Brilliant Bars: inside AJ’s Total Truck Gear

Words and photography by Chris Smith.

A polished bullbar can look simple once it is bolted to the front of a truck. ACT’s visit to AJ’s Total Truck Gear at Torrington, near Toowoomba, showed how much engineering, drawing, cutting, fabrication and checking sits behind that finished surface.

From polishing to manufacturing

Anthony Thrush and general manager Steve Shapland began with AJ’s Metal Polishing in 1994. Their early work centred on polishing components for bullbar and rollbar manufacturers, but customers increasingly brought in damaged fuel tanks and bars for repair.

That experience gradually pushed the business further into manufacturing. After moving into a larger shed in 2004, AJ’s expanded into bumpers and front underrun protection device bullbars for heavy vehicles.

Every bar starts as a drawing

Workshop manager Warwick Tickner told ACT that the company had more than 150 designs by the time of the visit. A customer could ask for extra posts, different lighting or a company logo, but the design still had to remain within the engineering requirements of the product.

A draughtsman prepared the drawing and a job packet then followed the bar through the workshop. The drawing was not just for appearance. It was the reference used to make sure each stage of fabrication remained consistent with the approved design.

Cut, fabricate, check

Components moved from the computer to a plasma cutter, which shaped the material accurately and reduced waste. Fabricators then assembled the steel backing structure and aluminium pipework.

Tickner explained that the bars had been tested or simulated from the drawings, so dimensions mattered. Measurements were checked as the job progressed and then checked again after welding.

More than bullbars

The range covered straightforward highway bumpers through to heavy-haulage and mining push-pull bars. AJ’s also polished tanks, wheels and battery boxes and supplied accessories including lights and signage.

The interesting part of the visit was the contrast between the finished visual product and the repeatable manufacturing process behind it. A custom bar could still be highly individual, but it had to come out of a controlled sequence of design, cutting, welding and checking.

ACT archive note: This feature records AJ’s workshop and product range as ACT saw them in 2013. It is not a statement of the company’s current operations.