boat trailers made from wood/ no weld metal trailers

In CO any fool can weld up anything, call it a trailer and get tags. I saw quite a few really crappy trailers before I found the one I use these days to haul lumber back and forth from the mills. Wood I've never seen as a trailer but it does seem like it would have its difficulties and some pretty obvious limitations. I can understand why some states would ban them, given the crappy quality of some of the DIY metal trailers I've seen. My bet is they have plenty of metal home brewed trailers fall apart to.

 

Inside EU the coupling and all of the frame welded has to be CE-certified. The only viable option for a DIY trailer is to use a certified coupler bolted into a single tube or square form. If all of the subframe and other parts are bolted into it and the single central piece has not been heated at all during construction, it can be accepted. This is the Finnish intrepretation of the directives, I hope that other member countries are not as restrictive.

 

California is pretty casual about registering home-built trailers. You take it down, fill out some paperwork that's mostly aimed at figuring out what it's worth, let them visually inspect it, hand them a few bucks, and walk off with a title and registration.

The only thing they get antsy about is the weight--because if it's over 1500 lbs (I think), they want to see some trailer brakes.

 

Around here I'm pretty sure its length that determines the need for trailer brakes. Either way though things just got a lot more expensive for me. Go read the boat jokes thread if your interested in why.

cheers
and I owe you a few drinks and a diner
I made a comment a while back that I kinda have always regretted
something about being ashamed of your heritage
go have a nice dinner somewhere and have them call me so I can catch the bill for you
cheers
B

I'll PM my number

 

Ah -- that explains the PM.

Don't worry about it; I didn't take your remarks to heart for any longer than it took to type a response. Shots like that usually don't hurt unless they hit close to the mark, and yours didn't.

I have a counter proposal: the next time you run into a woman who's managed to remain a sweetheart in spite of fighting an uphill battle of some sort in her life, buy her the dinner and try to convince her it's from me. Deal?

By the way, I'm seriously suffering here tonight. I'm trying to drink some Bud Light that I bought for a cancelled union meeting, on the old theory of "waste not, want not." It's like drinking alcoholic ice water.... I finally stooped to sloshing a tad of whiskey into each one, just so I can taste the damned stuff.

 

sounds ugly
I have a six of Titan pale ail and a fist full of pills from my nurse friend
my car got totaled today by an elderly gentleman who was clearly past his driving prime
turns out ( the accident was blatantly his fault and he was blasted on vicoden, which we all agreed not to tell the cop ) my insurance has a glitch in it, policy is overdue ( by 18 days ) since I combined policies with my truck and I owed on the truck. Great eh, now I'm staring at a driving wthout insurance ticket and the mandatory jail sentence

 

Here's an interesting thought: I found myself in pretty much the same position ten years ago. I picked up a broken fan belt somehow on the freeway while driving to work. It tangled in mine and broke the water pump shaft in my Nissan pickup; the fan sliced its way through my radiator so fast my temperature idiot light never went up (because it went directly from measuring water temp to measuring air temp); and I lunched my engine.

While I was replacing the engine with a used short block on weekends, my wife decided to save money by cancelling my insurance on the pickup. And wouldn't you know it: the first week I drove it to work again, a semi changed lanes into me. Which left me involved in an accident without insurance, and cost me a suspended license for a year.

But what I didn't realize until later was that when the DMV demanded proof of insurance, I could've sent it. Because the 'insured since' date on the paperwork covering all our vehicles was the date we bought the original policy--regardless of what vehicles had bounced onto and off the policy over the years.

Had the wife shown me that paperwork at the time, I could've sent it in and gotten off Scot free. So you might try paying up the back premiums on the policy, since it covers both the pickup and the car, and seeing what kind of paperwork you wind up with. Worth a shot....

 

its a crummy 300+ to just pay off the policy for a year
I've got a great driving record so ya I'll try that tomorrow but I'm really concerned about this cause last thing I need is to go stare at a judge
from what I can tell I actually was driving without insurance even if I thought I had it
doesn't mater
judge don't care
my policy shows a lapse during which time I had a wreck
my card is up to date but because I combined policies and given what I owed on the truck and had payed on the car it left me with tha deficit
= no insurance

no clue but ya my plan is to go pay up whatever they want tomorrow crack of dawn and see if it helps me out any

 

Boston, you might think to buy a nesting boat plan. One end fits into the other, then there are boat dollies to carry them to the water. Take the two ends and bolt them together or however the plan says once in the water, and you save yourself the need for a trailer and carrying anything on your own. Remember a winch on your vehicle can pull many hunreds if not a thousand pounds for you.

You can even cut the boat you have in half or 1/3 of the way, add hinges onto it so it folds over like a lid. I've seen a few plans like that, they look nice.


Boat dollies:

http://www.directboats.com/boatdollies.html

Nesting boat plans:

http://www.bateau.com/proddetail.php?prod=FB11

Folding boat plans:

This one folds from the sides inward, not like the one I'm talking about, but it's an interesting concept.

http://www.glen-l.com/designs/special/dsn-folda.html

http://www.songofthepaddle.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?8250-Building-a-Stacking-Pirogue-Blog

I can't find a picture of the one I'm looking for. It literally folded on top of itself. The Halves were hinged at some point, then one was pulled upward and covered the other like a dinner tray cover. I hope this helps.

Here's one:

http://forums.bateau2.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=21750

 

I don't think the type and size of boat Boston is contemplating would be practical for nesting or hinging...

But someday I'm going to make myself a little dinghy out of plywood and canvas that folds flat, just for the heck of it. Something along the lines of Handy Andy, at Svenson's:

http://www.svensons.com/boat/?p=RowBoats/HandyAndy

When I found that last year, I was actually looking for Billy Atkin's 1924 Handy Andy -- a small, canvas-covered cat dink that later became the prototype for dinghies carried by the WWII PT boats. I doubt anyone's ever crammed more usable boat into a lightweight, 8 foot craft...

http://www.boat-links.com/Atkinco/Dinks/HandyAndy.html

 

Ya not quite the style I was after but thanks for the effort. Got my insurance bill payed but they are being pretty ambiguous about if I'm covered during the interim or not. There explanation of what happened is that they dropped the car policy and kept the truck policy without adding the car. which is the exactly the opposite of what I wanted since the car policy is older and comes with a better discount package grandfathered in. I got them to reactivate the car policy and put the truck on it. My cop buddies tell me there's a fat chance that the investigating officer is going to bother digging me up and writing me a ticket. Either way you guys were right, I get reimbursed on the damages, so all is well.

On the trailer thing I'm thinking of kinda a nesting trailer, I already have a 14,000lb capacity trailer and its about to be a goose-neck so I'm going to build a sliding tube section that extends the goose-neck and then a cradle for the boat that sits onto the extended trailer. Means I only have to register one trailer and I get more use out of it, rather than own two and only use either occasionally. The cradle can have some screw jacks just like the trailer hitch jack and I can drive the base out from under it once its in the yard. Should work like a charm. Then chalk the tires on the trailer base, pull the pins on the slides and back up the truck to compress the trailer down to a manageable size.

I"ll do a thread on the trailer once I get to it but its going to be pretty trick

 

Not sure if anyone knew this, but you can register your trailer in Maine typically for a savings. I did it a few years back with MBI Trailers up in Maine. I’m guessing you can still do it now. I’m from RI and I know it’s not illegal to do it here.

Hope that Helps,

Bill

 

Wood trailers can be made to work just fine. I have owned a production wood trailer, it started out as a tent trailer. It had a metal tong bolted to a 1.25 inch plywood floor. The simple suspension brackets also bolted right through the wood floor. The aluminum sides and tail gate were likewise screwed to the perimeter of the floor. I turned it into a light utility trailer. No reason why it could not be made larger and use laminated beams with a plywood deck. But as noted, it would get heavy, plus I think a lot of extra work, and it risks rotting if your waterproofing were not perfect.

I can tell you as an engineer that I have designed many welded structures, and many bolted structures (in steel, aluminum, and wood), either can be used with reliable results if done properly. Consider that aircraft structures are almost all screw, riveted and bolted together with little welding. But welding has been used on steel tube frames, as has rivets and bolts too.

There is no reason a steel trailer could not be bolted together with flat plates, nuts and bolts, and C channels. I made my own auto tow bar out of steel angle, a hitch, and bolted joints (I can take it apart and store it in a small space too), no welding at all. You can make a trailer out of two C channels and a plywood deck bolted together, with a square tube tong with a couple of flat plates at the deck leading edge from the c-channels to the center tong.

Why build one at all? You can get "free" old travel trailers off of craig's list (usually they are leaky and full of mold, but so what? You only want the frame). than strip off the travel trailer stuff (most will go to recycling, much of it can be burned or hauled to the landfill), than screw a heavy pressure treated plywood deck down to the frame. that would be cheaper than building a wood one. It will have the wheels, axles, steel frame, lights, tung, hitch, and even brakes if you get a large enough one, all for hauling it off.

It is almost always cheaper to salvage or buy used than to make from scratch, unless you get some creative pleasure out of scratch building your own trailer, there is no reason to.

 

Sorry I'm with rwatson, I personally cant see anything worse than a wooden trailer, a few dipping s in the water and it will absorb water and double in weight, and because it holds moisture it will undoubtedly rot, and corrode extra quick any material you use to put it together with.
To me the cheapest is welded steel and then have it hot dipped galvanised (99% of trailers), then would have be Aluminium trailer, now here is a material that you can work like wood and bolt it together using S/S fittings and would last, but cost maybe an issue.

 

A qualified welder friend of mine did the work on my trailer some years back. I designed and prepped it, and he welded it. It only carries a 14' dinghy (and never gets immersed), but wow does it tow nicely! Yes, it's utterly over-built, but I've never had a concern towing it. I guess you could use pretty much any material you wanted, but steel seems to be a good one to go for, simply because it's cheap and easy.

The weight of the steel-work in the trailer is beneficial as well, as it lowers the CG of the whole rig, which improves stability. I see using aluminium as nice from a weight point of view (where you have a max towing weight, then you get to carry more "cargo"), but it will have corrosion issues wherever it comes into contact with steel parts, so either the cost or complexity increases. I think wood is just too much work given the alternatives.

Here's a thought, though... A carbon/glass/kevlar composite trailer anyone? Lighter than aluminium, stiffer than steel and non-corrosive. Of course, it would be quite expensive.

Tim B.