I've been preparing to build a lightweight teardrop trailer for over a year now and a few weeks ago I finally started! My original plan was to base my build around a Harbor Freight trailer as so many people have suggested but I changed my mind and decided I wanted to do the entire build from scratch including fabricating the trailer itself.
I've always wanted to learn how to weld so I saw this as an opportunity to learn and put what I learned to good use, so after taking some welding courses and spending many hours practicing in the shop on scrap metal I've finally started. I've spent three full days working on the trailer so far and figure it was a good time to start sharing my progress.
Day 1: I spent this day cutting and prepping all of the raw material. The steel arrived in 20ft sections so I cut the material to length and then went at it with the wire brush and 36 grit sandpaper. I only snapped one picture the first day. Not much to see.
Day 2: I squared out the frame and welded it. I was taking my time and being very careful to make sure it came out perfectly square. I must have measured it 30 times before I began welding.
Day 3: I welded the two cross sections and the A-Frame for the hitch coupler. I clamped the coupler in place first in order to measure the angles where the A-frame meets the first cross member. I'm using 3.5lb channel iron for the A-Frame which proved to be very difficult to cut but after some struggle the angle cuts came out very nice and matched up almost perfectly.
After the third day the structure of the trailer is finished. Next up is the axle!