Fabricating brackets for Aluminess Ladder

[JWA]

Originally Posted by 86Scotty

JWA, Boywonder made these, not me! They sure are pretty though. I have no skills like that.

[/quote]

My sincere apologies Scotty AND BoyWonder---didn't mean to make that mistake, got carried away with the simple beauty and great execution of these pieces.

Certainly if these profiles were better known or advertised there might be a semi-huge market to support them being extruded then cut into pieces with through or tapped holes added. I could see these replacing the steel pieces used for ladder racks etc from Weather Guard and so on.

Originally Posted by JohnandMandi

Sometimes you guys just really piss me off with your bad-a$$ skills! Great job.

-John

Yes and I too am often times amazed what a crafty bunch is gathered here!

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by E350

(I do, however, consider my polyester and also epoxy fiberglass skills to constitute a separate but parallel evolutionary lineage.**)

If it makes you feel any better, I can assure you that my fiberglass skills are somewhere between "really bad" and "non-existent" That's one thing I haven't really done.....

[mikracer]

What part of the bracket bears the load when climbing up the ladder? Just curious if any of the thinner parts of the aluminum bracket will be susceptible to cracks after some usage.

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by mikracer

What part of the bracket bears the load when climbing up the ladder? Just curious if any of the thinner parts of the aluminum bracket will be susceptible to cracks after some usage.

Well, the load is shared between the top of these brackets (loading down on the rain gutter) and the two fasteners in the bottom pinch weld (shear loading of the screws). I would imagine that most of the load is transmitted to the bottom fasteners based on the relative flimsiness of the rain gutter.

Both my replacements and the stock Aluminess brackets have a wall thickness of 1/8" (for the most part). The stock brackets are off-the-shelf U channel extrusions with a flat tab welded on with 1/4-20 PEM studs in the tab.

[E350]

My 1976 E250 (below - merely a gratuitous photo which adds nothing to this post but makes me happy whenever I see it) had a chrome ladder on it which I removed. I always thought that if I ever reinstalled it, I would mount some metal wedges on bumper to support the bottom of the ladder. Thought was that the door would swing over the wedges but a foot on the bottom of each rail of the ladder would ride up and on each wedge and the bumper would take the weight when using the ladder. Just a thought.

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by E350

My 1976 E250 (below - merely a gratuitous photo which adds nothing to this post but makes me happy whenever I see it)

That's the same color as my first van-a 1986 E150 window van that hauled my motorcycles to the races for years in Florida. That was the beginning off the slippery slope into van obsession.

[boywonder]

The ladder project is done for now........

Here are a couple more pics:

Set screws in place and ladder and brackets mounted to van

[JWA]

Repeating myself here but very excellent execution!

[daveb]

Great job and if you ever decide to sell them I'll be in line.

[rallypanam]

Originally Posted by daveb

Great job and if you ever decide to sell them I'll be in line.

Me too.