Renze
Elite Member
I'm in the trailer business for a living, and i'm with Keeney: We do sell trailers with aluminium decks and superstructures if the customer wishes, but all our frames are steel.... Aluminium is too prone to fatigue cracks, and its a pain to weld it. If you weld a crack in a steel trailer and patch it with a piece of flatbar, it will work guaranteed. If you patch a crack in an aluminium trailer, the wled to hold the patch plate to the frame, will weaken it so much that new cracks come around te welds of the patch plates.
Aluminium works perfectly even in horse wee, as long as you use chemically anodised aluminium. Just anodised needs extra surface treatment when you want to paint it.
Another thing to concider is that aluminium is prone to scratching because its so soft.... how will it look like after some time, when some horse hoofs have skimmed it for some time ???
If i had a customer who insisted on lightweight, i would advise using a high tensile steel frame (like Domex 700 which has 3 times the tensile strength and a much higher fatigue limit due to the fine grained structure) with an aluminium superstructure. But thats just my 2 $ct
Aluminium works perfectly even in horse wee, as long as you use chemically anodised aluminium. Just anodised needs extra surface treatment when you want to paint it.
Another thing to concider is that aluminium is prone to scratching because its so soft.... how will it look like after some time, when some horse hoofs have skimmed it for some time ???
If i had a customer who insisted on lightweight, i would advise using a high tensile steel frame (like Domex 700 which has 3 times the tensile strength and a much higher fatigue limit due to the fine grained structure) with an aluminium superstructure. But thats just my 2 $ct
