...............................................--- Mounting Brackets Part II ---
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The picture above shows a little jig I made to bend some aluminum in for other brackets. It consists of a couple pieces of square tubing for the bottom and one post and a piece of round stock, also aluminum for the other post.
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A bottom view. Nothing fancy here.
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Lets make a bracket using the jig that has been clamped in the vise. I start by holding a piece of aluminum flat strap to it with a c-clamp.
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Then bend the aluminum around the round post using a crescent wrench on the aluminum (out of the picture) and work the metal with a dead blow mallet.
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For this next series of clamps this is as far as we will take the bend.
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A number of narrower and wider pieces of strap where bent to shape. Holes were drilled in them and the square ends rounded off.
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Here all of the pieces have had the ends rounded off and polished a little with Roloc discs in the right angle air tool.
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Next lengths of round tubing where cut just under 1 inch in length.
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They are used to tighten the 'U-shaped' end just enough in order ...
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.... for it to clamp onto the 1 inch rail tubing. Mounting holes were also added to the long leg of the clamp.
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Next up is a fitting that will go into the end of the 1 inch round tubing that I bought. Again it was turned down just enough so that...
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...it would slide into a piece of round tubing shown here on the left for illustration purposes. The actual tubing used will be much longer.
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Next the end that wasn't turned is flattened with an end mill to form 2 parallel flat sides.
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Holes were again drilled 1 inch from the turning step, bottom arrow and ...
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... on the other end as well that will be the mounting end.
