5X8 Modified Benroy Build (Flat Back)

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5X8 Modified Benroy Build (Flat Back)

Postby Eulalia » Sat Jun 21, 2014 1:16 pm

It’s going to look like Christmas in July at my house over the next couple of weeks!
I just placed orders at Amazon and eBay for some of my first chassis parts. After comparing a custom build to something like HF or Northern Tool trailers, I decided custom would be a better option, since they take a long time to assemble and would need to be modified for what I want anyway.

Amazon: 25ft 4-way harness, License plate light and bracket, Trailer coupler, Pair of LED Stop Turn lights
Ebay: Tongue Swivel Jack, 2000LB Idler Axle (58-¼ spring center), 2x D ring loop, Package of white/red trailer reflectors

Still more to get in that realm, but it’s a start.

My plan is a 5ft wide by 8 or 9ft long (to keep in regular plywood sizes) tear along traditional styling lines (I like the look of the Grumman and Cub, but I might stick with a Benroy style front end) . Normally I sit and plan on something for a long time, but once it gets started it’s by the seat of the pants until the finish, so things will likely change frequently as it goes. After this stuff shows up and we get the wire feed welder back from my brother I can get some steel and start on the actual frame.

I’m excited to finally put a start to something that has been bouncing around in the back of my head off and on for a couple of years already!
Last edited by Eulalia on Sat Sep 02, 2017 8:56 am, edited 7 times in total.
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Re: First Build - Summer '14

Postby rebapuck » Sat Jun 21, 2014 2:55 pm

Get rid of the bouncing and let the building begin.
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Re: First Build - Summer '14

Postby bc toys » Sat Jun 21, 2014 9:02 pm

check around your area and see if you can get 5x10 plywood some places have it but it is hard to find
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Re: First Build - Summer '14

Postby Eulalia » Mon Jun 23, 2014 8:05 pm

I know 4x10 and 4x9 are relatively common. I've never heard of a 5ft width before. Unless that was a typo. I was thinking of at least skinning the roof with fiberglass or sheet metal, so joints shouldn't be too big of an issue.
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Re: First Build - Summer '14

Postby Gunguy05 » Mon Jun 23, 2014 8:19 pm

Eulalia wrote:I know 4x10 and 4x9 are relatively common. I've never heard of a 5ft width before. Unless that was a typo. I was thinking of at least skinning the roof with fiberglass or sheet metal, so joints shouldn't be too big of an issue.


You can get 5x10 in some areas, and even 5x5 if you want to splice it that way. I bought some 5x5 today as a matter of fact.

Glad to see you area jumping on it!

Good luck and keep us posted! Pics are great!
Brian


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Re: First Build - Summer '14

Postby aggie79 » Tue Jun 24, 2014 12:53 pm

I don't what part of the world you live in but in our area there is a plywood company that stocks 4x10 and 5x10 as well as standard 4x8 and European size 5x5. I used 4x10 sheets for the sidewall "framing" of my teardrop. I bought a sheet of 5x10 for my assembly table top.
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Re: First Build - Summer '14

Postby Eulalia » Wed Jun 25, 2014 8:28 pm

Things are arriving!

I have a wiring harness, license plate holder, d rings, and a coupler. Just about done then, right? :lol:

Mainly waiting for the axle to arrive before I go much further. Got it through eBay and it is the axle and leaf springs, I don't think it has any shackle attachments and such. I sort of need it to get a solid frame design. I have a few thoughts, but 3d Models fall apart when you don't have real numbers to work with. (I had a really great model I drew up on Rhinoceros, which alas, has slipped away someplace... what I get for waiting too long to get started.)
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Re: First Build - Summer '14

Postby Eulalia » Fri Jun 27, 2014 6:50 pm

As I'm still waiting for my components, I put some time in messing around with SketchUp to solidify a design. This design was with 4x9 plywood in mind for the walls. Wheel placement and size is still arbitrary at this point. Just a general guess for visualization purposes. I like the look of this profile, and with the 9ft overall length it seems quite roomy. The tongue box in the design is meant to protrude into the interior, giving a shelf space inside at the head end for pocket contents and the like.
Trailer Mock-up.jpg
Trailer Mock-up.jpg (37.06 KiB) Viewed 4271 times


On the frame design, I am planning on 3/16" 2x2 tube steel for the front, back, and side rails and then 1/4" 2x2 steel for the middle crossmember and tongue. The rear crossmember is placed at the end of the bed/back of galley lower cabinets. Any input on this design would be welcome. It seems to qualify as strong enough looking at the tongue strength spreadsheet (fantastic by the way, thanks to all of the people who make these resources available).
Trailer Frame.jpg
Trailer Frame.jpg (81.8 KiB) Viewed 4271 times


Metal requirements should be pretty simple if this design works, I figure two 8' pieces and one 10' piece of 2x2 3/16, and one 12' piece of 2x2 1/4. I don't know standard lengths for steel though. If it turns into sawdust I feel much more comfortable...
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Re: First Build - Summer '14

Postby Eulalia » Tue Sep 02, 2014 1:03 am

Just to let you all know that I am actually doing something, I decided I better put up a small update.

I haven't been spending quite as much time on this project as I probably could, but I have put in a couple hours each week working on this since my ordered parts came in and I got some metal for the chassis (most of which is spent attempting to teach myself to weld). It has been a busy summer otherwise, and hopefully this fall/winter I can get more done on this trailer in time for spring... time flies.

My chassis is coming along--albeit rather slowly. I have the main box pretty much put together, but this weld, grind, repeat ad infinitum is taking a little longer than I anticipated (my current skill level and level of expectation don't coincide). I'd rather have it solid and look decent too though. I must say I can lay down a much nicer bead now than the booger-like weld I was creating initially.

I won't make any promises on a progress time frame--school has started up again and I'm taking 15 credits (5 classes) and doing part-time work too :? .

Enough of that, here are a couple of pictures to look at.
Frame welding.jpg
Proof of progress. Design has already changed from the drawings.
Frame welding.jpg (41.32 KiB) Viewed 4053 times

Welder.jpg
I gave up waiting on the wire-feed and just decided to try my hand at stick welding with this guy..
Welder.jpg (57.05 KiB) Viewed 4053 times
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Re: First Build - 2014

Postby Eulalia » Thu Sep 11, 2014 11:50 pm

Spent a few hours working on my trailer frame today.

I got the main box pretty much ready aside from one corner that I noticed I forgot to clean up as I was wrapping up, and my inside corners. I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do to clean up the welds on those. Some of the welds turned out pretty bad (I started by trying to do them vertically, and I didn't have the skills to make it look very nice :D ) I might have to take an old cutting wheel and clean out some of the gobby welds. The rest of the flat welds are looking pretty nice, especially after hitting them with a flap-sanding disk (I put a picture of one in case someone doesn't know what I mean--the things have been fantastic for cleaning up and smoothing everything out).
Flap sand pads.JPG
It was actually a good thing for me to see how much (or little in an unfavorable case) of the metal is fused together after a weld when it was ground down.
Flap sand pads.JPG (107.56 KiB) Viewed 3929 times


After that I notched out a 2" space for the tongue in the middle of the front two cross pieces, and the tongue is now tacked in place. I ended up choosing to do it this way because the 2x3 tube would have barely cleared my axle.

I'm just going to keep doing my thing here, slow and steady. If anyone sees anything alarming, sing out. I know there isn't much progress to look at yet, but I hope to change this over the next couple of months. It was going to be a summer project :oops: , but I have no real deadline until next Memorial Day weekend (Weekend of May 25).
Trailer with tongue tacked.JPG
Trailer with tongue tacked.JPG (164.99 KiB) Viewed 3929 times


My apologies for the horrid photo quality... I have a nice DSLR, but my phone has been closer at hand these last few posts.
-Jesse
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Re: First Build - 2014

Postby KCStudly » Fri Sep 12, 2014 6:32 am

Welcome to the forum! Looks like you have a good start. :thumbsup:

Re: your welds, if there is any concern about quality, don't be afraid to ask someone with more experience local to you to take a look and give you a second opinion. It is kind of hard to tell in the pic's, but it looks like you may have some void spots (not necessarily porosity, but it looks like there might be a spot in that first pic were the puddle didn't fuse with both sides of the joint). the other thing (I don't recall from reading your earlier posts if you mentioned) is that if you plan to grind back your welds for appearance, you need to make sure that you have good beveled weld preparation and solid penetration so that you are not grinding most of the weld away.

I don't see anything wrong with letting the tongue into the cross members the way you did, so long as the welds are up to standards. If the difference in height between the members was greater it might be a concern (bending across the width of the trailer might cause a can opener effect on the side walls of the tongue tube), but yours are close enough in height that the loads will mostly be acting on the "flange" (if you will pardon the expression) of the tube.

:thumbsup:
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Re: First Build - 2014

Postby Eulalia » Fri Sep 12, 2014 3:33 pm

I did bevel the edges prior to welding, so hopefully I got solid penetration. I have kept an eye out for porosity (Grinding through the welds has let me see a pretty good cross section, and they have been solid). I have been filling in all voids that I find (my material isn't perfectly flat, and it's mainly low spots). On the tongue I was also planning on adding some gussets afterward just to be sure. Some of my family members are pretty experienced welders, and they have checked on my progress occasionally. Maybe I'll have to bang on it with a sledge hammer here and there to make sure I don't get any fracturing... Thanks for the input--as I've mentioned before, metalwork is a bit of new ground for me.

-Jesse
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Re: First Build - 2014

Postby KCStudly » Fri Sep 12, 2014 9:21 pm

Good. Sounds like you are on the right track. :thumbsup:

The gusset at the tongue might not be a good idea. This is a high stress area with a lot of local flex, so it is better to let it flex over a bigger area than it is to try and lock it in; adding just focuses the stress. When the tongue rests under the front xmbr it is common to only weld on the bottom of the xmbr and not the tops of the tongue (unlike how I did it :NC :oops: ).
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Re: First Build - 2014

Postby Eulalia » Sat Sep 13, 2014 4:33 pm

OK, thanks for the input again. It's good to hear this stuff before I get to that point. In my case where the crossmembers are actually welded to the tongue, should I weld all around the joint? I could see how as you described the tongue running under the front xmember it wouldn't allow it to flex as much (that was how I was originally going to do it, but ran into clearance issues). It's a little different to think about how it needs to be rigid yet still flexible enough to distribute stress around so as not to put excess tension in any one area.

I never really considered most of this more stuff when I came up with my initial design, and I'm sure more will come up as I progress. Probably won't be back to welding for a couple of days due to school.
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Re: First Build - 2014

Postby KCStudly » Sat Sep 13, 2014 6:30 pm

The way you have notched and lapped I think you kind of have to weld it all around. I would just make sure that you inspect it regularly once in use to make sure that cracks don't start to form.
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