Off-Road Go-Kart Build

Built the whole kart as a Fusion 360 assembly — chassis, spindles, tie rods, steering column, seat, wheels — so geometry problems showed up on screen instead of on the welding table. Locked wheelbase, track width and the driver package in the model, then pulled tube lengths and miter angles straight off it, with mounts for the battery box, control box and camera brackets.

Cut square steel tube to length on the plasma table, then squared, deburred and finished every end. Laid the frame out flat, clamped and dry-fit each member before tacking, and re-cut wherever the real steel disagreed with the model — fitment, not cutting, was the hard part.

Ran practice beads on scrap coupons first, tuning wire speed and voltage until penetration and bead profile were consistent. Inspected every joint for undercut, porosity and cold lap — ground back and re-ran anything that didn't pass — and staggered welds around the frame to keep heat distortion from pulling it out of square. Every structural joint on the chassis is a MIG weld I laid, inspected and, when it needed it, cut out and ran again.

Steering column, tie rods and spindles with geometry set in CAD; pedal-actuated brake and throttle packaged around the driver; a chain-and-sprocket drivetrain laid out around the rear axle; and seat, battery box and control box brackets bolted to the finished chassis. CAD gets you close, not done — fitment, heat distortion and tolerance stack-up all had to be solved with steel in hand.