Square Tube Roll Cage

TheGeneral

New Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2005
Location
Wilmington
Ive always heard that square tubing is bad for roll cages but ive never actually heard any good reasons to back it up. I dont see why If I were to use the right materials why a box tube cage wouldnt be as strong as a regular tube cage. I want to go with square tubing because I think I could get a better fit and have smaller gaps in my joints to weld. What size should I use if i were to use square tubing?
Is this a horrible Idea or can it be done and actually end up with a sturdy safe cage?
 
How are you going to bend it? We've got a JD2 die for 1" box, but it suuure does some funky stuff to the box, and I certainly wouldn't use a piece of it for a roll protection structure....

I sure as hell wouldn't want to smack my head of the edge of box either...

Biggest thing though - isn't square stronger in certain planes than others? That would be the most technical reason for not using it.
 
Rich points out the practical reasons. I have never built a cage but there are plenty of cage builders on this forum.

This may help for your technical answer on tubing strength: round tube has a higher strength to weight ratio for a given wall thickness and diameter, its physics.
 
For bends I was thinking about cutting angles and rewelding them. Kinda the same idea as weld in 90's
So if square stock is bad whats the best way to get good clean notches in the tube without a tubing notcher. I could freehand the 90 degree angles with a grinder without a problem but the angles for the crossbars and stuff would be a little tricky.
 
round stock by design is stonger for horizontal loads,
it will flex a long ways before failure,If square stock
brakes an even plane , it is damaged an weakened
instantly.
 
Search the PBB under 'chop saw notching'.. There was a great thread about doing it with a chop saw... Never tried it though.

I was able to use a notcher for most of mine, but the complex ones had to be done by hand, and ALOT of "grind, test fit, curse, repeat" - like this one:

506.jpg
 
That chop saw method seems incredibly simple..surprised Ive never thought of doing it like that before. So now..wheres a good place in the wilmington area to find some DOM tubing. And what size do yall suggest?
 
other than looking funny and being slightly harder to bend, square tubing of the same diameter and thickness will carry a higher load.... So in theory, it would be stronger, but not cut and welded... It does take up a little more space inside a rounded interior, since you can usually tuck up round tube closer to body panels....

Then again, I have never seen a well executed square cage in person, but there was a really good one on a yota on pirate for a while....


I build all my round tubing bumpers and cages, etc... with a grinder as my only nothcher, do about 3-5 notches and you'll have it down...
 
Back
Top