all right we're finally back at it i'm finally going to make some more youtube videos
about the trailer builds the new project which i'm excited to announce a new series
starts with this trailer frame right here so now i'm going to be building a new camper i wanted to
document the process from start to finish try and get as much detail as possible so anyone who has
questions can kind of get them answered in those videos so today's video is going to be part one of
who knows how many and it's going to be about picking your trailer frame so this is the trailer
frame i picked right here i know not everyone is going to go and buy a brand new trailer
or get it custom made so i kind of wanted to go through a couple of options of different trailers
that people might want to get one of them is a bolt together trailer you can find
these at places like harbor freight they are your cheapest your lowest barrier to entry for getting
a trailer frame that's functional they're going to be good to get you on the road but there's a lot
of things to think about with those it's nice that you don't have to have welding skills you can just
kind of bolt everything together but you got to remember that the tires that they put on those are
rated for like 45 miles an hour the axle is not the strongest it's not the strongest frame either
it will get you on the road and it will help you get get started on your build next option would
be go to go somewhere like home depot and buy a utility trailer from them it's kind of similar
to what i did with my first trailer i just went to a manufacturer and bought a model off the lot that
model had a rail around the outside and a couple other things i had a deck on it i removed all
of that i removed the rail and when i removed the rail it really diminished the strength of
the trailer so i had to make a couple of changes which you might be able to see back here i had to
re-wrap the tongue um so when i took that off the railing off it really weakened it and by putting
on new supports along the bottom of the trailer that really is going to help make that trailer
strong and be able to go off-roading and really be able to carry our trailer um our camper well
so you can go to a big box store you might need to cut off that railing get it reinforced or you
can leave the railing on kind of how we did in our past build um i'll link to that above so you can
kind of see what we did before and we just left that railing on which was totally okay and even
you can take off your camper and use your trailer for whatever you need to so that's a good option
for a lot of people and that was what i originally wanted to do was be able to have a camper that i
could pull off use the trailer for work put the camper back on i ended up realizing that it's
not that easy to take the camper on and off so i decided to just make dedicated camper trailers
um that's what we're doing here the next option would be to do a diy weld yourself trailer there's
a couple things here you could go right from the beginning you could cut all of your own pieces
build your own thing there's a lot of plans online and youtube videos for how to do that but i would
suggest if you don't have a lot of familiarity with metal work you might be able to get a kit
that has pre-cut metal for your entire build and that's from somewhere called overlandtrailer.com
uh he has a youtube channel here he gets those kits sent out to you so then you just have to
weld it together um you don't have to do any of the cutting which makes it a little bit easier
when you're building your your trailer as a little side note here mark has some great information
on both his website and his youtube channel so head over there if you have any questions or if
you're interested in this weld it yourself option he's really got plenty of information and help on
his channel check it out you could also get a custom build which is basically what this cam
this trailer right here is i knew what i wanted i went to the manufacturer they do custom builds and
i said i want the same trailer that i had before without the railing on the sides without a deck
without any like utility hooks on it and i need to have a wrapped tongue so it's nice and strong
they still put the 3 500 pound axles on there for me i looked into putting jeep fenders on my
trailer but decided against it because they were going to be very expensive from that manufacturer
but they did throw in a really nice set of tires that alone was like 700 that they just kind of
threw in for me really great model based model trailer that i can build on top of so that's going
to be the new model for the trailer so some things to think about when you're getting your build
together you're going to want to think about what kind of fenders you want do you want jeep fenders
do you just want cheap circular fenders like these ones you're also going to want to figure out what
kind of axle you want i just go heavy duty 3 500 pound axle so you have to think about that
um a 2000 pound axle would probably be just fine but since i know i'm going down rugged roads
maybe a little off-roading i decided to go with 3 500 pound axle some other things that you're
going to want to consider when you're picking out your frame model are your lights so this one has
lights on it already but i'm also going to be wiring lights up into the camper itself so that
will have rear lights up on the camper as well hopefully that makes it a little safer and nicer
also you're going to want to think about what kind of jack you want they put on just a normal tongue
jack here i'll be taking it off and putting a swivel jack on i think that it's a lot better
for going down bumpy roads and if i go through a little valley or something i'm not going to be
scraping the bottom of that um jack on there which i did with my old trailer and ended up
taking that jack off and putting a swivel jack on you're also gonna wanna think about your tires
i really highly suggest getting at least some basic radial tires that are rated for highway
travel that way you can go faster than 45 miles an hour you don't want to be caught going 70 miles
an hour on 45 mile per hour rated tires having a blowout and maybe potentially having an accident
be safe pick the right tires pick the right axle make sure your trailer frame is strong and is
going to hold up for your built so with that i'm going to dig in real quick we'll
just take a little tour around my trailer so when he first gave it to me the manufacturer
had a deck on it i told him i was going to pull it off but he said in order for me to sell it to
you i have to have a deck on it he he was kind of worried about his own liability so he sold
it to me with the deck i'm taking it off and i'm building straight in where that deck was before
so just basic fenders on here as you can see there just pretty basic fenders some nice rugged tires
so they're pretty good beefy tires um and they're definitely better than the ones i
had before but um the ones i had before were also they work just fine as i was telling you this has
a wrapped tongue on it now so the the support that goes all the way from the tongue out there comes
all the way back here to the fender so that's that bottom piece that's what you're looking for when
you have a wrapped tongue and that support needs to come all the way back to the fender so here's
my jack that i'll be removing i'll be putting on a swivel jack on the side here that's the base
of my trailer so i'm going to be building straight in here right on top of these supports right here
i'll be putting my trailer right on these ones and i should be able to make it look really clean
like it was made for a camper so thanks again for watching this video i'm excited
for the new series of how to build a square drop camper um overland camper
very similar to my last one but this one will be uh kind of exactly what i want i figured out a lot
of things with the last build and now i can put it on this new camper trailer my other camper will be
for rent for sale if somebody wants to buy it i'm really excited to get that out and maybe
take a couple of adventures with friends where they can take that and my wife and i can take
our new camper so look out for new videos in the coming days here in the next week or so i should
have a video building the base of my camper how i'm attaching it to the trailer itself
also keep an eye out for videos for our new camp or our old camper that's been newly wrapped i am
putting together a little video of how i wrapped that why i chose to remove the raptor liner and
put aluminum liner on there and then also what i'm doing to fix up this trailer to get it ready
to look good for for the field camper thanks so much for watching today guys i hope to see you
in the next video really soon i appreciate all the support if you can subscribe to our channel if you
haven't subscribed already we really appreciate that and we hope to see you in the coming videos
you