Axle Plates

After establishing where I want the rear axle to be, I need to make some axle plates. These can be purchased from online sources like Low Brow Customs, but I have some 4" x 3/8" flat bar that I will use to make my axle plates with. First, I made a drawing of my design that would fit the flat bar...( I designed this with Alibre design.... it was free at one time)

I printed it out with a scale of 1:1 so I could cut it out for a pattern. I traced the outline on the steel flat bar giving myself some room to machine down the edges if they got too uneven. I cut the plates out with a 4" grinder with cutting wheels I purchased at Home Depot ( the cutting wheels are the handiest things I have found for custom metal fabrication!). After cutting the two axle plated out, I tack welded them together before machining the edges so they would match each other.

Then started the machining process....

As seen above, I am making both edges even before clamping the part flat in the vise to trim up the 90 degree corners. The arc was made by rough machining then using the cutting wheel to finish. The diameter of the wheel was the perfect radius to finish it with. I would take credit for having planned it that way in my original design, but it was actually an accident that worked out in my favor :).
The finished axle plates are now mounted to the axle jig.....

Now that we have axle plates and they are placed correctly in space, it is now time to start cutting and fitting tubes to mock up the hard tail section, but first we need to remove the existing tail section...