fab with A36 or 1018 which is best for our purposes?

[v7guy]

I'm new to the offroad game and have only dealt with work on cars that go fast and don't hit hard things unless they become garbage. Which steel do we like for an off road vehicle?

Obviously 1018 won't bend as easy in an impact and in general is a better steel but A86 is a lot cheaper... but for the obvious reasons. Is 3/16" or 1/4" A86 good enough to hit rocks and trees with?

searches on the interwebs using 1018 or A86 say use aluminum. Maybe my google fu is no good.

[bartonmd]

You're over-thinking it... With sheet metal (and even tube), the shape is MUCH more important than the material... See it all the time on Pirate or whatever... A guy builds a cage out of Chromoly DOM, and another guy builds a cage out of poop pipe... They both roll, and the poop pipe cage holds up, while the Chromo DOM cage doesn't... One guy had a good design, and the other didn't...

I just use 1011 (A569... Very similar to 1018) 7ga (.179") low carbon industrial steel on my products, and it holds up great... Yeah, you could go with a better steel or chromo and get the same strength (albeit harder to work) with .165" steel or something, and save 10#; but the steel costs 3x as much, and if you aren't racing, the $/# trade-off is much different... Nobody would buy my $260 radiator skids if they were $400, but weighed 55#, instead of 63#... Same goes for my $165 oil pan skids being $250, or my $350 bumpers being $600...

Just use whatever steel you can get your hands on (usually 1011, if you get it from a welding shop or something), and use bends and flanges to make it stronger...

Mike

[v7guy]

I was hopin you'd respond.

casual lookin sent me to A36 as the cheap option. I'm not partial to anything in particular, I'd just like to use something hard enough to take a smack and soft enough to not hurt what it's bolted to. I have no idea where to go. You're products are well liked so I reckon that's a solid direction to go.
I haven't ever worked with anything this heavy/thick, but I like building stuff so we'll see how it goes. obviously the more curves/sections and the more the load paths line up the more stiff a structure will be.

I don't know how you sell your items as cheap as you do. Us trailblazer/envoy guys are lucky to have you here.


if you have any other suggestions I'm all ears. I'm just a dumb southern boy transplanted to the northeast.

[bartonmd]

Yeah, just general low carbon, mild steel is pretty good at taking hits and if it his really hard, it just deforms, instead of cracking like higher carbon steel can...

FWIW, 1011 and 1018 are both A36 steel, from what I gather...

Some good reading... http://www.thefabricator.com/article/me ... hat-is-itr

The reason I can sell them as cheap as I do, is because I get GOOD deals on the punched and bent steel from the place that I work, and because I don't have a dedicated industrial space or employees to pay for... If I was trying to make money, counting the email and PM time, I'd make more per hour working at Wal-Mart evenings and weekends...

Mike

[v7guy]

I guess this was an issue of I didn't really know what I was searching for. Good to know I was in the ball park. Really appreciate the suggestions. I'm gonna hit up a couple of the local suppliers this week and see if I can get something done.

small order steel suppliers are far between up here.