison and near perfect stereo they said: we just wanted to see how good you are BEFORE we teach you everything we know. If you can get that stuff perfect you can get anything close enough & quick.

 

I used to negotiate fabrications with external suppliers for my job, basically reverse quote fabs that took about 10-50 hours and argue the fine points on the agreed price for production. Steel, laser, plasma, press brake, were pretty standard across the 15 fabricators I worked with, welding and tooling was the determining factor. as the other posts have stated some welders will work their *** off to make rate, others just chug along at a decent pace and beat the clock. Without a good fixture, either welder will have a bad day. If you're hiring this work done, be sure the person you're working with has the experience and is used to doing frames. Get the price up front, if the guy can't quote it,he doesn't have enough experience with this type of work, not saying he's not skilled, but do you wanna pay his time to learn how to do frames.