Rear Panel tubes are done

The rear panel tubes are done.  I decided to use 1" square instead of the 3/4" round.  I hope that doesn't bite me later.  The way I made the top rail was to cut one stick to length.  Then I marked out where the radius of the bend would be and cut out three sides of the tube.  I cut a piece of wood into a pie shape with the crust having the right radius.  Then bend the tube around that, cut up some sheet steal to box it back in and welded it up.

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Rear Panel tubes

Started making the rear panel section.  I first made this out of 3/4" DOM tube and tacked it in place.  To make the bend I used a Home Depot 1/2" conduit bender.  The first bend went very bad.  I was placing my foot on the tube to keep it in pace, bad idea.  The next bend went much better by putting my foot on the foot tab of the bender, imagine that.

Anyway.  I didn't like the look of the 3/4" tube.  I modified the NTS Engineering plans using 1" square tube.  Then I made the outer bend out of 1/16" sheet and boxed everything in.  I am very happy with the outcome.  The bend is a tighter radius then the conduit bender can do, and I expect this is much stronger.  In the pictures the left side is still in progress and the right side is mostly done.  FYI, a 1 gallon paint can is the perfect diameter to bend the sheet steel around.

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