I'm in the design stage of building my trailer. Finding a trailer the dimensions I want for the price I want is proving to be more difficult than I expected. So I'm looking at building my own trailer, however, steel is quite expensive and I think for how much my trailer will weigh I should be ok to build the frame with wood. I'm thinking the weight will be about 450-650# not including the trailer. Have any of you built a wooden trailer or had experience with wood framed trailers?
This is what my trailer design looks like at this point. It has an outer frame of 2x3 beams with 1x3 pieces running across the middle. There is a 1/4" skin on the bottom and a 1/2" floor on the top.
The axle mounting areas are reinforced with 2" x 1 1/2" steel angle pieces. The tongue is two 6' sections of 3" x 3.5# steel C channel. The coupler will be a standard A-frame coupler. The frame also has a piece of the same steel angle reinforcing the front of the frame where the tongue crosses over.
The angle would be bolted to the frame and the C channel would be welded to the angle.
I would cover the underside and sides with PMF to reduce the likelihood of water getting into the frame as I don't want it to rot. The topside would be covered with the actual trailer build which would also be sealed with PMF. I'm probably going to use a leaf-spring suspension system as torsion axles are pretty expensive.
Do you guys see any flaws or problems with this design? I'm not planning on going off-roading with this as I'm towing it with a Honda Civic.