Saw this "somewhere else" A good miter avoidance?

[Nutz4sand]

Just saw this on "That other site" and wondered what You-all thought of it?

Someone with a faster connection will ahve to bring it over or Fabr will have to create a new secret alias. (If you keep it a secret no one there will ban yah!)


    http://www.minibuggy.net/forum/how-do/13199-how-avoid-miter-cuts.html

[Grimm Reaper Racing]

Why not create one bend and then join the other with a cope or notch type end and use only one weldment instead of three   

[Nutz4sand]

Why not create one bend and then join the other with a cope or notch type end and use only one weldment instead of three   

That was kinda my thoughts on it too but wondered if I was missing something!

[SPEC]

Plus adding the $,79 per joint?
You still have a bad fit where the "ball and the vert. tube come together...
Dunno
I think prolly a not the best way to do it
But then again...I use an air notcher...10 seconds 2 notches baby

[Buggybaz]

I personally love the idea/concept of the sphere as a common denominator for force distribution/equilization between diff joining/meeting members.
As we know,each member has either a compression or tension force/value to combat/distribute/convert at junctions.
What better than a sphere,can't get more equal than that?
Great Balls of...

[fabr]

IMO it's a BAD idea. The length of weld is less in a joint done that way and therefore the joint is weaker. Any coped joint will have more lineal inches of weld and therefore will spread the loads carried over a larger area. The idea LOOKS good but there's no way I'd do it for a load carrying member.  For non load bearing, IMO, it is OK though.

[fabr]

Bottom line to me is that I'd not use it in a stressed cage member anywhere  in the "drivers cocoon" but for anything else it looks nice and would work fine..

[Ozpilot]

I thought the whole idea was to give an alternative to people that can weld but can't bend.  At the moment those people cut mitres then weld their straight bits together acheiving a change in direction though the mitre.  This seems like a better alternative than that.  But bending and notching is obviously preferable.

[fabr]

I thought the whole idea was to give an alternative to people that can weld but can't bend. At the moment those people cut mitres then weld their straight bits together acheiving a change in direction though the mitre.  This seems like a better alternative than that.  But bending and notching is obviously preferable.

If they can truly weld and not just "bubble gum" it together then the mitre will be amply strong. If they can't weld well then no technique will help out.

[Ozpilot]

Looks much better than a mitre to me.  But it may depend on the application.

I'll never use either anyhow.

[LiveWire]

Sometimes bringing 3 tubes in together gets weird with a bend. They can't intersect all at one point. I can't think of a specific place where I would want to use it, but think it could be useful to someone. It is similar to the front end on a Honda Pilot and the Formula Cross (that I build) where 3 tubes comes together, but one tube goes through the corner and is capped with a flat cap. It provides a means of having a much sharper corner at the front of the buggy so the A-arm mounts can be at tight to the front as possible. On the Formula cross, the bumper mounts to the capped off tubes, so there would be no advantage to using a dome instead. If I were using it for something, I don't understand welding two domes together then welding that on the end of a tube. Why not just weld one dome on the end of one slightly longer tube? I guess he is thinking it is stronger with the extra material. The other tubes do not intersect at that additional material though. I don't think it would add to the strength. If I wanted to strengthen the corner, I would sleeve a smaller tube inside. I have done it before where I put a short stub of smaller tube on a joint and welded it on the inside. I then slid the larger tube which had a hole drilled through it over the smaller one. The holes were plug welded besides the end of the larger tube being welded. Sleeving this setup would address fabr's weld area concern.

I tried a different technique for bringing 3 tubes together in a corner, but it did require bends. The easiest way to describe it is that 2 legs are part of a tube with a bend in it. A 3rd leg has a bend in it and is cut off such that after the bend, it saddles over leg 1. Then another bend is cut on both side so that it saddles over leg 2 and leg 3 as a gusset. The corner looks the same no mater which side you are looking at it from. You end up with a triangle of 3 bends. If the bend radius is large, there would be a triangle opening in the middle. Mine were tight so there was no opening, just a 3 legged weld joint. The way that I actually cut the ones I did had 3 separate tubes with 1 bend each. It was kind of cool the way it worked out that I had 1 bend per tube which I try to do in my designs.