Help Identify this Industrial 'Erector Set'
July 19, 2010 11:34 PM Subscribe
Please identify the 'industrial erector set' holding up the campus board in this picture.
I'm creating a station to hang gymnastic rings from, attached to a wall. It's going to look something like this:
|\
| \
| . \ . (this is in section, that's a 45 degree piece, dots are irrelevant)
|___\__
I'm going to build it out of 80/20 T-slot, or out of the polished pipe w/ fittings in this picture.
My last resort would be unistrut.
For those who say 'fab and weld it' - it's going into a nice home and I don't want to spend $$ on finishing it, so this will be cheaper and prettier.
Questions:
- What am I missing? Is there a better system?
- If I use the 80/20 system, is it easy to attach pieces at a 45 degree angle? Never used this system before.
- What system will best support the weight and dynamic loads? I'm doing my best to not get into engineering land by making it way too strong. If you think I should just get something welded, feel free to let me know. :) Oh, and I'm going to lag bolt this to 2-3 studs + bottom plate, very securely.
Thanks for your expertise!
I'm creating a station to hang gymnastic rings from, attached to a wall. It's going to look something like this:
|\
| \
| . \ . (this is in section, that's a 45 degree piece, dots are irrelevant)
|___\__
I'm going to build it out of 80/20 T-slot, or out of the polished pipe w/ fittings in this picture.
My last resort would be unistrut.
For those who say 'fab and weld it' - it's going into a nice home and I don't want to spend $$ on finishing it, so this will be cheaper and prettier.
Questions:
- What am I missing? Is there a better system?
- If I use the 80/20 system, is it easy to attach pieces at a 45 degree angle? Never used this system before.
- What system will best support the weight and dynamic loads? I'm doing my best to not get into engineering land by making it way too strong. If you think I should just get something welded, feel free to let me know. :) Oh, and I'm going to lag bolt this to 2-3 studs + bottom plate, very securely.
Thanks for your expertise!
Best answer: Please identify the 'industrial erector set' holding up the campus board in this picture.
The silver T-shaped links between the vertical and horizontal bars look like Kee Klamp or a similar system to me.
The gold brackets look like regular scaffolding fittings.
If I use the 80/20 system, is it easy to attach pieces at a 45 degree angle?
Have a look at this documentation; you can make angled joints using joining plates, as shown (e.g. on page 579). Plates like these are essentially a flat piece of metal with four to eight holes drilled in it - so easy to make if you need special angles. They also make 45 degree support pieces (page 593 onwards).
With the extruded aluminium construction system we use where I work, many of the joints are easy to make, but the section-end-to-section-side connections need special tools to drill them neatly. I can't tell if that's the case with that system or not.
posted by Mike1024 at 1:16 AM on July 20, 2010
The silver T-shaped links between the vertical and horizontal bars look like Kee Klamp or a similar system to me.
The gold brackets look like regular scaffolding fittings.
If I use the 80/20 system, is it easy to attach pieces at a 45 degree angle?
Have a look at this documentation; you can make angled joints using joining plates, as shown (e.g. on page 579). Plates like these are essentially a flat piece of metal with four to eight holes drilled in it - so easy to make if you need special angles. They also make 45 degree support pieces (page 593 onwards).
With the extruded aluminium construction system we use where I work, many of the joints are easy to make, but the section-end-to-section-side connections need special tools to drill them neatly. I can't tell if that's the case with that system or not.
posted by Mike1024 at 1:16 AM on July 20, 2010
Merlin144 asked: What system will best support the weight and dynamic loads?
It depends on the loads involved. Your average wall studs may not be suited for heavy horizontal loads. More so if they are on interior walls.
posted by JJ86 at 6:23 AM on July 20, 2010
It depends on the loads involved. Your average wall studs may not be suited for heavy horizontal loads. More so if they are on interior walls.
posted by JJ86 at 6:23 AM on July 20, 2010
Response by poster: Wow, thanks for being so thorough!
posted by Merlin144 at 6:52 AM on July 20, 2010
posted by Merlin144 at 6:52 AM on July 20, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
They go by various names but I think that "Cheeseboroughs" are the official one. They're not cheap. The ones in the photo are stainless (I think, unless they're painted); most I've worked with are not.
If you only need to hold the pipes at 90 deg angles, you can use the much cheaper "Rota-locks". They're less convenient to work with, but good if you just need to put up a box-shaped structure.
The advantage of Cheeseboroughs / Rota-locks over T-slot or other engineering materials are that the pipe-based systems let you work with regular old black iron pipe. I honestly didn't know they would work on stainless tubing, like the photo apparently shows. (Maybe it really is just painted iron pipe. I don't know.) But sourcing that would be expensive and might eat up a lot of the cost savings of using pipe rather than T-slot.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:21 AM on July 20, 2010