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Threads like this are good for the people who are looking for a cage as it actually opens up their eyes as to what your paying for.

Not to take anything away from other cage builders, there is some very good ones out there. But there is also a lot of these commercial places banging out ill fitting "cams" cages and using material that passes yet is not the greatest quality.

I now specialise in the high end of the market. Just completing an 11k r34 cage and now beginning a 10k commodore cage.

For that sort of money you'd hit the roof if it was cheap material and mig welded.

Other places can't make $250/hr doing those cages so they stick to the banged up half cages and do a lot of them.

Can I ask about the harness bar location? Is it "normal" for the harness bar to be attached between the rear legs, or between the main hoop uprights? I understood that the shorter the shoulder straps the better - less stretch (I am no expert, just wanting to clarify:).

What about "stays" for the harness straps, on the harness bar? I've seen rod bent to a U shape & welded to the harness bar so the straps can't slide very far in either direction - is this usual?

Can I ask about the harness bar location? Is it "normal" for the harness bar to be attached between the rear legs, or between the main hoop uprights? I understood that the shorter the shoulder straps the better - less stretch (I am no expert, just wanting to clarify:).

What about "stays" for the harness straps, on the harness bar? I've seen rod bent to a U shape & welded to the harness bar so the straps can't slide very far in either direction - is this usual?

There are different schools of thoughts. I wanted mine between the the rear legs. WRC cars and other race cars have gone full circle. First short, then long and they generally seem to be short again these days.

The reasoning I use is that in a big hit you can generate some massive Gs. If the harness is short then there is no slack and your organs/body cop the Gs. If they are long like mine then the belts can actually stretch a few cms which gives an elastic style response and in tests has been shown to reduce the amount of Gs the body absorbs.

Of course the flip side is with longer harnesses in a big hit that distorts the car you can more easily see a situation where the cage moves relative to the seat and harnesses slacken and you are on for an interesting ride.

Swings and round abouts

Harness shoulder straps have to be kept short (and close together at the mounting points) for HANS devices, so it makes sense to put the harness bar in the main hoop if building a new cage.

Edited by hrd-hr30

I'm gonna have a semi rant here because I think the above shows some of what's wrong with forums sometimes. I'll use 2pees example but I'm directing this at anyone who does this sort of thing.

2pee, Brad has been very generous with his time in this thread, not to mention looking after me and another member on pricing for 2 cages. Beyond that, he's got a lot of very satisfied customers so in reality he doesn't really need to defend himself and I'm glad he edited his post and took out the 3rd line from his reply.

I'm not having a go at you, but I would genuinely ask, what was the point of that post other than to try and discredit the work? If you were genuinely concerned about the safety of the cage, you could've contacted Roy or Brad directly and said something like "Hey mate, just saw some pics of your cage, I noticed there's a bit of an undercut on one of the welds in this pic, It might be worth getting it looked at just to make sure it's safe."

Swap roles for a moment, if you'd done that weld on a cage, would you be happy with it or would you do the whole thing again, my guess is you would think it was good enough and leave it be, so try and keep that in mind when posting.

I often see comments like yours thrown around and for apparently no good reason than to try and point out flaws (and to be honest, for all we know you could be an apprentice at TAFE who has just learned what an undercut is and how to identify one - I know I had to google it before posting lol).

There's absolutely nothing wrong with honest discussion, but I think it should be phrased in a way that is as non-combative and confrontational as possible, because it encourages everyone to get involved and share opinions without worrying about having to defend themselves, their reputation, their work etc.

Members will vote with their wallets so I think the quality of Brad's work has already been well established in that regard.

Anyway, just my random thoughts, take it with a grain of salt. Chances are you didn't mean anything by it but for whatever reason I've chosen this moment to have a bit of a forum rant :)

There is a slight undercut at that point, however, it is also a thin part of the metal of the diagonal at that point, so the end of the cut will have collapsed slightly when the torch was applied to that area to a point that the thickness of the metal was then of a thickness to take the inputted energy, and was then welded correctly. When I was doing my certificate courses that slight undercutting was acceptable, as it usually showed a greater weld penetration (due to the correct energy being applied) than a weld that have been turned down to retain the non undercut look.

If that weld was cut open and tested, you would find that the penetration is equal through the whole circumference of the weld , and that is the ideal condition as then there are no variances in the strength.

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