The thing has an open metal frame, so I had to built plywood sides when I bought it. Ten years+ later, the sides are rotting away. And the base is boards with spaces between them, so I've always had to put a tarp on the bottom to keep small stuff like sand and compost from falling out (and a tarp above to keep it from blowing away).
So it was time to rebuild! This time, I wanted rot-resistant (and higher) sides, a solid bottom, and more attached (but still removable) back. When the trailer is off the car, the front sits on a cinderblock so it tilts back (no worry about rain collecting inside).
So after sketching out various trailer side and bottom dimensions, I took the trailer to Home Depot (I needed it to haul new plywood home). I went for 1/2 pressure-treated (P-T) plywood 4x8' sheets. Home Depot changed a "no-cutting" policy on P-T wood last year or so to allowing it. They have a great sheet plywood cutting machine, but it's one free cut per sheet. I had fun figuring out the cuts (no seriously, I had FUN figuring out the cuts - I was good at geometry in school and I do some slight wood-working). I figured out a satisfactory way to do the whole thing with 3 sheets of plywood and only 1 Home Depot cut on 2 sheets. I would have had them do a cut on the 3rd sheet, but I needed to custom fit that cut.
Here are the BEFORE pictures...
Easier said than done! Some of those zinc-coated bolts and nuts were locked in place. Considering that some of them just loosened and fell out over the years, that was a surprise. (And for those of you in the know, I used lock washers and double nuts on all the bolts)
Thank goodness for Liquid Wrench!
1 comment:
Big project to undertake friend. Thanks for the intro to Liquid Wrench. That's a new one on my.
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