i know this is my first post, but this question is driving me crazy! first things first. my name is "shoes" i live in upstate N.Y. and as i'm sure lots of you know, we have a problem in these parts of the rust demon! my '03 Ranger XLT single cab 6' box has lost the battle with the evil one. the back spring shackles have rotted away, the side of the frame where the shackles are riveted to have rotted, pretty good sized holes too the flanges are not too bad, NOT safe though enough to work with to do refab work. i usually lay 2"x 3/16" angle iron top and bottom, weld the snot out of it(after a good grinding!) then i weld 3/16 plate over that to basically make a new frame over the rotted one. i did a S-10 all the way to the cab once! it was rough! the Ranger is only bad to the middle of the wheel hump. my question is, keep hearing about something called "fishplating". i seen it mentioned in this sub section but it gave no details. tried the search- no matches found. SO, can anybody enlighten this dumb ol' shoemaker? i know i can do the repair the way i've done it before, but i cant stand hearing about stuff like this and NOT knowing what the heck it is! perhaps what I do is the same thing!! wouldnt THAT be a kick in the ***! thanks for reading my too long first post!

 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I believe this is a fishplate.
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If you plate the side of the frame you don't want a vertical weld on the ends. I believe it reduces the stress and is less likely to crack.

 

Yes, the ends are not parallel and the pieces are not an elongated rectangle. The ends look like the mouth of a fish, hence the name.

 

Another older thread, but I like the fabrication talk.

Did a quick search as I'd never heard of either. This thread over on millerwelds.com seems to give a good rundown of why it's done.

Fish Plate Welds???

 

Does anyone have pics of what a Z cut looks like?

 

That work? I don't know for sure. Just doing googling... :)

Found it in this thread.

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