Trailer frame made of wood?

[Sparksalot]

What can a wooden frame do for you?

The world speed record on water is 317 mph for a 2 way average. The bloke, er mate, who holds it drove the Spirit of Australia, a wooden boat.

http://www.anmm.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=1397&c=856

[dwgriff1]

I am baffled about this talk about being sued because your trailer is made of wood. If it fails, no matter what the material there may be problems.

Dave,

I was merely raising a warning flag. I wasn't pointing at a wooden chassis specifically. I was only suggesting that it might be easier to make an error if you don't have a steel chassis. Of course, if a wooden chassis with body is properly designed and built and maintained, there is no more risk than with a steel chassis.

Mike...

I did not mean to scold you Mike, but I have heard that argument about my all wood tear since I came up with idea.

There are a lot of ways to skin a cat. Maybe there are ways we have not even thought of yet.

My academic time was spent in art school, where there was few boxes to think inside or outside.

dave

[spinnernut]

I think the wood frame is overkill,think about the sprucegoose thats alot of wood, my 1940 piper cub has wood-oak spars in the wings
just food for thought, and the weights are about the same.

[caseydog]

I feel the elimination of twisting and racking of a teardrop trailer is attained by a sound floor, sides and roof, NOT by a heavy, welded metal trailer frame. (I have tested this idea by jacking up just one corner of my teardrop with the tire 6" off of the ground, and have noticed no binding of the entry doors)

I looked at the teardrop the way automakers look at the unibody. At one time, cars were built on rigid frames, but now, they are built in a way that the whole structure makes the car rigid.

Likewise, if you consider the whole structure of the teardrop to be integral to the rigidity of the frame, then you don't need to focus so much on a frame that, on its own, does not flex.

If you build a strong teardrop camper, it should need a minimal metal frame to support the suspension, axle, and attachment to the tow vehicle. I think Andrew's new super-lightweight design is a good example of what I'm talking about.

CD

[angib]

If we're quoting aircraft as proof of timber's strength, I'm going to repeat myself and point out that the WWII de Havilland Mosquito was an all-wood aircraft and flew just as fast as a P-51B. Actually the construction would fascinate some of the super-light forum members as it used a epoxy-bonded plywood-balsa-plywood sandwich construction for the fuselage - about 30 years before anyone thought to apply it to composites.



And if you think it's easy to make a wood aircraft, there were things called Tsetses (it's an African fly) that were a Mosquito with a 6-pounder anti-tank gun slung on a recoil mount in the bottom of the fuselage. There was also a successful carrier-borne naval Mosquito - just imagine stressing the connection of an arrester hook to a wooden fuselage!

There was even a naval Tsetse that was leant to the US Navy and after the war it was retrospectively credited with a Japanese destroyer 'kill' - apparently it fired an armour-piercing shell into the destroyer's boiler which literally blew the ship in two and the two halves sank so fast that no-one else saw it!

Andrew

[Lou Park]

I love that this post is still going strong.

[Geron]

Built mine like this.



That's a 2x10 (or was it a 2x12??) cross member/axle.

Angib was most helpful in this project and it's very similar to the current "minimalist" frame in the design library.

Let's see . . . . Ummm! 4 years and going strong. Made a couple trips cross state and several trips "up in the mountains" dirt roads and such.

[Lou Park]

Now that's what I had in mind. Big question, did it save you any time? Money? Both?
Lou

[Geron]

Now that's what I had in mind. Big question, did it save you any time? Money? Both?
Lou

Can't rightly say. Haven't built a metal frame from scratch.

Money: Metal was/is high back then, but I bought 2 lengths instead of 5-6?
Time: Bolted (grade 8 bolts) to an already square floor (which I had to square anyway ) so not fussing with squaring/racking a welded frame (time saved) but who counts - it's teardrop time!!!!

Weight: Minus 5-6 pieces of 2x2 angle.
A metal cross member/axle might be lighter than the treated 2x. All through bolts were reinforced inside the tear with steel plates and/or washers and split lock washer and nylocks.

2x10 was epoxied to the floor.

That's about all I can recall.

I found my receipts for the trailer parts. Of course the metal bill was not with them

geron

Oh, Angle Iron reinforcements on the edge under the half axles.

[Cliffmeister2000]

Geron, I see in your album that you built one on a Harbor Freight looking frame in 2005? and built the frameless one in 2007. What happened to the first one?

[Geron]

Geron, I see in your album that you built one on a Harbor Freight looking frame in 2005? and built the frameless one in 2007. What happened to the first one?

Sold it to Brick. He use to post on here as Podunkfla. Nice guy, really talented fellow. Still get an email from him occasionally.

[Geron]

Geron, I see in your album that you built one on a Harbor Freight looking frame in 2005? and built the frameless one in 2007. What happened to the first one?

Ο Θεός ευλογεί
Eastern Orthodox??? Just curious

[Cliffmeister2000]

Geron, I see in your album that you built one on a Harbor Freight looking frame in 2005? and built the frameless one in 2007. What happened to the first one?

Ο Θεός ευλογεί
Eastern Orthodox??? Just curious

It just means "God Bless" in 1st Century Greek. Maybe modern Greek, too, for all I know. I don't speak, read, or write Greek. Where I used to work, saying "God Bless" would get you fired, so a guy who knew Greek came up with that. I copied him.

[Cliffmeister2000]

I used to do a lot of bicycling, and I tend to read everything I can get my hands on when I'm learning about something new. I remember reading an article about the relative merits of steel, PVC, carbon fiber, aluminum, and titanium as frame material. Obviously, there is a lot of "Glamour" associated with a bicycle frame made from an exotic material like titanium or carbon fiber. One of the authors concluded that with all of its virtues, if steel were the newest material, it would be "all the buzz" right now.

If steel were in short supply or outrageously expensive, we would all start looking very closely at the potential of wooden frames, I'm guessing.

[dwgriff1]

I used wood because I trust my wood working knowledge and skills more than my welding!

Besides, I have all of those spendy tools from a former life.

dave