Nerf bars

If you do any kind of rock crawling and you care somewhat about your body then you will need some for of rocker protection. Nerf bars aren't the only option, some folks go with some kind of heavy plate to accomplish the same thing basically. I decided on nerfs, now I'm not talking about those cheesy pices of crap that everyone buy from the local off-road store that seem to be made out of aluminum cans. I am talking heavy duty thick walled hand built stuff. Steve Mckay was kind enough to help me put all of this together. I decide that I wanted my nerfs to serve two purposes, first and foremost is protection and second was air storage for my compressor. Not only do they work really well but Steve made them look good by cutting several angles into the ends for looks. You can follow along bellow from start to finish. Click on the images for a closer view.

	Here is what we started with, 2"X4"X.120 steel tube.
	Several angles were cut into the ends for cosmetic purposes.
	1/8" plate was cut and ground to fit the ends and then tacked into place.
	Once it was tacked and we were happy with it a weld was ran around three sides.
	Here you can see the bung that was welded in to accomodate an air fitting.
	Again we taked it in place and then finished the welds once we were happy with it.
	Once the welds were done the entire end piece was ground smooth. After both ends were done the bar was pressurized with air. At this point we sprayed soapy water on all of the welds to check for leaks. Any leaks were rewelded and ground down until the majority of the were gone.
	After we finished all of the welding and all of the edges were ground smooth the bar was cleaned and painted.
	Now doesn't that look nice?