Haha. Well I'm at my grandparents right now looking at the chop saw and thinking I'm going to finish drilling the antenna mount while I have access to his drill press.

 

Ha that sounds like a good idea lol

 

Okay, well here is an update of what I did today after I got the cutoff saw home and fired up the welder. Got the base done, and the antenna mount finished.

 

Looks good ur getting there man

 

Maybe tomorrow I'll finish the rest of the frame. All I'll have to do then is clean up the welds that can be accessed and wait on the lights to show up so I can make the cutouts for those. I can tell you they won't be in until Thursday and on Tuesday I'm going to Houston. So it will take about another week to finish completely but then I will be able to start spraying.

 

Here's what I did today. Before I put the top piece on I did drill hole for wires and everything. This one is slightly narrower but sits maybe a 1/4" above the cab. Now I'm just waiting on the lights and coax to come in so I can gett all of that drilled and cut out and then finally get around to the paint. Should be done maybe next week.

 

It looks a lot better than the old one allready

 

progress looks good man, I wouldn't mind having a headache rack for my truck

 

Just sitting in the bed like that, it shakes way less than the old one, which is bolted down in 3 places per side.

They just take time to build. By the end of this build I'll be into the rack for $100 in steel, $75 in lights, and another $15-30 for miscellaneous stuff such as wires, bed liner. So far Thats only about 5 hours of work if not less. If working from a template with a good gas welder, it would take maybe 3.5 hours to get where I am now. I was checking my CAD measurements and planning by taking the time to double check what it looks like when on the truck and using a flux core welder. Plus, it was just me so I kept lugging that thing in and out of the shop and over to my truck. I will say, if I had a stick welder, I'd weld with that over a MIG any day.

 

Ya I bet and that would suck luging it back and forth buy yourself