Right, so since Scott is showing his work, I'll drop mine on too...

Early this year, decided that I wanted to use my 5ft electronics bench for, well, electronics. So, that meant I needed a new reloading bench.

It needed to be designed so that it could fit into little 1960's subdivision houses, turning hallway corners, narrow doors, etc. It also needed to be VERY strong, as I need to resize large cases and use progressives. I took moving/packing into account with the design, I wanted it to last for the rest of my life and longer.....

So I drew one up, drove the Legacy wagon to Lowes and made the poor lumber monkeys cut everything except the 4" legs and the Formica countertop. It all fit in the wagon, and I assembled it in the garage in an evening. I liked the first one so well that I built a second the next week!

They weigh easily over 200lbs each, 1" pine hutches, 1" plywood top PLUS the ~3/4" Formica countertop. There are 4 quick-release 4-bolt tool stations total and halogen lighting. Some staining would have been nice, but I was out of time. I think they cost a little under $200/ea after lights and power strips. Oh, and like several lbs of gold screws went into these!

http://www.scottystrachan.com/hosted.../5ft_bench.gif

http://www.scottystrachan.com/hosted...aterials_2.jpg

http://www.scottystrachan.com/hosted/bench/benches.jpg

ProTip: For benches like that, you can usually save a couple bucks by using a pair of 2x4's for the legs instead of going with the 4x4s. Plus, then you can interleave the horizontal supports with the vertical supports by using one long 2x4 and several short 2x4s on the vertical. Just as strong, and your shelves are now 3" deeper.

But all in all, that's one hell of a heavy-duty setup. I can't beleive the saw-monkey at HD cut all that for you!

"Lowes, let's build something together"

Yeah, I hear you on the 2x4 vs. 4x4, but I really liked the idea of 4 solid legs that look the part....

Nice work on the sketchup! I've been using it since before Google purchased it. I now use it for 90% of all my work. You can take it to any level you desire.

My website has a few examples of my work with sketchup: www.nicksonder.com

Holy crap, you win.

Since this is the sketchup thread... bump for new drawings!

I was screwing around learning how to use the "match photo" feature and designed a simple light bar for 4 PIAA 510 lamps. I wonder if I should build it, or is it dumb to add a lightbar to what's primarily a track car?

I approve, but mounting in that location is rough unless you're completely building out the structure behind the bumper - there's no strength in that location at all.

<- the guy with a lightbar/skidplate cantilevered off the bottom of the bumper beam, with no lights on it :lol:

I didn't bother to model it in sketchup, but since I've got a FMIC, there's a very simple means of adding a piece of square tube to the FMIC bumper beam that butts right up behind the license plate mounting area.

The whole reason I got to thinking about a lightbar in the 1st place was because I was looking at a means to put some solid, yet easy to access spots on the bumper to make it quickly removable. Right now my whole bumper is held on by just the two fender holes and the tension of being up against the FMIC. It's a PITA to put on, and has a tendency to come off at the slightest cone wallop.

I believe this lightbar would be very sturdy when screwed to 1/8" gauge square tube. In fact, you could probably tow the car out of a sand trap from it. ;)

Nice job Scott. Download this program. It works directly with sketchup (at least the pro version). It allows you to do more photo real renderings.

http://www.kerkythea.net/joomla/

It is free.

I don't have SketchUp pro. I'd like it, but since I don't do anything professionally that requires it, I just can't justify the cost.

How much would it weigh? That's a bad place to add extra weight on a race car. Can you use aluminum?

It would be two bolts and one plug to remove.

Plus, it would probably be around 10 lbs, including the lights, I would guess.

That's cool that you could remove it before a track day.

I had a lightbar mounted there (that's going waaaay back!) It was pretty shaky, even with two bolts through the bumper beam, not just the license plate screws. I added two braces from the bar, up through the grill to the radiator supports and stability was much improved.

Yeah, make sure you add stable mounts that are permanent, and then weld nuts to that so that you can simply use a pair of nice stout bolts that take 2secs to attach/detach the whole assembly with an air gun. Then put a lock on it, haha.

How's this?

I think the two 3" wide 1/8" flatbar pieces were probably strong enough, but just to make sure there's no vibration, I reinforced it with 1/4" square tube. The main lateral bar is 1.75" 1/8" square tube... the same stuff I made my gate frame out of.

I welded 3/8" grade 8 nuts inside the lateral tube, and drilled some 1/2" holes so the plastic backs of the license plate holes dovetail into the bar which means the bumper can still hold a license plate, plus it lines everything up super easily as you install the bumper.

The only thing that sucks is that I think I may have made it just a little too short... I wanted the bumper to really pull in tight against the intercooler, but I think I might be about 1/8" too tight. But that's easy to fix by drilling a 1/8" piece of flat bar for a spacer between the frame and the bumper beam.

The bumper is, for the first time since the FMIC was installed, super stable on the car, and it doesn't have a horrible gap under the headlights. :cool:

Now all I need to do is fabricate that light bar... which should be even easier than the bumper support was. The only hard part will be waiting on powdercoating, and spending the money on some decent 4" diameter lamps. I think I'd want PIAAs, but the cost of one pair of 510's a bunch more than the cost of 4 Hella 500FFs. :unamused: I wish Hella made a 4" lamp. :(

Oh, and just to keep this Sketchup related. Two new match photo renderings, one after partially modeling the PIAA grills.

Honestly, I'm not that impressed with the PIAA 520 fogs I have on the car now. The light pattern seems pretty splotchy. I think for as much as they cost the PIAAs should be far better than the Hella 500 set I used to have, but they aren't.

Haven't tried any of the PIAA driving lamps, maybe they are better? I do have an extra set of Hella FF1000 if you decide to go with a larger light. Those things are awesome, the best long range lights I've used.

Well, they make an "ATP" version of their lights... "all terrain pattern" which is kinda halfway between driving light and fog light it seems, is that the 520 you've got? That might be splotchy. If you've got the 520 SMRs, that sucks if they're not better than the Hellas... I'd much rather run two pairs of hella 500ff's at $70/pair than $500 in PIAA lights if the PIAAs aren't ultra-badass.

I was planning on a set of 510 SMR driving lights up high, and a set of 510 SMR fog lights down low because they're smaller 4" diameter lights... but they are damn expensive. I've got some older hella 500 (non FF) driving lights I used to have on the WRX that are now on my truck, and I was pretty happy with them... maybe I should just suck it up and run bigger lights?

Mine are the regular 520 fogs with the ion lens, like this:

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...HgDoEFRT01ju0A

The light pattern from each light looks like three bright splotches on the road, without much of a sharp cutoff at the top which is important for a fog light. I haven't seen the SMR or ATP versions so hopefully they are better. I was just expecting more from a $200+ set of lights.

That's gonna look really cool when its done! It could just be the picture but your welds look a little cold to me.

Yeah, they're not fantastic welds. I was lazy and welded through the existing paint on the bumper beam. Even with the welder cranked up, I wasn't getting a ton of penetration.

Really, one of these days, I ought to actually learn how to weld. Or at least practice a bunch more so I can tell what to adjust in which direction when things aren't working as well as I'd like. I'm really just winging it.

Preeeecisely!

Since this is the sketchup thread... I was on sketchup.com to download the free version for macs and notices on the sales pitch for sketchup pro, our resident architect Nick Sonder's drawing is included on page 2 of their promo slide show:

http://www.sketchup.com/products/sketchup-pro

That's kinda cool. :cool:

Small world or big architect? :)