Dump Trailer - start to finish

[GuglioLS]

As usual Larry, another cool project.

Thanks MJ,

I appreciate that from you, but not as cool as your hydraulic and electrical add-ons and mods. Your work is super sano and superior to what's on the space shuttle .
BTW, I'm flying into DIA next Monday for a Tuesday meeting in Golden. Any chance we could meet? I'll buy dinner. Is Simms Landing still there up on that hill? I think it might be called Simms Steakhouse now, is that right?

Larry

 

[GuglioLS]

Larry, finally a dump trailer that looks rugged and sturdily built!

I have seen several dump trailers damaged from over loading. There are sometimes stickers all over the trailers warning not to load more than xxxx pounds. However, when the owner is trying to move the most dirt or wood in the least number of trips, they tend to heap more and more on until it fails. I don't think you could overload yours except with lead or maybe wet cement.

Congratulations on a great project!

Yo Bob,

Thanks man, below are a couple of "overloaded" Pics of the trailer in action. First three are stump hauling, and of course I use the FEL to stack it as high as possible then use down pressure to pack it.



These are firewood hauling. My wife just love's the dump trailer overloaded with logs, see the smile on her face while she's splitting them?



And of course loaded with dirt piled just as high as I can get it:



Notice all the above pics the tailgate is not installed? Now that I know this trailer will hold up to my use, that's when I decided to add the tailgate.

Bob,
I don't have any lead bricks or wet cement to haul around and dump, but how about these barrels of lead flakes? does that count?

Larry

 

[o2batsea]

The only thing I would say is that the rear corners look like a potential weak area. It wouldn't take much to make mincemeat out of your precision gate assembly should some idjit mistakenly twink a corner inadvertently.
If you go by a model such as the good old Army M150 (or is it 105) trailers, they all have an external gusset that braces the sides. I'm sure you've though of this, but I just wanted to put that out there as a suggestion. My experience is that no matter how nice you make something it will get messed up with use.

 

[GuglioLS]

The only thing I would say is that the rear corners look like a potential weak area. It wouldn't take much to make mincemeat out of your precision gate assembly should some idjit mistakenly twink a corner inadvertently.
If you go by a model such as the good old Army M150 (or is it 105) trailers, they all have an external gusset that braces the sides. I'm sure you've though of this, but I just wanted to put that out there as a suggestion. My experience is that no matter how nice you make something it will get messed up with use.

o2,

Thanks for the gusset idea. I think I have a good understanding what your referring to. We shall see how this new "precision" (thank you very much) tailgate holds up over the long haul. You may have noticed from the above pictures, so far I've already used the heck out of this trailer. If I somehow manage to tweak the tailgate, then back to the drawing board for sure with the "o2batsea plan B" gusset reinforcement idea. I'm pretty sure though that if I tweak anything while hauling it with the dozer, the entire trailer will be a piece of scrap . At that point fixing the tailgate might be the least of my worries. This trailer was made from scrap to begin with, so it wouldn't be a total loss right?

Larry

 

[Iplayfarmer]

... This trailer was made from scrap to begin with, so it wouldn't be a total loss right?

Isn't there some scripture about that... "Ashes to ashes and scrap to scrap"

 

[SuperDuty335]

That may be the single coolest dump trailer in all the known world. Then again, what do you expect from a guy who services Inductivly Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometers (ICP-MS) and ICP Emission Spectrometers?

 

[o2batsea]

This trailer was made from scrap to begin with, so it wouldn't be a total loss right?

Well, the Mona Lisa is made from linseed oil and colored dirt. Good thing old Leo didn't toss it out with yesterday's linguini. Yes the trailer has quite a lot of value. It has a big investment in your time, the tools and consumables you used to build it, your years of experience and training, blah blah blah...

Who knows, maybe it'll be fine for the rest of your days or maybe you sell it to buy more scrap to make a new one with big honkin' rear corner posts made from 1/4 inch 3x3...

 

[GuglioLS]

Isn't there some scripture about that... "Ashes to ashes and scrap to scrap"

That's a real good analogy. I'm hoping it will outlast me, the way I live that shouldn't be a problem.

That may be the single coolest dump trailer in all the known world. Then again, what do you expect from a guy who services Inductivly Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometers (ICP-MS) and ICP Emission Spectrometers?

Ha! Thanks for the generous compliment, OK how did you know that? Last week I couldn't even spell ICP-MS, now IR one (inside acronym dumb joke for spectrometer repair techs)

This trailer was made from scrap to begin with, so it wouldn't be a total loss right?

Well, the Mona Lisa is made from linseed oil and colored dirt. Good thing old Leo didn't toss it out with yesterday's linguini. Yes the trailer has quite a lot of value. It has a big investment in your time, the tools and consumables you used to build it, your years of experience and training, blah blah blah...

Who knows, maybe it'll be fine for the rest of your days or maybe you sell it to buy more scrap to make a new one with big honkin' rear corner posts made from 1/4 inch 3x3...

Well good point, your right as usual. I suppose my attitude should be less caviler and give that trailer a little more respect. But hey that's what I thought I was doing when I gave her a tailgate makeover, give me a break, sheesh!



OK just so you know I'm human here is a little confession:
I once connected it to the dozer, loaded 6 FEL buckets full of dirt, hauled it up my logging road to fill in some washed out areas. When I dumped the load, the tong popped off the ball and she went caddywhompus. I soon realized I forgot to latch the hitch, DOH! The hydraulic lines still connected saved it from rolling back-wards down the hill slamming into rocks and trees, whew that was a close one. After my heart rate went back to normal a plan was worked out to get it re-connected and continue on as if nothing happened . Fortunately I was in the woods so only the squirrels and rabbits were laughing at me. I've since hunted all those varmints and their buddy's down .

Thanks guys! your the greatest for looking out for the best interest of my little pride and joy dump trailer

Larry

 

[elektro21]

I must say a great build!! I really enjoyed reading your thread about every detail and all the work you put into your dump trailer. One of these days I am going to embark on the same journey!

Just wanted to say we have a Spectrometer in our metallurgy lab at work and I actually got to use it a few times...really cool machine. I was surprised that you said you were a tech who worked on them knowing the guy who comes in and services ours from LECO..he does NOT seem like the fabrication mig welding type...ha!

I am hoping to also build a plasma CNC table...just wondering about yours. What are the specs? What table size, software (assuming A-CAD for drawing, Mach III for controlling? what Post processor?) etc... do you use?

Cheers!
Nate

 

[GuglioLS]

Nate,
Glad you enjoyed reading through this saga about my little dump trailer. I appreciate you compliments too. So when are you going to start yours? Getting started is half the battle, once you do that the rest seems easy by comparison.

"My" CNC plasma cutter is not mine. I operate it for my metal shop owner friend in my spare time. I do this as a favor and in trade to cut my project parts and also in trade for metal. It's a PlasmaCam 4'X4' table, stepper motor driven with an on board processor controlled by parallel port. The motors have a positional feedback encoder disk so it always knows where it's at and you get a cross hair on the computer screen showing the position of the torch. The drawing and operating software are also by PlasmaCam. Simple to draw basic stuff but when it comes to complex shapes I use A-CAD, save the file as a DXF then import into plasma cam. That process is straight forward and pretty much seamless. The big drawback in the drawing program is you cannot draw freehand like you can in MS paint. Of course A-CAD has no freehand drawing either so I think Corell Draw might be a better choice drawing artwork for plasma cutting.

That LECO spectrometer, is it a Glow Discharge Atomic Emission Spectrometer? I've seen there CHN (Carbon, Hydrogen and Nitrogen analyzer) and also their sulfur analyzer for steel and other metals and Oars. Great stuff for mining and metallurgy.


Larry