04. Design Change on-the-fly

I couldn't cut the twisted front end from the lower rails without shortening the lower rails by a significant amount due to the thickness of the cutting blade, grinding the end clean and so on. Reworking a portion of the lower rails would be required, but being an opportunist at heart, I took this as an opportunity to reconsider the design. I promptly jumped on my CAD system and shortened the front of the lower rails to the point where they mated with the front cross rail. I then added a new tube to improve the relationship between the lower rails and the front end. I think this new design is more structurally sound in addition to being more aesthetically pleasing.

I took great care when laying out the new front end by measuring everything numerous times, keeping everything in the jig as long as possible, and checking for square and center after each tack weld.  I started getting the hang of things at this point and applying the new front end to the redesigned lower rails was actually somewhat enjoyable.