Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: jeff1 on August 26, 2008, 04:28:37 pm
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I went and bought all the metal today for my daughters cage for her Tank the total cost for all the metal was £25.
Sometime this week I will weld it all together, so if we add electric for the welder and not including my labour the total cost of building your own cage is around £30 but I'll cost it all up at the end because it will include a tin of paint to paint the frame, then we have the high tensile steel bolts etc to buy, but I recon your looking at a maximum of £40 to DIY your own cage.
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What size tank jeff, and where are you getting your bolts, just I am looking around for the next van. and need a tank
Andy
PS I over the college tomorow now!
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She only has a 250ltr Tank but you could add say another £10/15 for a 300/400ltr Tank metal prices have doubled over the past couple of months.
I'm getting my bolts etc, from wentin Fastners on the Lynx trading estate, I don't know if they have a web-site but I know you can buy any type of fastner there.
Bugger it, I can't get there tomorrow :'( :'( :'(
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Here is there web page
www.wentinfasteners.co.uk/
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if i was back in school i could build one but i dont have a welder !!! Luke
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Never mind, next month there be a pole waiting for you to use ;) I think there is a company local to me that sells the bolts, so are give them a visit when I get the next van
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Never mind, next month there be a pole waiting for you to use ;) I think there is a company local to me that sells the bolts, so are give them a visit when I get the next van
Let me know when your there next month, If I get finished in time tomorrow I'll whizz around to see you.
if i was back in school i could build one but i dont have a welder !!! Luke
I'll be welding mine, but I recon they could be bolted together using high tensile steel bolts and star washers.
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Where do they get £750 + vat from then at some places.
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Its called profit :o Ok add say another £30 for stainless steel and there still making a heafty profit.
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Its called profit :o Ok add say another £30 for stainless steel and there still making a heafty profit.
Profit more like daylight robbery. :o :o :o
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When you think of it, who has built there own cage??? No one has done a cost up, These comanies know its a legal requirment and all this H&S, so they have us by the goolies :o
I know they have overheads but maybe that includes trips to the bahamas for all the staff ;D ;D
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Well all the metal is now measured shaped and cut to size, Half hours labour so far, cutting was done using a medium sized metal chop saw.
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funny enough jeff, i asked a mate who welds, he said about 100 quid for the materials and his time
that was me either giving it a coat of paint or me getting it powder coated ( i priced up the powder coating, if i have the colour they have on the go, 50 quid )
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If you say it costs around the £50 mark for metal,paint,bolts, electric for welder etc, then I suppose £50 for labour is good bearing in mind all the measuring and cutting involved.
My own will be much less than £100 because of no labour charges.
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Made a tank frame for my webasto bits, batteries and pumps to be housed. Used metal box tubing to do this and a tin of paint. Got a friend to weld it up, total cost £38.00. Going to make some sort of 3 sided box now to clad over it, was going to use checker plate but is quite expensive, so going to use marine ply and fablon the ply.
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Sorry but I have to butt in on this one.
Good on you if you have the free time and skills to do this. I would do the same.
I am sure your cage will be a good one Jeff. :)
To make a decent cage you are talking at least 4 hrs ..probably 6 in reality of skilled labour at £30 to £35 per hour. Say 4 thats £120.00 Material and fixings £60. Finishing.. I.E. galvanising £50 ish (Thats cheap because most galvanising companies have a minimum charge of around £70.00 for a one off) Transport to and from galvanising as well. That makes £230.00 before VAT which brings it up to around £270.00 before any profit. The other big problem with cages is delivery cost. E.G. around £50 for a 500/650 because of the volume they take up.
Manufacturers have a lot of overheads to pay which DIYers don't. Rent/mortgage, rates, insurances, heating/lighting and equipment depreciation are just a few examples. It's a totally different ball game to someone who has the tools and skills to do it themselves.
I have looked at tank kits and don't like the idea of bolt together tank frames. In fact I saw one at Windex and was horrified by it :o
For the above reasons I don't offer a tank frame sales service. A 650 for example would have to be somewhere around £400.00 delivered and the supplier would be at the mercy of the couriers not to damage it (Big risk) and have you ever tried to package a 650 frame? It takes AGES.
My advice for DIYers is to get a decent local fabrication shop to make one to your design and have it finished by galvanising or made in stainless.
Andrew
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i ordered a 400l upright tank cage with tray ofr battery and mounting for pump and controller which cost 271 delivered from pure freedom.
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They come straight on a pallet with next to no wrapping at all,i`ve seen it first hand they don`t come packaged at all.
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Hi Andrew
My daughters life depends on it, so care will go into the making of it, Just as it would if I was building it for someone else.
I understand all the overheads and costs involved but for the life of me I can't see were 6 hours for welding comes from even four is a lot, I've been welding for over 20 years now and the only time I spend a lot of time on preparation and welding is when I'm doing scroll and decoration work, surely a fabricator would have Jigs already set up for different size's if they built a lot of cages?.
guy's on here have had cages built by there local fabricators who don't have the Jigs set up because its maybe a one off, they still have overheads like you mention but still manage to come out way under the prices you mention.
Cages don't really need to be stainless steel or even galvanized you can give a couple of coats of red oxide, then give them a couple of coats of good metal paint, there not going to slide around the van so the bottom bars aren't going to rust out for years.
I wouldn't make myself a bolted cage but if the correct metal is used along with high tensile steel nuts bolts and star washers, these bolts will be as strong as any weld, so you can create a good bolted tank cage.
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My real point is if there really is money to be made from supplying good, safe cages at cheaper prices than they do then why are the manufacturers not doing this?
I would if there was a realistic profit to be made. On the above example I would be lucky to make £40 ish. I have looked very closely into this and just cannot do it. So.. I don't do it.
Maybe a nice sideline for you there Jeff?? ;) ;D After all you are gonna need to use all that spare time you are gonna have soon mate :)
Andrew
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I'm hoping all my spare time will be taken up with conservatory roofs and guttering. ;D
If I do get any spare time then it may well be worth thinking about and looking into, During the winter months, I make scroll & dectrotive work, also gates and railings (to order) then come the summer I sell it all at car boot sales and craft fares, its a nice little business on its own.
I know profits may have dropped, over the past couple of months because of the price of steel rocketing, if companies can't carry the proffit loss, then cage prices are going to double soon.
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Hmmmm.
Looks like a great project.
I've never been totally happy with my tank cage,.. maybe it's time to buy a welder!!
Is welding stainless steel any harder than normal steel?
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You can weld stainless steel and aluminum with a little bit more care, you need the correct wire for your welder and the settings need to be correct.
I would highly recommend if you do weld your own cage without experience you have it checked by a fabricator the welds needs to be correct to be a good weld, its not enough that the pieces welded together are stuck to each other, the two parts need to be fused together correctly, that would be fine for a little project that does not need safety standards but a cage does, so take care.
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Cages don't really need to be stainless steel or even galvanized you can give a couple of coats of red oxide,
I thought that red oxide got banned years ago??
I would highly recommend if you do weld your own cage without experience you have it checked by a fabricator the welds needs to be correct to be a good weld, its not enough that the pieces welded together are stuck to each other, the two parts need to be fused together correctly, that would be fine for a little project that does not need safety standards but a cage does, so take care.
I would say that someone with no experience will never make a proper weld. It's like cleaning windows with wfp, you can teach a monkey to do it but to do it properly takes a bit of knowledge and experience.
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You gonna be selling these then jeff?
Or even selling different frame size templates that could be bought and then taken to a local fabricator?
Like neil williams did by posting his template on here once.
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If you are Jeff i`d get yourself a good lawyer,it ain`t worth it mate.
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Welding is very easy to do ;D
Bazz...
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Jeff... you got that metal cheap.. :P
When i was in that trade 4 years ago you would of had to pay £25 just for the 5 bar ally and thats without the 2 folds on it unless you done them yourself...
Dont forget to chamfer them edges for welding... but i dont need to tell you that ;D
Bazz...
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Making good welds can't be taught in a class room or on a forum, skill comes with experience and a lot of practice not only in the welding technique but with the preparation of the metal and equipment, if you don't do proper preperation then the welds will reflect this, even for a skilled welder.
If you are Jeff I`d get yourself a good lawyer,it ain`t worth it mate.
Are you saying I'll need a good lawyer because I'm a window cleaner?? I've been welding for 20 years so I'll go up against any experienced welder any day of the week, Don't be fooled by thinking Just because I'm a wc I can't weld, I wouldn't put my daughters life at risk If I never had the experience and skill to create good welds Just to save few quid.
Cages don't really need to be stainless steel or even galvanized you can give a couple of coats of red oxide,
I thought that red oxide got banned years ago??
I would highly recommend if you do weld your own cage without experience you have it checked by a fabricator the welds needs to be correct to be a good weld, its not enough that the pieces welded together are stuck to each other, the two parts need to be fused together correctly, that would be fine for a little project that does not need safety standards but a cage does, so take care.
I would say that someone with no experience will never make a proper weld. It's like cleaning windows with wfp, you can teach a monkey to do it but to do it properly takes a bit of knowledge and experience.
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You gonna be selling these then Jeff?
Or even selling different frame size templates that could be bought and then taken to a local fabricator?
Like Neil Williams did by posting his template on here once.
Go into Halfords and you can buy red oxide in there.
We'll have to see how things go before I make any decision on selling cages, I know I'm handing my wc business over to my daughter but I'm keeping on some of them and building up the guttering and conservatory roof side of it.
If I don't sell them, Then I will do a future project of making drawings of all size tank frames and I'll post them free of charge for any one to take to a fabricator.
I have almost finished a project I started tonight and that was I converted a swivel chair into a hose reel swivel and I don't have enough chairs to make everyone one ;D
Half way through welding the tank cage up and my old swivel chair in the workshop kept catching my eye. I stopped the welding and began to strip this chair down, I cut it up a little, reattached bits here and there and its almost there and it works Lol.
Jeff... you got that metal cheap.. :P
When i was in that trade 4 years ago you would of had to pay £25 just for the 5 bar ally and thats without the 2 folds on it unless you done them yourself...
Dont forget to chamfer them edges for welding... but i dont need to tell you that ;D
Bazz...
All the metal was bought from a good friend, I buy all my metal from him, When I had the lid made for my trailer he and I spent 4 hours one night cutting bending and welding it to what I have today, that was about 12 months ago but it still cost me £100
The ally you see was a piece I bought off him last year, for a trolley I was going to make, he made a balls up of the cutting size so I took it back to him and got another piece cut, that piece in the pic has been in his unit all this time so I bought it back at next to nothing with the bends already in it.
He was telling me that the price of metal has doubled over the past couple of months and a sheet of the ally would have cost me £40 now its around £80 for a full sheet.
All the edges have been chamfered Lol the weld has to have somewhere to go. ;)
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OK,.. welding is out for beginners then.
How about a cage design that can be held together completely by high tensile bolts? Something even a novice could manage!
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Jeff your right the price of metal has gone up :'(
I paid £250 (trade) for 8 sheets {8f x 4f} to do this 4 years ago and now when i asked my mate how much it would be now and he said around £600 and that was at trade prices ..
That swivel your doing for the hose reel... just an idea but could you use the rod from the chair (the up & down leaver) to stop it spinning round while she is driving.. just an idea...
Bazz...
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It's quicker to teach a welder to dive than teach a diver to weld. Preparation is as important as the weld itself. Can't lay a decent run of weld if the metal hasn't been prepared properly otherwise it will be full of impurities. It's a bit like wfp, anyone can do it but it takes time to understand the method and lots of practise.
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Jeff it wasn`t aimed in the way you might have first thought,if any thing were to go wrong your doorbell would be ringing mate.
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OK,.. welding is out for beginners then.
How about a cage design that can be held together completely by high tensile bolts? Something even a novice could manage!
Im not to sure about high tensile bolts.. i always thought they took strain but not sure what they are like for inpack..
Bazz...
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Jeff your right the price of metal has gone up :'(
I paid £250 (trade) for 8 sheets {8f x 4f} to do this 4 years ago and now when i asked my mate how much it would be now and he said around £600 and that was at trade prices ..
That swivel your doing for the hose reel... just an idea but could you use the rod from the chair (the up & down leaver) to stop it spinning round while she is driving.. just an idea...
Bazz...
Now that is very nice Bazz, inact I'll go as far as saying its the best and safest I've seen, It beats all this slippy decking thats around.
I would have guest you would pay £1000 for that today easy and that's not including labour to fit it.
The idea of the handle is a good idea, I was going to drill a series of holes in a pattern to match each door (2 side and the rear) I was going to add a pin and spring, you would have to pull the pin up and by letting go it would snap into the next available hole, but now you've said that I already have the pin but with a built in handle Lol Cheers Bazz ;)
OK,.. welding is out for beginners then.
How about a cage design that can be held together completely by high tensile bolts? Something even a novice could manage!
Its possible but some thought will have to go into it first, I'm not 100% sure but I don't think you can get high tensile steel bolts with dome heads, if thats the case a design would have to be made were the bold heads were kept away from the tank, continued vibration would cause the bolts to cut through the tank and we wouldn't want that.
I could do it and supply a pair of wellies with each cage ;D
Bazz the bolts are used by all installers with impact in mind, remember the crash testing carried out and the brackets broke before they got it right, well all those brackets were held down with high tensile steel bolts, they never broke and once they got the design right and tested again, brackets and bolts held in the head on crash.
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Jeff it wasn`t aimed in the way you might have first thought,if any thing were to go wrong your doorbell would be ringing mate.
No problem ;)
If the welds hold during an impact then there is no come back, this could happen with any fabricated tanks as well, the cages will buckle under impact but its the weld that's the important thing, and provided its fitted correctly in the first place then the tank should stay were it is.
I've seen a few on here were they have fitted or had them fitted with plates bolted under the floor, this is so wrong and during an impact they just rip right through the floor plates an all.
I've also mentioned this is the past regarding the fixing of the tank bolts with star washers through a chassis, now when you drill through a chassis you weaken it, so the correct way of fixing through a chassis is as follows.
The hole inside the van above the chassis, should be the same size as the bolt and the top hole through the chassis should also be this size but underneath the van and the bottom hole should be larger and in this hole you should fit a small rolled steel spacer to stop the crushing of the chassis when tightening the bolts, a larger washer should then be fitted then followed by a star washer, when tightening the bolt commences you should hold the nut still and tighten the bolt only and not the nut, this pulls the star washers dimples into the metal to lessen the chances of it coming loose, if you tighten the nut instead, this creates a groove in the washer or plate and the chances of the nut coming loose are higher.
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Only saying coz our welds + high tensile metal was only tested under strain and not inpack..
We done a lot for the new Wembley and its still standing and a few other places.. so they must work..
Bazz...
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That's so it stays standing when all the monkeys start swinging on it during matches ;D
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That's so it stays standing when all the monkeys start swinging on it during matches ;D
Used to chop them off this machine (30mm solid high tensile bar) then put a 25 mm x 150mm long thread on the end...
But it seemed just as soft as mild steel when i cut it so i was just wondering is it as strong on inpack as it is under strain if you know what i mean...
Bazz...
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I'd like that in my workshop?
High tensile is used in heavy duty applications requiring high strength, high impact resistance and excellent ductility.
They use it in the wall of tyre's, that steel banding you see around crates is HTS and the best thing is Stainless steel is HTS and that's what a lot of cages are made from, so I suppose making a cage for larger tanks is best made from HTS, HTS bolts are used for high torque and were added strength is required when you did the new wembley you used HTS bolts, when you fit any RSJ's you should use HTS bolts for strength and rust resistance.