NatePriceCreations

February 18, 2024

Rat Rod Body

I recently made a rat rod body from sheet metal. It was a fun project that I learned from. It started with a sheet of rusty 14 ga. sheet metal, and ended with a a trip to the forge fire.

I used a paper template to lay out the size of the body, also it will be repeatable. A green marker and a pair of good scissors got the job done.

After the rat rod body template was cut out, I traced it onto the sheet metal using my silver pencil. Silver pencils work great on rusty sheet metal.

On to the plasma cutter. The rat rod body can now be cut out of the sheet metal. My Hobart Plasma cutter has a built in air compressor that works great on 14 ga. steel.

Rat Rod Body

I recently made a rat rod body from sheet metal. It was a fun project that I learned from. It started with a sheet of rusty 14 ga. sheet metal, and ended with a a trip to the forge fire. I used a paper template to lay out the size of the body, also it…

After all the parts were cut out, I started cleaning them up with my Dewalt angle grinder. This one is battery powered and really makes the sparks fly. Its a good idea to have to proper ventilation when grinding steel. I had my garage door open during this process.

I tack welded the it together using my stick welder. Since this is a non functional piece, I was not overly concerned with measuring or squareness.

I have taken a video of this whole project. You can watch the video here . Rat Rod Body Video.

The body had square corners, and that didn’t look like any rat rod that I have seen. So, I fired up by Blacksmith forge, and stuck the whole body in it. After It got to a red head, I used my anvil and stump to hammer the corners round. My anvil stump Is very solid, and works great for this project. If you want to read more about mounting my anvil to a wood stump, you can read it here. Anvil Stump.