I've spent the last hour or so looking at some of the build journals, and all I can say is...man! For you folks not to know diddly about woodworking, like you say, your projects sure are turning out way better than you'd think. You guys are good. I'm going to have to really push myself to achieve something similar.
Rough weight estimates so far on Trailer X put the wood alone at around 325#. That's figuring five sheets of 1/2" ply at 50# each and three sheets of 1/4" at 25# each. This is NOT a fancy first attempt! By fancy, I mean with skinning and all that. Just basic solid walls with good paint on the outside.
The title on my HF trailer lists it at 272#, so that's got me to around 600#. I've also added a wheeled trailer jack and I'm going to put in a spare. I figure by the time I put in my little bit of electrical and plumbing and what additional metal pieces I need for the compartment sliders, I'll be somewhere around 700#.
For this type of trailer I feel like that's a little high, but the HF trailer is rated higher than what I really needed at 1980# GVW, so there's excess framing and heavier springs to consider. Oh, well, better too heavy than too light. I think that instead of setting a weight goal, which would be arbitrary anyway, I'll just build it and see where it ends up and that will be that.
Of course, I've got to consider some equipment I'd forgotten. My generator, which won't go with us most of the time anyway, probably weighs around 200#. Then there are the two gas cans, approx. 45# each. With coolers and utensils, small appliances, the cabin tent, the ez-up, stove, firewood, cots, sleeping bags, propane canisters, blah blah blah to infinity, I might just need that trailer capacity after all!
One of my big goals was to build this thing to be as efficient as possible, in order to be as cheap as possible. We've been lucky all of our camping lives to be about three miles from Clear Creek State Park here in Alabama, but we want to travel the state and farther, so efficiency is a priority. I'm towing with an '04 Tacoma 3.4l, so I'm starting out with about 20mpg and dropping from there. Before the ethanol I was getting 23mpg. The truck can handle the towing weight just fine but mileage seems to fall over a cliff past a certain point. Anybody out there using a similar truck who can tell me their experiences?
I had hoped to have this thing rolling by now, but Terra is having a little surgery this month, Cody's got a birthday in November, and then Christmas rolls up like it does every year!
It's pretty guaranteed I can get intense on it the first of the year, but I'm still going to try to do something before then. If I can Terra enthused about it...
I just wish we had good plywood sources down here. I can't find anything of real quality.