Ok here goes - I am Planning out installing Dragan Scale Toppers on my service truck bumper. Now I know the flatness will not be 100 percent because I am going to mount the panels directly to the top of the bumper. The desire is for field fabrication and to bring the features of the shop in the field. I want to be able to use all the same fixtures in the shop as in the field. So a few questions. How do I contact Fireball ? I need to know if they will sell just the 12 x 36 plates separate. I will need 5 of them and wont be using the base. I will machine up a plate with he same 2" OC spacing as a fixture to get them to align with each other on the bumper. that is what is most important to me. The other question is what is the overall thickness of the plates , so I can see how much the bumper height will raise.
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Interesting. You can @ one of the Fireball employees like @VC3 to get their attention if you have any difficulty reaching them by phone or email. The tops are 4" thick.
I do have a couple questions for you.
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Do you mean 24"x36" Dragon Wagon tops? If so, they are available as just tops on the product page on their website for $1300 (or $1000 as black oxide coated “blems”). If you do in fact mean a 12"x36" table top I wouldn’t hold your breath that they are likely to do a one off custom cast top. That’s an expensive endeavor.
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Do you worry about rust much where you live/work? If you start to get rust on the table, and especially in the holes, it could dramatically reduce its service life if the holes start to grow over the years of rusting and cleaning out said rust. May not be an issue if the tables allow you to take on higher dollar work to offset replacing them every 5-15 years.
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Is there any reason you don’t want to bolt the tops together flat and make a few short brackets to mount them on the truck bumper (one bracket can span 2 tables to bolt into all 8 mounting holes and help support keeping them in alignment with thin shims to take up gaps where needed)? I used tightly fitting shoulder bolts to help with alignment along with 3/4" grade 8 bolts on my tables, and they’re going to take a lot of force to shift out of alignment.
yes the 24" x 36" table top kits - they are 3 - 12" X 24" Plates to make the 24x36 - I was mistaken on the dementions I said - should have been 12 x 24 not 36". The rust is not a concern to me. even though I am in the north east - the service truck lives inside and with proper care - WD40 and the dragon coating - I would bet it will last a long time. As far as making a " sub frame " if you will - the reason for not wanting to do that is the plates raising even more off the bumper. I need to keep them as close as possible. If you look at the bumper you will see that box - that box cover opens on the back to access the manual over ride controls for the crane. If the top keeps growing in height - it will be a problem getting to them controls if there were ever a failure with the remote control for the crane. If you look we can see the thickness of the plates are 3/4 - but how tall are the standoffs - they look like 3/4 ish - but looking for a more accurate measurement - I did find an email address to them so I emailed the same questions to them.
Gotcha. As I said, interesting application.
Hopefully you get the answers you’re after, I don’t know anything about those kits that their website can’t tell you already.
@MeuseMobile what’s the overall dimensions of the finished table you’re looking to install?
I forget the exact height of the plates with ribbing, they’re somewhere around 1.25", I’ll have to get the height for you.
You could probably combine with a 1/4" plate to mount the plates to, the flatness of each plate will then depend on the flatness of your truck bed or the work you put in leveling it.
Do you plan to remove the plates a lot?
The overall is 24” X 96” is the size of the rear bumper. Yes I know the flatness will net be as exacting but for this application – its not as much of a concern. I am going to get a table for the shop later so having fixturing that can be used in the field and shop would be the goal.
Thanks
Shawn Meuse
it’s about 1-3/16" height from top of plate to the bottom of ribbing where it would sit on another surface
@MeuseMobile what do you think about mounting it to an aluminum extrusion? We could also create a calibration bar so you can calibrate, mount, and space the plates out more easily
Could you use leveling bolts to get it very flat?
