Heat & Brute Force

I hit Home Depot for the purpose of buying casters. While I was there, I picked up a bar of 2″ by 3/8″ steel and some MAPP gas.

I want to use 2″ swiveling casters with brakes on one end of my saw base. But to do that, I need 3 3/8″ of distance between the far end of the caster base and the side of the saw base. That means something has to hang way out over the floor, unsupported. If you use angle iron, the part the caster screws into will be fine, but the part that extends down from it will prevent the caster from turning. Clearly, the best option is a piece of flat stock with a right angle in it. You put the horizontal part at the top, weld the vertical part to the saw base, and attach the caster to the underside of the horizontal part. The problem is the right angle. How do you create that?

My hope is that with MAPP gas and my vise, I should be able to make a reasonably good right angle. If the lengths of the angle’s legs are a little off, I can fix it with the grinder, the dry cut saw, or the plasma cutter. I just have to make them overly long to begin with.

I have never used heat to bend steel before. I saw Indian Larry do it on The Discovery Channel, however, so I feel that I have sufficient training. His crew was making twisted forks for a bike, or maybe it was a twisted sissy bar. They put a square bare in a vise, heated it with a torch, and turned it with breaker bars. The little job I’m doing should be considerably easier. I don’t even need sharp right angles; they can be pretty round.