In this video, I'm building this trailer for my lawn tractor.
And, yes it is perfectly safe.
I want a trailer for my lawn tractor, and I've already,
kind of, jigged it up as something like this.
I found this rectangular thing already welded up.
These are wheels from an old lawn tractor,
and I just have to build the rest of it using some
bed frame angle irons that I picked out of the garbage.
These all have bits riveted on to them, like this.
So, I just have to grind those off.
This video is sponsored by Evolution Power Tools.
They sent me this saw for free.
The back axle is supposed to mount like this,
and that will really put my lack of welding skills
to the test.
There are, of course, welding magnets squares,
but I haven't seen a need for one of those yet.
It's now a week later, and I decided to optimize
my workspace a little bit. I changed where the chop saw is
on here, and I was messing around
with extension cords too much so I added an extension cord
with six plugs right here, and I also added
another socket here, so that should give me plenty of power
where I need it, and I also got some saw horses out
because working on the ground is not ideal.
You shouldn't wear short sleeves while welding,
but it was just too darn hot. Aside from a bit of
painful splatter, I also got a little bit of sunburn
on the inside of my left elbow, which is a bit odd.
But, I think what was happening is, my right arm,
I was wearing a glove on that, and it was also shielded
by the torch. But, the left elbow got a lot.
I also got a little bit of sunburn right here,
but that's gone now. What you don't see
in people's first-time welding videos, is a close-up
of the welds, but let me show you.
So, here's some of my initial welding joints,
and they look totally awful, but for this part here,
it doesn't really matter that much,
because it just pushes together, so even if the weld
were to fail, it's not gonna pop apart.
But, eventually I switched to
a 35 thou wire, instead of 30 thou wire,
maybe it was a different kind of wire, but after that
I was able to get some welds that actually
to me looked pretty decent. Now, I got to make a box
to go on top of here, and on a whim I decided to
angle the sides of it outwards a little bit,
like this, in both directions. This means I need
a compound miter on here, which the chop saw doesn't do.
But, I can get that compound miter, just by clamping
the angle iron in at a 45 degree angle.
I am totally loving how clean this saw cuts.
Now comes the challenge of how to jig this up at an angle,
while I weld it, so I made a wooden jig, of course.
I think that should work.
The way most of the corners for this top are,
there's actually four corners that need to bend
for one of them to bend, except for these corners here.
And, I don't have that much faith in my welding.
So, I'm gonna add these gussets in here.
Now I need to attach the hitch to the tongue of this trailer
And, I was thinking about how to attach it, and then I said,
"Why don't I just butt-weld it straight on?"
I just need to jig it up somehow.
I wasn't sure if the plating on the hitch would release
dangerous fumes, so I always held my breath for every weld.
The axle I'm using is just a piece of electrical conduit,
so I'm whittling down a piece of wood, and whacking that
into the ends, to give it a little bit of extra stiffness.
Now I need to mount the hitch-ball on here,
but it won't fit in this hole, but it also needs to be
about this height, so I want to make something
out of 3 pieces of steel, like this.
And, that will have a hole for this shaft
that I can pull back and forth. But, the problem is
this is a 5/8th inch shaft, and I just don't
have a drill that's big enough to drill in there.
So, I cut that hole with my plasma cutter,
and my plasma cutting pantograph.
This hitch turns out to be quite a puzzle to install, especially
because I had to a little hook on the bottom to keep it from
tilting upwards if I have negative tongue weight.
To get it on, first I have to slide the rod to the left,
poke it on the right, then slide it to the right,
lower it on the left, and then slide it to the middle
and put the cotter pins back on.
And, right after that, I used it to help me pick some apples.