Jake, unless your math is way fuzzier than mine, you're still into it for $600, which is $200 less than the POS fibreglass.
If you can't find someone to weld the boxes together for less than $200, then you can poprivet 'a la Bohannon's suggestion. And comps to Carl, for it shouldn't be hard to find someone with a metal brake at least down here in the Oil Patch. Maybe we're just lucky, Carl. BTW, say hi to Cyndi...
Think about it... if the POS fibreglass is going for $800 plus shipping, it's certainly worth $800 for a nice aluminum box that will last effectively forever, yes?
In any case, we talked to the guy with the 2-box rig, and the place was in Picayune, and the Picayune guy is not there anymore. But, our friend did suggest that we call Topper World in Gulfport.
The Ebay store that I was looking at is called 'Closer to Wholesale' BTW. I haven't heard from him of yet, but I figured it'd be at least a week. His response to my dimensions was 'wow, that's simple' so it did sound as though the guy was interested...
Trying not to pick flysh!t outta pepper,
Miz B.
My poorly made point is that you should be able to get a flat plate (not diamond plate) aluminum box with .090" wall (moderately sufficient) made locally at 10'X(22"-24") for $600. The sheet aluminum I used to build the last two I did was a little less than $200 per box (it was the welder that cost me). I would not be surprised if you could have one custom fabricated for around $600 and you can probably do much better if you by multiple units at once.
Don't bother with the diamond plate unless someone has a source for reduced cost. I have a .060 thick diamond plate box that I inherited on my trailer and I personally believe it is too thin. When I priced diamond plate material for my last box project I was shocked that it more than tripled the material price (I get it wholesale through work).
