mikeschn wrote:Hi Lindsey,
you want to make it lighter... Start with stick built walls...
This 4x10' wall, for example, weighs 36 pounds as seen in the photo...
A battery weighs a lot. You could shave off roughly 50 pounds removing a battery. You could use closet lights with AA batteries in them instead. Although I would probably just use one of those ultra small, trolling batteries.
Don't store water in your tear. Bring a blue poly bottle, and fill it up at the campground.
Don't use any solid plywood in your build. Use pine sticks with 1/8" plywood skins.
Stick with the smaller wheels, ie. 12". Hopefully the spare from your car matches the hub bolt pattern.
Eliminate any thoughts of a tongue chest ... Although I think it's one of the best storage additions one can have on a teardrop, if you are cutting it tha
Eliminate the cabinets above the head of the bed. It doesn't give you much storage, and it adds tongue weight and total weight. If you really think you need something up there, put in a small pine shelf, with a rail.
Aluminum is heavy... but since you are building a woodie, that's not an issue.
Consider bringing your axle a little farther forward. Although it won't help much with the total weight, it will help with the tongue weight. Your car will probably appreciate that.
And last but not least, I'm not sure where you got the weight figure from... I built a Benroy that is very similar in size and construction to the cubby you want to build. The Benroy weighed only 840 pounds.
Mike...
lmh222 wrote:Hmmm, I just bought the 1175 capacity for $219 (darn, looks like I missed the $199 sale!) but it is on backorder. I ordered it about a week ago. Their automated phone service still says "estimated ship date unknown" I'm dying to get started but I suppose it is better that I do all of my research without completely rushing into things. I've learned so much in the past few days that I'm glad that I didn't just run out and buy a bunch of materials right away.
Lindsey
IraRat wrote:If you saw the link on their site about our trailer, they make a good point of saying we should replace all of their included nuts and bolds with better quality ones, to avoid rusting. I'm jumping right over galvinized ones and going all the way up to stainless steel. So that's how I'm spending Saturday MORNING. Just buying the fasteners and reading the plans throughly before I start actually constructing anything.
IraRat wrote:Understood, but there isn't like a higher grade of nylock to buy?
mikeschn wrote:The nuts included with the trailer are nylock nuts.
Some people will chip in here and say that you can use locktite... yes you can.
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