Around the contour of the fender opening, yes.

At the mount point, not unless I do something like 8" wide fenders so I'll likely end up cutting my tube in the bend were it welds to the flange so I can have it wider at the top, tapering down as it approaches the rocker.

The front fender I intend to have wider at the front, tapering as it moves back, so it might be 8" at the leading edge.

The CLR is 6.5 so it's gonna take a creative solution to make it look right. I'll figure it out when I get there.

 

Made templates of everything before I start welding everything together, just in case I need to go back and remake something

http://www.flickr.com/photos/72867051@N00/11136636155/
Wood working tools? Sure, why not?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/72867051@N00/11136673856/
I decided I needed one more bracket, to tie this whole thing into the lower pinch seam.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/72867051@N00/11136658475/
So how does one make bent brackets in plate without a shop press? Vise, BMFH, and some very large punches

http://www.flickr.com/photos/72867051@N00/11136719114/
So taking a little rest break, both sides are ready to start chamfering, tacking and welding. I'm still suffering from the Thanksgiving food coma. I just want to sit in my recliner and take a nap.

 

Poison spyder and river raider use 1.5" tube offroad evolution use 1.75 and 2" I think 2 " is perfect.

 

I've had to reengineer quite a bit of this project already. I've spent the past couple hours fighting fitment due to warping. The angled piece toward the front had such a long run of welds, even stitch welding didn't help and it was so warped, I had to cut it off.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/72867051@N00/11139921943/
I also had to abandon the angle iron piece. The radius of the factory stamping near the pinch seam forces the angle so far down, that I wouldn't be able to drill holes to screw them in. So instead I just made another plate bracket that I can bolt through the pinch seam.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/72867051@N00/11139800934/
So anyway, at least one side is done. I think I'll clamp it back up, drill my holes and bolt it down before I tackle the driver side. I should save that for tomorrow anyway, I'm mentally and physically exhausted. I've gone through three cutting disks and a grinding wheel and a half today.

Thankfully, the other side will go much faster now that I've made all my mistakes and know what to do.

 

I am currently building my fronts, I originally built my flages out of 3/16 and ran into the issues you are having, I scrapped that and went to 1/4" and problem solved.. I'm done with all the flanges and framing, all I have left is to skin them, I don't know if I wanna do 14Ga or 1/8". I will tell you be very cautious that you will get a lot of warping skinning the flares if your not careful.

 

I think I'll try to plug weld my skins. No need to run long beads, they're not structural.

I'm done for the day, the flange needs more bolts, but I'll deal with that later. Looks pretty damn ugly. I'm trying my best to use as much of the factory pinch seams where the metal is double the thickness, but I'm not really sure this is going to be strong enough. Stupid sheet metal, should have built a tube buggy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/72867051@N00/11141208975/

 

your on the right track thinking, but what tends to happen is the skin material is so thin that it creates dimples everywhere you plug weld. If your going to linex or something like that it won't be an issue, but if your looking to colormatch and do a black rubrail then its gonna take some blocking and sanding to make perfect.

 

Considering the amount of butchery that has occurred, and that is bound to occur, Raptor liner is probably my only reasonable option.

 

Built my driver side flange this morning in 90 minutes, something that took me all day to do yesterday. That's a big relief since I really wanted to be bending tube and building the frame brackets today. I thought it would take me longer, but I guess I spent way more time going backwards yesterday than I realized.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/72867051@N00/11155259515/
I also found this yesterday, confirmation that the stock Rubi rails are junk. I saw that they were bent, but I didn't realize how much they impacted the body until I actually removed them. This is just an example, but on both sides of the jeep, the rockers, quarter ends and fenders are damaged to the point of cracking the paint. You can see it if you look past my ugly weld

http://www.flickr.com/photos/72867051@N00/11155312174/
So I dunno, maybe I'll bed line the lower part of the Jeep to "fix" it. I'll figure it out later, I'm jus happy that I now get to move on to bending tube

 

14 gauge is plenty strong.