{"id":2729,"date":"2021-04-18T16:08:20","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T00:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/?p=2729"},"modified":"2021-04-18T16:08:20","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T00:08:20","slug":"bracketry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/2021\/04\/18\/bracketry\/","title":{"rendered":"Bracketry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So I did find a welder within easy rental distance, and on Sunday morning, after we were walked and fed, I ran out with Finley and grabbed it, along with some stuff for her fort. When that project was done, I turned my attention to the bumper.<\/p>\n<p>I knew I was going to be getting something not quite as good as Brian&#8217;s gas-shielded MIG welder, so I wanted to practice and get things dialed in before I messed up my good metal. This was a Miller 120 wire-fed MIG, so I made sure I had the right thickenesses dialed in and started messing with some scrap on the bench. After some welding and grinding and welding and grinding I had what I thought was the right setting for the machine, and moved out to the driveway where I had the bumper set up on some sawhorses.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"IMG_1286\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/idiotking\/51124084914\/in\/photostream\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/51124084914_e4f2dbc965_b.jpg?resize=1024%2C768&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"IMG_1286\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The first bracket went on reasonably well on the front, and I filled the back with about four passes to make sure it didn&#8217;t go anywhere. I think I had to do three in front and four in back, pausing to grind and brush between each for clean metal. The second went on a little smoother in the front and I got enough of the back filled to feel comfortable. Let&#8217;s be clear, there was a lot of booger and spatter and I missed the joint several times completely. This was not perfect.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"IMG_1287\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/idiotking\/51124245073\/in\/dateposted\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/51124245073_4eb2f0deff_b.jpg?resize=1024%2C768&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"IMG_1287\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Then I used a stepper bit to drill two holes into the bumper itself (shudder) and then welded two captive nuts to the outside for a license plate directly in the center. Once that was done and cleaned up with the flap wheel, I mounted the whole thing on the truck and test-fit the lights.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"DSCF8996\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/idiotking\/51123908014\/in\/dateposted\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/51123908014_ac27aea846_b.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"DSCF8996\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>So the next step is to fill the gaps with a little bondo, sand things down, and get ready for paint!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So I did find a welder within easy rental distance, and on Sunday morning, after we were walked and fed, I ran out with Finley and grabbed it, along with some stuff for her fort. When that project was done, I turned my attention to the bumper. I knew I was going to be getting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bumper"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p58Ac2-I1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2730,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2729\/revisions\/2730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}