home made swimplatform? is it worth doing.
#22
Re: home made swimplatform? is it worth doing.
Purchase it. If you want DIY touches, but it unfinished, and either paint or powerdercoat it yourself or locally. You could buy all the gear, spend a hundred hours on it, get it all finished, painted, etc, and decide it looks like crap 5 minutes before you mount it. If you purchase it ahead of time, you know exactly what you are getting, and it probably has some type of warranty to boot.
#23
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Re: home made swimplatform? is it worth doing.
Originally Posted by Cattitude
IMHO,
There is a huge difference between having a welder (or even running one) and being a fabricator. this is a nice performance boat right? Do you want something to match or do you want something that looks like a ranch hand bumper? (and ranch hand is actually well made, just crude in design)
Think about resale- is the next owner going to drool over the work of art where you saved $600?
Factor in "x" feet of aluminum round and oval tubing, lots of filler wire, waterjet cut plate, jigging it square, parallel bars on the same plane etc, time with a tig welder (assuming your buddy has a tig welder and the talent to weld Aluminum with it.) non skid, powdercoat + transportation, your time, knowing it'll fit right the first time and the Pro's are offering a reasonable price.
Now now, it dos'nt take a genius to be a fabricator, hell I should know, his buddy could be fully qualified to put one together especially with that nice photo of one that I'm going to copy for the one I will build.
If it comes out tweaked after all your hardwork now you have an expensive lesson to ad to the cost of your pro fabbed platform (which you cig is worthy of)
just my .o2
Good luck
There is a huge difference between having a welder (or even running one) and being a fabricator. this is a nice performance boat right? Do you want something to match or do you want something that looks like a ranch hand bumper? (and ranch hand is actually well made, just crude in design)
Think about resale- is the next owner going to drool over the work of art where you saved $600?
Factor in "x" feet of aluminum round and oval tubing, lots of filler wire, waterjet cut plate, jigging it square, parallel bars on the same plane etc, time with a tig welder (assuming your buddy has a tig welder and the talent to weld Aluminum with it.) non skid, powdercoat + transportation, your time, knowing it'll fit right the first time and the Pro's are offering a reasonable price.
Now now, it dos'nt take a genius to be a fabricator, hell I should know, his buddy could be fully qualified to put one together especially with that nice photo of one that I'm going to copy for the one I will build.
If it comes out tweaked after all your hardwork now you have an expensive lesson to ad to the cost of your pro fabbed platform (which you cig is worthy of)
just my .o2
Good luck