flattening the pipe ends
 

Hi all, two things I've been wondering about:
1: why are the pipe ends for the cross angle brace, the low longitudinal, the vertical bearer and the long angle brace all flattened?
2: How does one go about flattening the pipes if this is indeed necessary.
Thanks for any advice, Jonny

They are flattened to make the welding easier, if they are just cut at an angle when the pipes are joined there will be big holes on either side of the angled piece. There are two options to give a better joint - cut a fishmouth bevel - quite complicated, or flatten the ends slightly to reduce the width of the pipe to have less open space - very easy if a bit crude.

It depends how "fancy" you want to get? There is software on the net that can generate a paper pattern of the joint so that you can grind the fishmouth bevel on the end of the pipe - takes some work but gives a nice finished result.

To flatten the pipe? - a big hammer and something to work as an anvil and a little bit of creative bashing.

See this thread for info in pipe beveling.

Or just flatten it with a big heavy vice.

Thanks Guys, we ended up using the fish mouth program, and got a fairly neat result. I would say its worth the extra effort...