Trailer Build

[omph]

Hi All,

I want to design and build a trailer but am wondering what the frame should be made of. It will be moving around the roads on occasion - think once a year or so. I could build the framework out of wood, seal it with marine varnish, ventilation to prevent mould/damp/rot etc but I am not so sure about its strength. The alternative is to build it out of steel, with which I have little experience. Any thoughts ?

Are there any guides out there for design/load/centre of gravity etc ?

 

[Burnerman]

I guess it all depends on the weight you intend to carry.......steel angle for me, and including steel tubing for the upper works. Consider copying an existing design, and maybe using Indespention suspension units. You may of course be able to recondition a second hand trailer from Gumtree or whatever.
John

 

[cdbe]

I think you need an IVA certificate for a self build trailer. Better buying one. If it needs modifying something older (pre 2012).

 

[Mottie]

I think you need an IVA certificate for a self build trailer. Better buying one. If it needs modifying something older (pre 2012).

Times must have changed. In the early 70’s when I was in my teens, I was into Anglia hot-Rod and banger racing. Quite a few of us on our estate were into it too. I, like others at the time, had my own cars that we prepared in the street - paid no more than a fiver for scrap cars in those days. Kept them in the garages underneath the tower blocks. We built our own trailers in those days, basically by bolting scaffold boards onto caravan chassis’. They used to bend like a banana when we had a zephyr 6 on them and we never bothered cutting off the outriggers. Once, on the way to a meeting in Harringay, we took a short cut down a side street and the outrigger caught the side of a car and opened it like a tin opener. It was an old Rolls Royce. I’ll never forget the registration number, it was TO R10. I’ve just checked and it on a Peugeot nowdays.

 

[Stivino]

A friend of mine had a caravan business. On a few occasions he would give me a scrap caravan, usually it would have been leaking with rotten wood, or had been blown over with the wind. I used to rip them to pieces and make a trailer out of it.
Maybe a visit to some caravan places will get you the basics for not a lot of money.