Sad reminder of the importance of welding

[ultrarunner]

It's very much the same in just about all of manufacturing... fab shop, R & D, prototypes etc... even Body and Fender work on vehicles.

Some of the wrecks that have been resurrected are ones I never thought possible economically.

Worked for a time at Tool and Machine shop and much of my work was for NASA... plenty of liability there.

A friend that ran a body and fender shop for almost 50 years would get into arguments with adjustors and sometimes would simply refuse to do the work because of safety.

One car comes to mind... it was a 1 year old Porsche Turbo 911 convertible and flipped at high speed and ended up in a pasture... the insurance company eventually spent 40k repairing it... at first it refused to OK more than 20k and my friend said he needs to sleep at night... Porsche 911 are high performance vehicles and he was not going to take any short cuts by doing a cosmetic only repair...

 

[Arc weld]

I don't know if the story is true or not, it seems rather embellished if it is true but I don't think the maker/seller of the trailer is automatically off the hook. There would be a lot of factors involved including what the local laws are for building and/or selling trailers. No different than if somebody did the brakes on a car before they sold it and they failed resulting in a serious accident because they weren't done properly. That said, my dad worked for a place that had a well known custom trailer shop build them a couple tandem axle trailers. Popping the trailer on a ball without coupling it but hooking up the safety chains just to move the trailer 20', the round bar loops holding the safety chains both broke off when the trailer bounced on a manhole cover and rolled back. I wouldn't have believed it if I wasn't right there. The truck moving the trailer was going about 2 mph and the trailer was empty. It was rated for 7000lbs!:shocked:

 

[Capricious]

Custom-made trailer, tongue fails. Defective welding? Defective design? Or something else....?

broken trailer tongue

 

[dragoneggs]

Custom-made trailer, tongue fails. Defective welding? Defective design? Or something else....? broken trailer tongue

Global warming?

 

[boggen]

it is a bit scary though on one hand. i do remember basic shop class in high school and learning to weld. what might look like a good weld to a newbie, can be a very bad weld. and break apart with very little force...

 

[Arc weld]

I think the bent trailer tongue in the link is a pretty poor design and too light for a tandem axle trailer. I agree with the guy that said it doesn't take much to damage an aluminum toolbox. Reading the rest of the story the guy that built it is coming up with all kinds of excuses. Sorry, if you put 2 3500lb axles on a trailer, don't build the rest the trailer to only carry 3500 lbs. A lot of tandem trailers use a double tongue. The tongue should be the strongest part of the trailer. I have 2 7000lb axles on my trailer and the hitch is 3/16" wall 6" x 2" tubing coming straight off the front with another 3/16" wall 4" x 2" tube on the bottom extending under the trailer. I had no trouble carrying a 12,000 lb. track loader with a 3 ton truck. I was probably a little overloaded as the trailer weighs about 2000 lbs. The guy from the trailer shop that designed it said with a 3 ton, you can put some more tongue weight on it. He's the same guy that didn't try to explain why tubing is better than channel. He had me do an experiment. Jump on the corner of a channel trailer and observe how it flexes... then do the same thing on a tubing trailer. He had his guys tack my trailer up in his jig and let me weld it up myself. I don't think the tongue would bend if it was jackknifed with a 3 ton pulling it. Better to be stronger than you'll ever need than to not be strong enough the one time you need to carry a heavier load. 2 3500 lb axles and it's only rated to carry the weight of one?

 

[Capricious]

I think the bent trailer tongue in the link is a pretty poor design and too light for a tandem axle trailer. I agree with the guy that said it doesn't take much to damage an aluminum toolbox. Reading the rest of the story the guy that built it is coming up with all kinds of excuses. Sorry, if you put 2 3500lb axles on a trailer, don't build the rest the trailer to only carry 3500 lbs. A lot of tandem trailers use a double tongue. The tongue should be the strongest part of the trailer. I have 2 7000lb axles on my trailer and the hitch is 3/16" wall 6" x 2" tubing coming straight off the front with another 3/16" wall 4" x 2" tube on the bottom extending under the trailer. I had no trouble carrying a 12,000 lb. track loader with a 3 ton truck. I was probably a little overloaded as the trailer weighs about 2000 lbs. The guy from the trailer shop that designed it said with a 3 ton, you can put some more tongue weight on it. He's the same guy that didn't try to explain why tubing is better than channel. He had me do an experiment. Jump on the corner of a channel trailer and observe how it flexes... then do the same thing on a tubing trailer. He had his guys tack my trailer up in his jig and let me weld it up myself. I don't think the tongue would bend if it was jackknifed with a 3 ton pulling it. Better to be stronger than you'll ever need than to not be strong enough the one time you need to carry a heavier load. 2 3500 lb axles and it's only rated to carry the weight of one?

The trailer builder said the trailer weighed 880 lbs. I have a single-axle (3500 lb) 6.5 by 12 trailer, same overall size, with a smaller gate and one less axle, and a truck scale said mine weighs 1020 lbs without a spare tire hanging on it. As near as I can tell, same 3 by 2 by 3/16 angle frames on both of these trailers, and same 3 by 2 by 1/4 tongue. And my trailer doesn't have all the expanded steel mesh that the trailer in the article has. I think that trailer is at least 200 lb heavier than he says it is.

Having said that, though, I don't know if any trailer would have stood up to the abuse that trailer was apparently subjected to. People can tear up anything. Once I sold a 14 ft aluminum boat and trailer to some guy; he hitched it up, drove literally 50 feet to a side street to turn around, slammed his truck into reverse, and in the 20 seconds it took to do all that, he totally forgot he had a trailer in tow. I watched him back-up and jack-knife that trailer, bending the tongue. I could not believe it. I spent the next hour in my yard, with the boat off the trailer and the trailer turned up on it's side, beating the tongue of HIS trailer out straight with a sledge hammer. Told him I didn't think it safe to tow in that condition, but he said he would wasn't going far and would go slow. And I didn't want the idiot leaving the boat and trailer in front of my place. People do stupid things.

 

[kevin37b]

Some , most people do not get along with trailers . You need your $$$$ together and check everything 2x . They fail to realize 2x the weight ,4x the stopping distance . Then they jackknife it backing up and wonder what that sound is . CFS .

 

[MinnesotaDaveChalmers]

Having said that, though, I don't know if any trailer would have stood up to the abuse that trailer was apparently subjected to. People can tear up anything. Once I sold a 14 ft aluminum boat and trailer to some guy; he hitched it up, drove literally 50 feet to a side street to turn around, slammed his truck into reverse, and in the 20 seconds it took to do all that, he totally forgot he had a trailer in tow. I watched him back-up and jack-knife that trailer, bending the tongue. I could not believe it. I spent the next hour in my yard, with the boat off the trailer and the trailer turned up on it's side, beating the tongue of HIS trailer out straight with a sledge hammer. Told him I didn't think it safe to tow in that condition, but he said he would wasn't going far and would go slow. And I didn't want the idiot leaving the boat and trailer in front of my place. People do stupid things.

Reminds me of my uncle, about 20 years ago he bought a trailer - then proceeded to smash it into about 15 mailboxes because it was wider than his little truck. :laughing:

 

[BWSSR]

...just a thought..a bar tender fixes a drink, the waitress takes it to the customer....the customer leaves drunk, hits and kills someone..the bar tender goes to jail...he was at fault...this can apply to the welder here, even if he built it to the owners specs...right or wrong. Now back to the bar...why wouldn't the waitress who serves the drink be liable? The bar tender has no clue on who the customer is, or if he?she is drunk...but the waitress does!