Thanks for the concern. I've been MIG and arc welding for some time now. I was just hoping to be able to get those nice pretty TIG beads by now. I've got about 8 hrs of practice time in so far and I'm still struggling to get a clean, even, non-cratered bead without the filler rod. New respect for good TIG welders.

 

I hear ya I'm also a welder and redseal boilermaker. I've been practicing tig for a while now and I'm still not much good. I work with welders who tig with mirrors and they are amazing to watch. Keep up the practice buddy!

 

^^Thanks. I'm just gonna keep on keepin' on till i get good.

 

So I got the basic design down. It's going to cost me about 150 bucks in steel, hardware, and accessories. There will be two lights pointed on the bed with an exterior switch on the side of the rack and another on the switch panel I have in my truck. I'm debating between 1" x 2" rectangular tubing and 1.5" square tubing for the frame. I've decided I'm not going to have horns on it. I just think it looks cleaner without and I can easily secure a ladder through the upper set of tie downs.

Please keep in mind this isn't to scale. I sketched this up on my flight to Houston and didn't have a ruler.

 

Just to help throw some ideas out there for ya, here's the one I made for my 97. The frame is 12 gauge 2"x2" square tubing, and the bedrails are 1"x2" rectangular tubing (Can't remember the gauge, I'm thinking 12). I wanted a tougher look, so I ditched my original plan to use 1.5"x1.5" square tubing.

 

Just bevell the ends a bit on the pipe and on the finishing work I would us a sanding pad instead of a grinding disc but that's just my opinion

 

Looks good. What guage sheet did you use around your lights?

 

Here is what I built for my truck.

 

That one is nice too. You've got the same year truck as mine, do you know the dimensions you used? Also, do you have any troubles with cops having your 3rd brake light covered?

 

I went a little overkill and used 14 gauge sheet metal around the lights, and I added some small square tubing (can't remember size or gauge) that was lying around behind the sheet metal at the bottom to make sure it had some bracing and wouldn't shake, as I'm on a lot of washboarded roads.