Someone I know very well had a roll cage and some other work done by The Custom Shop in Las Vegas. He quoted him a price for the work and when he went to pick up his Rhino the price was over DOUBLE what they had agreed on. This is an example of the welding done on this Rhino and I'm concerned for the safety of the passengers. This weld broke while the car was being driven around the campground by his wife with a 4 year old in the passenger seat. I know this is just a whip tab but what if the welds on the rollcage are the same quality? (which they are) What do you think?
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Where are the pics?

THOSE ARE HORRIBLE!

WOW!!!! that isnt a pic from his cage is it?

No penetration..

1 to 10 w'ell say 0

here is how you get your money back
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No good. I would talk to the shop for sure.

This is my Rhino, And we are currently in the process of getting this worked out. I have spoken with a manager at the Custom Shop and they have offered for me to bring in the cage and they would Check it out. The Custom shop has done some awesome work in the past, and I can only assume that they will stand behind there work. I'll keep you all posted.

So what are you going to do about it Travis?

Hopefully you guys will be able to work it out between the two of you.
Was this the cages first time out? It sounds to me like it is but in some of the pics it looks like it has seen sometime in the sandbox.

In my best cajunboy voice...

No penetratioooonnnnnn

It was the second or third time out. There has not been a lot of time put on the car since the work was done.

BEWARE OF THE CUSTOM SHOP!

geez....was any filler used for those welds??

Pic's one and two look like stress cracks and the whip mount looks like a bad weld. The last pic looks like an armature did that bubblegum weld, really crappie job...

thats a effin home depot special right there. Damn, would make me cautious to ride in that sucker.

I would be on there arse over it.

Two gallons of bondo, it's all good..

WOW!!!!![i][size=7]

IS that actually a pic from the work in question??

the weld on the whip mount broke because it is just a piece of flat stock, with no little "gusseting" to keep it from flexing up& down...and it was only welded on one side. the whip moves back & forth, over & over & eventually starts a crack. even with a crappy weld, if the tab was like a lot of the formed light tabs that have a
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shape to them, I doubt it would have broke.

....now, if the pic that MR OFFRAD posted is actually the work that was done...go kick some ass.

i am a good customer of the custom shop. i have had all my trucks worked on by travis . and they have done top notch work . i can say that travis work is expensive but you get what you pay for in most cases. i have left his shop a few times feeling penatrated , but sometimes he buys lunch.

If the shop laid those welds don't take it back there. If someone does not know what they are doing they could lay the best looking welds and the welds could still just be on the surface. You have to trust your welder because you really cannot check the welds until they are put to the test ie. a roll over. Be smart that cage is made to save you, don't take it back there.

He better buy me dinner and pull my hair if he's gona EFF my shiat that bad! That's sad!

From the pics, it's hard to tell exactly what the problem was.. Many good points were brought up here... the tab does look like it was only welded on one side as someone else said.. Even the best weld won't hold up to that whip...

Poor penetration... was brought up and in some of the pics it looks like that may have been an issue, maybe not.. hard to say without seeing it first hand...

The tab with the broken whip mount... had plenty of penetration... The weld is what broke, not the lack of penetration. That one was due to being welded on one side only...

Lots of bashing going on here. I don't know the shop, I don't know the owner of the rhino... but without seeing it first hand.. you guys need to shut up. Experienced welders or not... I am very experienced.. and my 2 cents says I need to see it up close and personal to make any judgement.

Just do as some others have said and take it back to them.. possibility they had low man on the totem pole do you job and he may not know exactly what he is doing yet.. I'm sure they'll fix you up after that..

You don't have to be welder to see those welds look like crap.



If a weld breaks just from a whip pulling on it, it's a bad weld.

THE pics of the weld on the whip mount: the weld does not look that bad (the first pic is from the bottom, where there was no weld)

it's a design issue, and yes, a whip will break that tab off if it is only a 2-dimensional tab, welded on only one side like that. The weld is right on the plane that the tab flexes at, thats why it broke. not because it was a crappy weld.

this was posted in sandrail tech also, and the pic that Mr Offroad posted was not in that thread. I think Mr Offroad is stirring stuff up??

I think you're missing the point.



The weld failed. The fab shop was paid to fab this thing up, and this is how they attached the whip mount. Totally unacceptable. Nobody here thinks that was the right way to attach the whip mount.


I'd question how strong the more important parts are. How well they have been fabricated.

First of all this is NOT our product in this particular picture.. If your going to criticize us...please make sure it is our work!!!!!!!
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I agree that the whip mount failed, and it should have been built better.

I do NOT agree to your prev. statement that "If a weld breaks just from a whip pulling on it, it's a bad weld."
there's more to it than that. any weld would have broken in that spot with only one bead on top of the tab.

Secondly:
The cage in question is our work, and if upon inspection it is something we screwed up? We do stand behind our work and will fix it! We have apx. 50 rhino's built with this type of mount (which was designed for a light weight acrylic LED 5' whip by Arizona Whips) and have not had any failures as of yet. But we are not perfect and understand that this could be a first?


FYI: The Custom Shop Inc. has been in business almost 10 years with little to no advertising. With that in mind we are also the largest independant accessories retailer and installer in the Las Vegas area that has quadrupled in size and volume since 1997. All of this by local positive word of mouth.

Also, we have been building Rhino's since their inception in 2004....this is not our first rodeo.

We have unfourtunately tested our cages in multiple roll over situations... all of which have been without incident! Recently we had a rather famous open wheel race car driver with 3 of his adult friends roll his rhino over on the pavement with one of our cages and there was no damage to our cage.... I wish I could say the same for my buddy who suffered a broken shoulderblade. I have promised not to talk about the other passengers names and conditions but, lets just say that they were very banged up! Once again a pretty ugly accident and no substantial damage to our cage!

maybe JB Weld was used.
It could be a rookie welder doing the whip mount tabs.
A good welder knows how to get good penetration.

An example of the work this particular installer (that built this cage in question) of ours does on a daily basis:

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i highly doubt any fab shop would hire a bird pooping welder.

More pictures of my guy's work: including custom built trailers from scratch, hand fabbed lift kits, custom bumpers and cages, one off rhino truck bedrack, etc, etc....

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Is this the same accident that hurt one of our favorite Nascar drivers here lately?

And just to verify the quality of our work from another impartial judge. Here is the award we received for "Excellance in Automotive Design" at this years SEMA 2006. It is called the Mothers Choice Award presented by Mothers Car Polishes!!!

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NO!!!!!!!!!!!

No but it did involve a Canuck that drives open wheel cars with Turbos

Oops!!

That is pretty cool, looks like you guys do some cool looking stuff... would you like to become an official GlamisDunes.com sponsor?

That was in Florida during a celebrity tournament.

I'm glad he did a good job for you but there are alot of people he's screwed over. Here's an example. Xtreme Motorsports did a great job for me and I personally have no complaints about them. I don't think anyone else can say that. Travis did a good job for you but he doesn't do quality work for everyone. He charged over double for what he originally agreed to as a fair price.

I am a little confused with this thread. Mr. OffRoad submitted a picture of another questionable weld that appears unrelated to this original whip mount that failed. Is this a collaborated effort to smear somebody that did another wrong? I see the original post is from Don29palms and Mr. Offroad is from Surprise AZ neither apparantly related.
I agree with the earlier reply that suggested giving an opportunity for the fabricator a chance to review the product failure and provide customer service if warranted. It appears as if The Custom Shop, hasn't even had an opportunity to investigate the weld and rectify any damage for the customer. Considering the high end products presented at the AZ show, I imagine they would love the opportunity to stand by their work.

I have been subjected to pretty poor customer service by other (unrelated) companies and always enjoy seeing them get their due justice, however I believe you need to allow fair response to the product complaint prior to destroying their reputation.
just my $0.02

As I stated earlier, THIS IS MY RHINO and I talked to a manager there at The Custom Shop and they told me to bring it by. I will be bringing in the cage and torn roof within the next few weeks when I come back to vegas so It can be inspected and Then hopefully repaired. The whip that was on the rhino was a motorcycle whip. Not even a quarter of the weight of a acrylic led whip as mentioned earlier.

HI CrazyJohnny!

great post.

I'm confused too.
Mr.Offroad has been asked about the other pic, but hasn't answered.
smells like a smear by at least one poster.

Sounds like the 29palms guy does not like the custom shop, I had them built a superduty duty for me and they did a awsome job and my buddy had them do up a BMW and he was very happy also the only problem I had was when Travis is on vacation and man he goes on lots of vacations hes the vacation King I think every time he builds something Its Vacation Time.. Just playin ya Travis Great Job on all the sema Builds and dont pay anyattention to this 29palms guy.. sounds like a smear job its not even his rhino oh Pauls calling gota go Brother lol

YEP. the whip mount is more of a design issue, not necesarily a bad weld, and Mr Offroad really sidetracked the thread by posting the unrelated weld.

Hey John,
I only take vacations and relax on them because I am not as fortunate as you. You know what I'm talking about, being on PERMENANT VACATION and all! I figure in my third life I might be able to catch up to you and Mark, then I could just kick back, and figure out new ways to spend money! LOL!!! BTW thanks for all your continued support and friendship!!! Sorry, but I have to go back to work now, while you pack for your 30 day Glamis trip at the best campground (Jack A$$ Acres) at Glamis! Notice the subliminal spelling of A$$!
Later Dude!!!!!!

That weld pic in no way represents the any of the participants of any said rollcage weld, its sole purpose was to illustrate a bad welding job. And is no way indicative of the work that the named shop performed on the said participants cage. Any further conjecture in regards to the bad weld pic may result in weld failure or further bad weld pics.

Thank you.

P.S.
Can I advertise my services here and show my phone number and web address without being a Glamis Dunes sponsor?

Thats up to Slappy, send him a PM and ask him.
There is advertising info at the top of each forum.