I agree with BlakeGroce about the welding stuff. Making sure you have clean metal is pretty important. Rust and paint ect can mess up welds, especially rust. Then once you get the hang of it, you can make pretty nice looking stuff. I weld something probably once a week at a minumum, so after awhile you get a good feel for it, but even then sometimes there's some impurities or something that messes up your weld, even if it looked clean. Just happens.
That trailer looks pretty good so far.
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BlakeGroce Member
Age : 21 Join date : 2019-06-02 Points : 2315 Posts : 469 Location : Richmond Ky
Started working on mounting the front bed support to the frame!
I ended up moving the original holes down and cut off the top since it wasn't needed anymore.
I also made some bushings to weld in the frame to keep the square tubing from crushing when I tighten up the bolts. I made them out of an oil pump drive from a Kohler courage engine. All I had to do was cut it down, drill out the existing hole to 5/16 and bevel the ends to give a good spot to weld. Worked out pretty slick!
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BlakeGroce Member
Age : 21 Join date : 2019-06-02 Points : 2315 Posts : 469 Location : Richmond Ky
Here's some pictures of how those bushings work. Once you get them all welded up and grinded down you'll never know they're even there! ...........But you and I both will!
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Update: Cut down the back plate to that front support since it wasn't needed anymore!
Also made a whole bunch of tabs to weld on the frame for my wood to attach to. Made them out of a piece of cold formed angle iron (a little less than 1/8th inch thick), cut it down into 1 inch wide pieces and then drilled a 5/16 hole in all of them! Wanted them to be light weight and they don't have to be structural.
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BlakeGroce Member
Age : 21 Join date : 2019-06-02 Points : 2315 Posts : 469 Location : Richmond Ky
Here's a picture of all of those tabs welded to the frame. Have them on both the front and the back side, gonna use carriage head bolts to hold the wood down!
@Nevadablue Wish I would have known about those before I bought a bunch of carriage head bolts. Would be nice to not get the shovel caught on the head of the bolts.
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BlakeGroce Member
Age : 21 Join date : 2019-06-02 Points : 2315 Posts : 469 Location : Richmond Ky
Well I got my pieces of 2 inch wide, 1/8th inch think angle iron welded on all four corners, this will give me a place to mount my side boards to!
I also got all the wood boards cut to length and fitted. I'm using used deck boards that my papaw gave me, they're pressure treated so they should last a good while!
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Crazy_Carl Veteran Member
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Age : 35 Join date : 2017-10-30 Points : 5130 Posts : 2561 Location : Rochester, New York
Ever have one of those moments when you plan something in your head and then when you go to do it you realize that there is no way that your plan is going to work? Well I ended up having to re-think how I was going to attach the front boards since my original idea was not going to work at all. I ended up having to make some tabs out of some pieces of 1/8th inch steel to attach and hold those front boards on.
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Got the frame all primed the other day. I'm using Rustoleum rusty metal primer and I'm brushing it on so it's been taking a while for it to dry being the middle of winter. But it's turning out pretty good so far......nice and thick so it should hold up good!
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BlakeGroce Member
Age : 21 Join date : 2019-06-02 Points : 2315 Posts : 469 Location : Richmond Ky
So this is the mechanism that allows the bed to dump and the handle is all bent out of shape! It's bent right where the manufacturer bent out a small piece to use as a stop. The handle was bent down and also left.
I bent it back the best I could left to right but as far as getting it bent back up I couldn't figure out how to do that without twisting the handle and I don't have an oxygen and acetylene torch so I just called it good enough.
BlakeGroce Member
Age : 21 Join date : 2019-06-02 Points : 2315 Posts : 469 Location : Richmond Ky
After I got it decently straight........ish, I ended up welding in a small peice of steel to fill in that gap and to hopefully prevent it from wanting to bend again.
BlakeGroce Member
Age : 21 Join date : 2019-06-02 Points : 2315 Posts : 469 Location : Richmond Ky
If you ever need to heat something like that for bending or shaping, charcoal will do it. Build a nice pile of charcoal fire in the BBQ or a hole in the yard or whatever. Then stick the metal in the middle of the pile. You should be able to get something like you are working on up to red heat with little trouble. Then beat it into the shape you want.
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BlakeGroce Member
Age : 21 Join date : 2019-06-02 Points : 2315 Posts : 469 Location : Richmond Ky
Trailer looks sturdy Blake! Definitely an heirloom piece.
I keep an old paint sprayer for spraying trailer decks and hay wagons with used motor oil. I used to use used motor oil for cutting oil when drilling or cutting metal but I've been told inhaling motor oil smoke is a really good way to get cancer, so I sort of stopped using it for that.
Subject: 
December 19th 2021, 2:33 am
Would be nice to not get the shovel caught on the head of the bolts.
...good idea
