[blake]

what should i use?

 

[mudfish]

I used SS on motor mounting plate and pipe shaft on the pedestal, the rest is aluminium on my SD.

 

[blake]

yea i jus have never tiged and dont have a tig welder.

 

[mlmtx01]

Steel is great. when I had my fan it was built out of aluminum. I think the most tension and torque on a fan is when it's bouncing down the road. the stand that came with my boat wasn't built for that. I was fixing broken welds all the time. That's the primary reason I took it off the boat. When I do get around to building another fan, i'm going with AL again. I am just going to brace it well and make it more functional.

 

[blake]

Steel is great. when I had my fan it was built out of aluminum. I think the most tension and torque on a fan is when it's bouncing down the road. the stand that came with my boat wasn't built for that. I was fixing broken welds all the time. That's the primary reason I took it off the boat. When I do get around to building another fan, i'm going with AL again. I am just going to brace it well and make it more functional.

thats what i wont to use cuz of the weight but jus cant weld it really got the stuff for steel is tigin all that hard figure i can do it jus never have

 

[clark3]

Man just get all your aluminum together, cut it to the length of pieces ou need and kind of roughly piece it together, then go pay an aluminum welder 60/hr to weld it up. Might take him 2 hrs. And use aluminum just brace it good and get a solid weld on it. Aluminum is fine, my motor stand on my airboat is rated for a 800hp motor. It sits 4 ft in the air and weighs 875 lbs. It's all aluminum. If you build it right aluminum is fine.

 

[Bad Company]

steel

 

[JpEater]

yea i jus have never tiged and dont have a tig welder.

If you have no experience in aluminum work, I would stay away from it. Stick with steel. You can build a good steel stand thats not much heavier than aluminum for much much cheaper.


If you decide to pay someone, don't bank on someone building you a custom fan stand in 2 hours though.

 

[Throughthegills]

Aluminum will definitely save on weight.If you brace it and gusset all your stress points like you should you wont have any problems.

 

[Midnight Sun]

been the route of seel then went to aluminum wont do that again 11 ga 1in1/4 square tubing is the way to go it can take the stress just top it off with a pretty aluminum fan cage

 

[blake]

thanks guys ill prly go with aluminum well jus c when the time comes i guess. what gage should i use?

 

[RobertP]

If I was building one I would build the shroud out of alum. But I dont know if I would do the whole fan stand out of alum. I like mudfish's idea of steel on the pedestal and alum stand but I might just do all but the shroud in stainless.
Did my last one in 1" square tube and it worked great but after 5 years rust would find spots. You can paint it really well but you ding it just right and it knocks the paint off and it rusts...SE Texas is like that.
Alum would be lighter but you will have to brace it more so are you really saving that much weight? maybe so, maybe not. I know my shroud was much heavier than I thought it would be. Alum shrouds are pretty nice.

 

[blake]

If I was building one I would build the shroud out of alum. But I dont know if I would do the whole fan stand out of alum. I like mudfish's idea of steel on the pedestal and alum stand but I might just do all but the shroud in stainless.
Did my last one in 1" square tube and it worked great but after 5 years rust would find spots. You can paint it really well but you ding it just right and it knocks the paint off and it rusts...SE Texas is like that.
Alum would be lighter but you will have to brace it more so are you really saving that much weight? maybe so, maybe not. I know my shroud was much heavier than I thought it would be. Alum shrouds are pretty nice.

Yea that's a good idea im pretty decent with all metal jus not the welding of aluminum. But can build the stand out of steel and have the shroud made Prly cus I wont a round one and I don't have the stuff to role it.