New builld - 110 gallon offset on a custom trailer
First attempt at making a trailer.
First, some pics of my weld skillz progression. This is the collector. 19" wide, 1/4" plate. My Primeweld MIG 285. .035 wire, 75/25 argon/CO2 20V, 330ipm, open corners. I've gotten a little more confident, turning up the heat and moving fast! Lol
Still not perfect, some undercut in places, a few little pinholes, but isn't too bad. Miles better than I used to be, and all self-taught.
Ok, so I had a little trailer frame, just something that was probably for an ATV or a utility trailer. It needed a tongue and an axle, and some reinforcement if it was going to carry an 800ish lb smoker and be roadworthy. I took the frame for sandblasting, as it had never been painted and spent a couple of days this week working on it. Bought a 3500lb Dexter axle, some 5x5 wheels and tires from Amazon. Took a while to get everything right, I've never built a trailer, so I had to work to get everything lined up right, measure 5x, weld once... Had to add some square tubing to the sides to properly mount the hangers for that axle, as it was 48" spring centers and the trailer frame measured 47.75" outside to outside. So the axle was just a hair too wide, but I made it work. Then welded together the fenders and figured out a way to mount them.
Oh ueah, the stiffening rails underneath are 2x4" 11g, about 50" long. That tongue I put in there is 3" square tubing, also 11g.
I almost would rather do two passes where metal meets up like that, instead of side to siding like crazy. The actual joint base might be 14 gauge worth of thickness. No comment on how many of those it took me to lurnt my lesson.
Ended up cutting one of the fenderd off because it wasn't aligned properly - more space in front of the tire than behind, was a little nitpicky, but it looked 'off' and wasn't symmetrical on the tire. Also, running down the road, on really smooth road it was fine, but when I got to city streets, the fenders were bouncing WAY too much and I knew they wouldnt last. So I put some 1.25" angle iron on them, welded to the frame on the front of the fenders. Also a good place to mount clearance lights when I get the lighting kit. Much MUCH more stable, and I'll do a similar piece on the back for the rear tail lights.
Added the boat trailer jack I took off the trailer for my Big Berta smoker.
Overall, I think it came out pretty good, and I feel more confident when I build my next one, fully from scratch, it will be even better. I'm fairly pleased with it.
I've definitely seen worse pulling down the road...
Today I mocked up the firebox and cook chamber, to get an idea of how it's all going to fit, where I want to mount it front to back, how it's going to be to reach into the cook chamber, make sure the grate height isn't going to be too high or low, etc.
This is a 26" diameter cook chamber, 48" long, about 110 gallons. 1/4" wall thickness.
Firebox is 24" diameter, 27.5" long, I think around 50 gallons. It is .375wt, 3/8" thick. Endplates will be 1/4".
I've already decided the hell with this spray paint rattlecan BS. I've used 4 cans on that trailer, and it'll need more touchups. At $10 a can, this shit gets out of hand quick. Gonna buy a cheap HoboFreight paintgun and figure it out.
Gotta figure out what to do today and tomorrow. 2 nice days, 80s, nothing else to do except work in the shop...
Prolly work on endcaps and joinery, I dunno if I'll get them mounted on the trailer. Prolly not all that in just 2 days, because cutting the endcaps is going to be a little work. The larger pipe isn't exactly perfect. The smaller seems to be perfect at 24" OD with no more than 1/8" variation.
The larger was way way way off, I had to take it back to the yard and get my friends to roll it for me. It was off as much as 1½ inches in some places. The end I measured when I picked it out seemed pretty close to round - when I got it home (back to the shop, ok, not home), I got it on the trailer and started checking the uniformity, it was way off - frpm as narrow as 25 5/8" to as large are 27 1/8". Argh. I debated a while, then loaded it back up and too it out to the yard where I got it from my friend and asked them to roll it - which they very kindly did. It was awesome! One of the guys took me around and showed me some of their gigantic setup, they can roll pipe up to 168" diameter (that's 14 FEET) and can roll plate into pipe that is 2½" THICK! WTF? 2½" plate, being BENT? Yeah... that's just insane. Anyways, here's a quick video I shot of them rolling this pipe:
That's their smallest roller in that shop. They have many others and roll pipe down to 1" or so as well. Many warehouses, many machines, it's awesome. Anyways... back to the story...
When I got it back, I put it back up on the trailer and checked it again - the 'smaller' end is around 25 15/16" at the narrowest and 26¼" at the worst, the 'larger' end was from 26¼" to 26 3/4". So a vast improvement - ½" variance instead of 1½". Much better. I will still need to custom cut or trim the endcaps, but it's a helluva lot better than it was. Fer SURE.
So I guess that's the plan for the next couple days - try get endcaps cut, shaped, welded on and then mount onto the trailer. Weather looks like it's going to cooperate, too, as it's supposed to be 80s here for the next week. Awesome!
Wife is leaving tomorrow for Kansas City for a 2 week stint at a teaching conference, so I'll be on my own. Should be able to spend a lot of time in the shop - don't get me wrong, she doesn't prevent me, she almost never guilts me into staying home or doing other things - but next weekend The Boy and I will be going up there to see her. So nothing next weekend, I better get as much done as I can this weekend and this week! lol
Those out of the ordinary processing plants are always fascinating to me. During my corporate period of life I had a wide variety of customers that gave me a chance to work around pulp mills, saw mills, steel mills, mines, commercial fishing operations, extrusion plants, Boeing production facilities, the below decks of Wa. St. ferries, Paccar plants and so many more. It's a marvelous world out there...
I've decided this trailer frame isn't sturdy enough for me to mount a smoker on... so I'm going to be welding in some 1.5x2" 11g as cross-brace supports just to mount the smoker cook chamber and firebox. It's just so thin, only like 12g, 110 thou or so. So, this will give me much strong crossmembers to mount on.
Then cut some 1.5x2" rec tubing to fit in those crossmembers:
Got those welded in, now it's about 100x stronger. I was concerned about putting much weight on those, but it's much sturdier now. I could put a 250 gallon on there made of 1/2" thick steel and I think it would be fine.
Worked with my plasma table guy today to get some parts cut - endplates for the pipe cook chamber and firebox will be forthcoming, as well as a bunch more small parts that will keep me in business for a while.
Can't wait to get started on this build in earnest!
Picked up all my parts today from my plasma guy, lotta stuff for several builds, but all the fixin's to finish this one. Well, still gotta buy trailer lights. And safety chains. And a drain. Ummm... I think that's it. Maybe. We'll see...
Anyways, the joinery of the firebox and cook chamber is going to be just a little different this time, since I'm not using a tank, I'm using flat-ended pipe that needs to be capped - so I'm using a single plate for both the firebox endcap and the tank cap. Kinda a figure-eight lookin' thing, but you'll see. It was a little tricky to get drawn out and cut, but really more because the pipe for my cook chamber is kinda wamperjawed, and ain't perfectly round. The 24" firebox pipe is PERFECTLY round, but not the cook chamber pipe. So, some work getting that to line all up so it'll work well and be easy to weld.
So I got the parts, but today I just welded on my throat opening scoop/baffle, this one is pretty much identical to the last one I did on my 250-gallon yard cart I just sold.
Here's some final pics - my welds are better than they used to be, though I'm sure plenty of welders would roll their eyes at my n00b attempts. lol. I don't care - it'll hold, it ain't goin' nowheres!
Like I said doesn't look like I got a lot done today, but I didn't get out there till after 5, and I spent a lot of time measuring, lining up my endcaps to make sure they were going to work right, aligning things and marking them for joinery - then I didn't want to get into joining things when I only had an hour or so left to work.
Should be able to get the firebox and cook chamber welded together tomorrow evening, or worst case on Thursday, and should probably be able to mount them to the trailer on Thursday.
Dunno if I'll get a chance to work on it this weekend, though, as The Wife wants myself and The Boy to come up to KCMO to see her, since she's stuck there for 2 weeks. So we'll see if that pans out, or if I stay home and work on THIS thing all weekend. lol
Well, if my welds the other day looked passable, my welds yesterday taught me not to get cocky.
Did a lot yesterday in about 5h at the shop. Exhausting, but good work. Today, I have essentially the whole day to work, which is great.
Yesterday I 'capped' my pipe and joined my two pieces. Some ugly, UGLY welds, but I have two very good Metabo grinders, so... I can deal with that. Lol
And my SOLE good weld of the day...
Today, if things go well, this will be mounted on my trailer. If it goes really well, I might even get the door cut today. We'll see!
Here’s something to consider when you can’t explain why your welds are looking worse from one job to the next. Pipe stored laying north and south will become magnetic. It can be anywhere from a paper clip will stick to it up to a small ball pean hammer will stick to it. If that happens you will see your arc jumping from side to side and your puddle doing things you don’t expect. The only way I know to mitigate it is to wrap your ground lead around the pipe two or three times before you attach it. That usually will help. I have seen pipeline pipe so magnetized that it could not be welded well enough to pass X-ray inspection. If you see stored pipe it will be laying east and west if they know what they are doing. Just another piece of info to add to your welding skills.
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