Originally Posted by roninofako

It's all about $$$.

What wall thickness are you thinking of running? You need a bender and die set capsble of that. A decent bender will run ou about 700, but dies can be anywhere from 3-500 bucks.

I don't have any experience with square tube dies. Quite frankly for offroad fab, square tube is not used, for good reason, it's not as strong.

That said, someone out there probably makes something that would fit your bill, but it may be hard to find, and expensive to do right.

Originally Posted by Bugout4x4

You are absolutely right. It is going to be a lot of intricate cutting but I think it will be worth it in the end. The idea is to cut slots into the factory pillars on the inside and embed the box tubing into the pillars. They are also curved from the bottom to the top slightly but using box will make this much easier to mate up along side of the box flats even though the pillar is curved slightly, with round this would be impossible to get right.

And the roof is indeed bowed from front to back about an inch. But the factory roof is coming off and getting trashed. And the gutter is straight and flat and this is what I will be working with. So as long as I bow my side to side roof pieces about 4 inches total to get the head room back side to side, I can afford to lose that inch of bow front to back that the factory roof had.

But I think hybridizing the box cage inside the factory pillars will help strengthen each other yet I can retain my door jams and side sheet up to the gutter piece running front to back.

Originally Posted by Bugout4x4

Thank you for the information and I keep hearing that box is not as strong, and it isn't, but I'm hoping someone might agree that a cage even made with box is going to very substantially stronger than the factory skeleton which has the ductile strength of lead. I don't want to race it, I just don't want to get squished inside of it again as easy as it did. I have to put a new roof on this and something is better than nothing. And with box I can make the sharp corners the factory skeleton does happen to have. I can kill three birds with one stone and make it quite a bit stronger than factory as I'm replacing the roof.

Originally Posted by Basslicks

Sheesh! Kudos to Matt for going out and burning a hundred bucks on the HF welder just to post this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-pjPgdfdvM

Really hard to argue with those results. You really do get what you pay for with the cheapy welders!

Originally Posted by roninofako

I used to subscribe to the get a cheapy to learn thing. Then I got a good unit.

Night and day difference. Eliminate the BS, and get a decent welder right off the bat. One less set of variables to deal with.

Originally Posted by Basslicks

Sheesh! Kudos to Matt for going out and burning a hundred bucks on the HF welder just to post this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-pjPgdfdvM

Really hard to argue with those results. You really do get what you pay for with the cheapy welders!

Originally Posted by StealthyMcStealth

Cool video. And I agree. But... a true MIG vs a wire feed with no gas is probably the biggest difference. I used to have a Lincoln wire feed and it was almost as bad as that HF one that he bought. At work I use a Miller MIG similar to his (not sure what model) and it's a thousand times better than welding with no shielding gas.

It's funny, when I first stumbled upon the BleepinJeep channel many months ago I thought he didn't have the outgoing personality to be a popular YouTuber but he does grow on you and I watch almost all his videos now.

Originally Posted by Bugout4x4

Thank you for the information and I keep hearing that box is not as strong, and it isn't, but I'm hoping someone might agree that a cage even made with box is going to very substantially stronger than the factory skeleton which has the ductile strength of lead. I don't want to race it, I just don't want to get squished inside of it again as easy as it did. I have to put a new roof on this and something is better than nothing. And with box I can make the sharp corners the factory skeleton does happen to have. I can kill three birds with one stone and make it quite a bit stronger than factory as I'm replacing the roof.

Originally Posted by Martlor13

i don't know bugout. If you're going to go through all the work to make the cage, why not just make it as strong as can be? Something is better then nothing, but with the work involved to make a cage, why not just make it with the stronger material?

Originally Posted by Bugout4x4

Read back down through and you will understand more and why it would be to my advantage to use box. But I'm about to trash the whole idea because apparently it is too politically incorrect, too unorthodox, and too far "outside the box". (pun intended). lol

Originally Posted by Martlor13

ok I see your reasoning, especially if you already have the material...go against the grain bugout. Make the best damn cage out there

Originally Posted by caged

a weak or badly built cage isn't better than nothing. if it were to come apart in a roll over, it can kill you.