Sheet metal cage tie in thickness?/Dimple Die?

xcm

xcm

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Southern Oregon
So recently Ive been trying to stiffen up the cage/tie it into the body. Anyways, bought a couple of light racing dimple dies, and drilled them to bolt thru with 3/8" bolts, which seem to work excellant on 16gauge, but not so much on 1/8" or 12gauge.

Ballistic fabrication makes d30 truss' with 1/8" plate, and dimple die theirs just fine via press/more expensive dimple dies....

Is 16gauge good for stuff like this? or should i look into press operated dimple dies? i dont currently have a press, but if 16g is deemed insufficient for this i may look into it, bolting and unbolting definately sucks...
 
do you have an impact gun? i have a decent compressor over here if you want to bring the pieces over and see if putting a big impact on them would help. If you dont have one I can borrow one from my shop.
 
its not a matter of not being able to turn the bolt, it just doesnt do anything. you can feel it bottom out kinda, like normal, but when you pull the die it doesnt show much. very little deflection, maybe 1/32"
 
I believe you need to "coin" or set the material. I use a large hydraulic press to dimple die and if I don't bottom out the dies (especially on 1/8" and thicker), the edges of the dimples don't come out crisp.

FWIW I don't see any reason you couldn't use the same dies with a press, but I think Grimm has a good idea with the impact gun.
 
I haven't had any luck with dimple dies on anything thicker than .125", even with that they don't come out nearly as nice as with .100" and under plate. If you match the thickness of the cab sheetmetal and spread the load/weld area enough, you shouldn't have to use any thicker than what you have. I use a press too and bottom them out completely. You could use a bottle jack and make your own dedicated press pretty easily, don't need much stroke to dimple die and bottle jacks are cheap. Good luck.
 
you can dimple up to 3/16 plate with a hardened d.d. press works the best. i wouldnt build a truss out of anything thinner than 10 guage. 16 guage is way too thin. one thing i do know about dimpling sheet metal is that the hole u want to dimple must be a tight fit. if there is any play on the hole size your dimples will not come out correctly. i know jimmy at outdoor logic is a dimpling freak. most of the stuff he dimples is laser cut for a precision fit. you might want to pm him for any questions you might have.
 
I guess you could if you have deep dimple dies with less angle, the thicker material wants to tear unless the angle is more shallow. And he is talking about tieing his cage to the cab interior, not a truss.
 
chris_amrein said:
I believe you need to "coin" or set the material. I use a large hydraulic press to dimple die and if I don't bottom out the dies (especially on 1/8" and thicker), the edges of the dimples don't come out crisp.

FWIW I don't see any reason you couldn't use the same dies with a press, but I think Grimm has a good idea with the impact gun.
Click to expand...

I use a hydrauic press as well and as Bailes85 said the pilot hole needs to be tight on the dimple die.
 
ok, so it seems i just overbuilt a couple reinforcment panels with 1/8", no biggie. i'll continue using the 16g for future, maybe try out 14g.

the pilot holes are cool, i use a unibit at the end, so everything is nice and deburred/round. i'll make up a rig for pressing these, the last panel i made had like 9 holes, and it really gets annoying bolting/unbolting.


thanks for your help guys.
 
i have a big 20 ton press at the shop as well, if you feel like coming down to the shop on a saturday when i'm there i'm sure i can talk the boss man into letting you use it :D
 
guess you could if you have deep dimple dies with less angle, the thicker material wants to tear unless the angle is more shallow. And he is talking about tieing his cage to the cab interior, not a truss.
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xcm was talking about a truss that ballistic makes in his first post. and it doesnt matter what angle your die is. your pilot hole has to be prepped correctly. i know there was a company that sold puch dies that cut and dimpled at the same time. i believe it was mosley machine.
 
I have the jancy hole sluggers, they cut clean as can be! And I have tried 3/16" and it didn't work, not I heard or talk to so and so, it tore. And really only reason you would dimple anything over .125" is for looks.
 
i agree. but dimples just add that extra pimpness. look at the barbdedwireoffroad page and look at their dies they have recommended material thicknesses for thier dies. xcm any progress or luck with what you had goin on?
 
oh yeah, bought a sheet of 16g, theres no more problems. it dimples like butter.

now back to the original predicament, welding upside down without punching a bunch of holes in my arms/thighs/scalp with sparks. gotta pickup one of those doofy welding caps.
i got pretty good doing the d-pillar tie-in welding, using a crate as a table to rest my elbows on.

i need to take a yoga class or two before my next cage build...
 
I like those barbed wire offroad die's, my light racing ones i bought from poly are taiwanese... (better than china, but they look cheap compared to the texan ones) i'll have to pickup their 4pc set sometime.
 
they do look pretty stout. i was going to order them myself. but buying parts to get my xj back on the road comes before fancy tools.
 
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