Trailer Building - The Barge: Part 1

Roody asked me if we could fix the trailer he's had since he was a toddler being towed behind his dad's bike. Not a problem, just a simple bend and re-tack job, right? Well, he and his partner are planning a bike tour starting in Florida, going up the east coast, all the way to New York this spring/summer. So, why not make a BETTER trailer for months of heavy duty touring on the road?

   Rudy and I made a deal that I'd take the job, and he'd assist in the building process, and with another job I've got lined up.

   Starting with a with a skeleton of a frame, we drafted a plan using two more u-shaped tubes we had at our disposal. This way we could add a second dropout outside of the wheels, to reinforce the axles, and add a cross beam near the rear. Using canvas, we'd make a flat bed 'barge' trailer to transport a dog and camping gear.


   After drafting the plan, we started cutting the tubing we were going to use for the outer bars. Also, we picked out a couple of old forks to cut the dropouts and weld them to the frame.

    Next came mitering with a hole saw on an industrial drill press. I made some jigs to clamp the tubing to the press plate, and in the vice to keep it in place for filing. We filed down our miters with wide round files to get nice tight fits with our tubing. As it goes, we'd have to check the fits and re-file several times to get it right where we wanted it. Once we got the outer tubes fit, I tacked those into place.

   Fitting the dropouts came next. We decided to extended them a few inches since the trailer was originally made to sit flat on 26" wheels and we were building it to fit 20"s.

   To finish off the day, we set up a dummy axle using a length of all-thread, and set our dropouts into place. After checking all the measurements twice, I tacked them all into place and we called it a day.

  In the next sessions, we'll finish the welds, clean it up, and paint it!

[to be continued...]