steel wheel arches (do they exist?)

[Warren]

can the flares be made up out of 1 piece of steel?
 like a horse shoe and then welded on?
 

Mty

they probably could, or at least in several sections.

Get onto The Metal Meet Forum do some reading, and have a go at making some basic shapes.

I've been around steel for a long time, and I don't understand the fasination with glass.

There is an Englishman on here who did a great set of steel fares on a LWB try searching for that as well.


Warren

[ben]

I don't understand the fasination with glass

there are lots of good things about both steel and fibreglass.

i dont know much about steel but the best thing i can see about steel is the fact you can bend it, shape it and reshape weld it..

while fibreglass you cant do that but you can make things a lot quicker out of a fairly cheap mould than you could ever make in steel without very expensive tooling. especially once you start playing with vacuum bagging, vacuum infusion, Resin transfer moulding, resin transfer moulding light, resin injection. making it worth running as a business.

you could potentially be making a full roof for a swb bedford in under 10 mins with say RTM.

or a full 15ft boat hull in under a couple of hours with vacuum bagging.. which is crazy.

there is a real art using both materials. i like fibreglass cause i know a lot more about it than steel. i suppose thats why you like steel ay warren?

ben

[rossie]

one of the hardest things about steel is finding the right person to fabricate, heat shrink, weld with out warping. It' called patiance, and persaveriance. To save the best to last, LEAD WIPPING. As you say Ben, fiberglass is heaps quicker, by about 2 to 3 weeks when it comes to a flair and spoiler kit. Now put the cost of labour alone, now that adds up to love or big bucks for the skill. I love it when people pay me to do metal, which was along long time ago

[Bas / NZ]

Both are right, steel and fibreglass both have good and bad points, all depends on the situation, fibreglass is good as it is easy to form any shape product etc, as Ben stated. I am making a suround for my pod filter to cut the noise down in fibreglass, better suited, but decided to remove the rust from the Black Beddie, and have done this in steel. Bas

[Gordon]

Hay Bas, she is looking good. 

[Dano]

Bas, something to think about, while your there consider doing the inner water catch rail, if the ol girl drops a drip of water or two on ur foot, then you know it needs to be done, theres nothing like doing all that work to find an annoying drip right on top of your foot!unfortunately it's inside the front guards, (where the joint of w/screen surround and front guard) as in the top photo.....sorry to blo the mood!   LOL

keep up the hard work !!!!

pps oh and dont forget to seal ur work from inside the cab, thers an inspection plate,3"x2"(right foot) 2 rivets and ur in!

[Bas / NZ]

Done, I have a bigger inspection plate than that on the inside now....

[petrolhead]

Here is another idea for you look at the wheel arches on late model cars and 4x4's some are flared quite well I know a guy that cut some off a Suzuki Vitara and grafted them on his racing Anglia so look at the late model stuff and head to the wreckers

[midnight cinderella]

gday all... first off let me say, it's great to have found this site and ask people who live it. so, i'm curently in the process of rebirthing a '75 CF (will have some progress snaps up soon).
is it at all possible to get steel wheel arches? i'm not to keen on the idea of sticking fiberglass to her. any ideas would be nice. knowledge on fiberglass would be appreciated all the same. cheers 

we have just made a set of steel flares to our 78 bedford and they took us a day to make them and they look good and are easy to make.