Just another cab project

[jcurtisB78]

After several years of whining about having snow blow in my face while cleaning the driveway I made up my mind to get a cab for my B7800. It had been a while since I priced out all the options (hard doors, heat, etc.) so I had a bit of sticker shock when looking at what Sims and Curtis had to offer. What was about $3000 back in 2009/10 is well north of $5000 (Sims was over $6000). I also have a bud that has a soft-door Curtis that left me somewhat underwhelmed with regard to build quality, not really "bad" but IMHO not on par with the cost. Therefore, since I had build a few cool attachments in the past (wood splitter, backhoe, dumpcart, etc.) I decided to go the "build" route. After a few nights of internet surfing to find things like door handles, lights, and such I made some rough measurements and ordered the steel. I went with 1" square tubing for the framework, a combination of 1/8" X 1 1/2" flat bar and 14 ga strips for window bezels, and 16 ga for the roof. I decided to use 3/16 polycarbonate for the glass but I am not convinced that it was the best choice. It is as tough as nails but seems to scratch easy so time will tell if I went wrong. I also used Rustoleum rattle cans to paint it so I'll probably pull it off in the spring and give it a proper paint job. The project took the better part of two months from start to finish and I'm pretty happy with the results:

Photo Album

While I'm happy now that it is done, this project was one of the toughest I've ever tackled. The biggest problem was time crunch as I foolishly chose to start this project in the late fall and early snow interrupted the build. About half-way through I was convinced I would never finish and my wife is an absolute saint for putting up with me.

Part one of the three part mini-series:

 

[jcurtisB78]

Part two:

 

[jcurtisB78]

Part three:

 

[George2615]

Very nice build.

 

[Billrog]

Excellent, Great looking cab.

 

[hawkeye08]

Love it, thanks for sharing

 

[davedj1]

Very nice job. How did you bend the tubing?
There is a product called MR10, it's Lexan with a coating, the first time I saw it demonstrated they had a brillo pad under a windshield wiper, it had ran for days at the show and never scratched.

 

[jcurtisB78]

Very nice job. How did you bend the tubing?

I used a tubing roller and dies from Harbor Freight:

Tubing Roller

3 Piece Die Set

This die set is for 1/2" tubing so I had a local shop cut them to 1". I bought an extra length of tubing just to practice but did not end up needing it as making the bends was not too difficult.

There is a product called MR10, it's Lexan with a coating, the first time I saw it demonstrated they had a brillo pad under a windshield wiper, it had ran for days at the show and never scratched.

Thanks, I'll check it out, it sounds perfect.

 

[mpham]

That came out great! What about mirrors on the side for backing up?

 

[jcurtisB78]

That came out great! What about mirrors on the side for backing up?

Thanks! I'm thinking about modifying some UTV mirrors like these:

Side View Mirror with Bracket for UTV

 

[fatjay]

Very nice looking. Putting mine to shame!