I got the HF 4x8 non-folding trailer the other day and it took me about 3 hours to put it together. I haven't welded in about 30 years, but figured what the heck and bought one of the HF 90 flux wire welders. I never wire welded (always stick) but decided that this would be an interesting learning experience. Bought the cheap self-darkening hood. Still had my old gloves and stuff. I broke out a few pieces of scrap steel I had laying around and decided to practice with the stock wire. I was pretty darn happy. The practice beads came out looking good. Today I got in a new roll of .035 wire and did another test. Wow, what a difference good wire makes. Original bead was passable, this one is downright pretty. I figure after the warranty expires I will probably do the DC conversion, but for now the AC is doing fine.
So tomorrow I'll break out the grinders, wire brushes and square the frame. I intend to weld every bolt joint, the suspension and essentially everything. I figure I'll just leave the bolts in as it can't hurt. I also made the decision to add in a 2x2 square stock tube to run from the cross member behind the axle to 18" beyond the existing hitch to lengthen the tongue distance and add strength. I'll then sand blast it all and prime/paint it black. Not a big fan of the bright red.
While I've never built a teardrop before, I have built a couple of large sailboats, built a couple of houses and a pop-up camper. Because of how we camp in the past, I have pretty much all the little nice thingies that end up costing more than the basic build, such as on-demand hot water heater, small sink, complete water system, porta potty, LED lights, trailer stabilizers and lifts, windows, etc. And now I get to prove to dear wifey that all those garage gadgets I've picked up over the years will come into play, my compressor, router table, band saw, cut-off saw, and other such fun things.
Thank you all for this wonderful site and I promise I'll start doing photos as we do the build. I have no time schedule set on when I hope it to be complete, but I would like to do a trip next fall. I start getting cabin fever after a couple of months and our last campout was the first of December.
dave