Subframe Stage 2

After wasting some pipe to find out the 3.5" CLR die I have was too tight of a radius I went ahead and ordered the largest JD2 offers. I wanted swooping curves, not tight bends. The 5.5" CLR came in this week so Joe and I began tackling the rest of the subframe design. Here's the original sketch of the subframe we were aiming to create. (more concepts here)

Out of a 14 hour day we probably spent 8 of those hours taking and testing measurements to figure out where things were going to land in space. The tricky part was the lower swooping legs of the subframe needed to suck in to reach their mounting points. This meant all the tube notching needed to account for rotation in 2 axes. Our methods got interesting...

We ended up dismantling the JD2 tube notcher and clamping it to the welding table to get the angles we needed. It worked great. We were able to draw out templates on the table and replicate cuts easily.

To account for the complex notching angles we chopped the tube up and rotated the notches to fit. Each chopped section will have sleeved frame lugs inside for structural integrity.

As it stands everything is tacked into place. I'll be breaking it up again to clean up the sections for final welding. Next up will be the seat pan, exhaust and rear rack.