"Meat" Trailer.

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Snagged some pics of the current project on my way out the door this morning. The first pic shows, at first glance, four bad things, but provides a nice overview of the trailer. The box is 41" wide and 71" long. This dimension was 'by guess' generated by the V of the angled frame rails, to provide the best support to the front of the box that we could get without heavy stiffening rails. The bad things are as follows - gas can inside (empty, been empty for 1.5 yr), the clutter behind the motorcycle (yep), the unprotected motorcycle (slipcover doesn't go on unless I'm making dust), extension cord ran across the floor (yep). I blame Weldingweb for making me more conscious of my shop safety habits. Now to start fixing them... The second pic, while out of focus, shows some of the welding on the front, and the stiffener/strap fastening plate across the frame rails and the tounge, ahead of the box.The frame rails are interesting. 1/8" mild steel, with a myriad of threaded holes in the top, these used to be the uprights for a server rack. They are not very stiff, but with a total of five braces between them (four on the upper side, one underneath), that has been overcome - there's no perceptible give or flex in the structure of the trailer, it's all in the tires. The hinge assembly as shown in pic two is the worst off of the bunch, in that it takes some torque to move it. All six hinges came with the 'top rail assembly', which we believe used to be the front plate on a wall locker. This particular hinge still had MDF screwed to it, and was _in_ the dirt. Not much else to talk about with this round of pics - I intend to take some better ones tonight, including some focussing on the welds, both good and bad. The trailer is intended to drag behind a four wheeler - 1991 Suzuki Quad Runner 250 this season, 2012 Suzuki King Quad next season, and store all the camping gear, and strap a ten foot john boat on top. Aside from the spindles/hubs/rims, all the steel is recycled. The frame rails are old server rack, the top of the box is old wall locker, the 2" square stock is old engine stand, the misc. angle iron is misc. angle iron. The bolts/nuts assemblies are 5/16" carriage bolts I bought for my lawn tractor project. (.17c each, box of 100 marked at $7.00?!?!  SOLD)The plywood is 3/8" CDX, and I'm currently hunting for a coating or treatment for it that will wear and seal it for a few years of outside storage and occasional use, and end up looking 'good' (a stain of some sort or a transparent coating. I was going to use a Minwax Polyurethane+stain, but I just don't think it'll hold up well enough) Paint is right out, as I want it to look like wood. Attached Images
Reply:Looks good...and more more practical than my method of dragging I'd recommend a marine wood finish.  that stuff is tough as heck and waterproof.  I think they are usually epoxy based and stand up to UV better than most conventional finishes,  Check your boating supply store.  Its not cheap though.
Reply:amen to that. I do the odd walking stick and I pretty much have to use a marine-grade epoxy (found it when recoating oars, turned around and bought the Big Cans for use in walking sticks - epoxy coated Diamond Willow is gorgeous), and it are not in any sense of the word cheap.
Reply:got the panels bolted completely down last night, so I took 'em all out!Cart5 is all the panels stacked off to the side - I am supposed to be getting a free 5 gallon drum of Thompson's Water Seal, so if that's the case, tonight I'm going to go with my original plan of 'stain then seal', which keeps my cost down. The other two pictures are weld details from the crossbar aft of the tongue/frame extension. This piece serves to stiffen and strengthen, as well as a mount point for straps and bungees. The final image is the cart skeleton, which was my stop-point for the day. Between laundry and other household tasks, I didn't get more than an hour of work in yesterday, but I should get more today. Attached Images