Bridge beams

Brad Stone · 2003-08-24T23:18:36+00:00

Hi there, Sorry if this is the wrong group to ask this question. A person inanother group referred you guys to me. My dad and I have a small piece of land in the thick forests and hillsof east Texas and we have several trails in the woods for hikers,dirtbikers and 4-wheelers. We have built several small wooden bridgesto cross small creeks in the past but now we want to build one that's abit different. We want to build an arched bridge with no supports underneath (justsupported by the ground at both ends) - using two slightly curved metalbeams to span a small creek. Then we will use 2x8 treated planks tofinish out the bridge and we'll add hand rails too. We want to buildthis type of bridge because we really enjoy a similar type bridge herein the Dallas area that is on a bike path. We think this type of bridgewill look really cool in the middle of the woods. It only needs to beable to support 2 or 3 four wheelers at a time. Cars and trucks can'tphysically get to it due to the trees and we'll make the bridge toonarrow for them to fit on it anyway. It will need to be 35 foot long. But finding where to have the two arched 35 foot metal beams made isproving difficult - mainly because we really don't know where to beginlooking. A friend suggested that we should use steel 6-inch hollowsquare tubes. They would be strong and lightweight and we could drillinto it to bolt the wooden planks and wooden rails to it. Sounds good,but who would we contact (in the Texas area in particular) to make theseslightly arched "tubes" for us? I guess it would be cool if they couldmake them for us and then somehow cut them into 3 pieces so that wecould transport them more easily. I guess they would need to havespecial plates welded to them at the joints so that when we bolted themback together they would retain their smooth curve and still remainstrong at the joints.Thanks for any hints on who to contact for this!Brad Stone

Bridge beams

Aug 24, 2003 22 Replies

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Roy Jenson 22 years ago

Bendtec in Duluth are the big boys in this arena

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spite of their website, they will do some smaller jobs.

Their big bender will do 66" diameter, 6" wall pipe, any (larger) radius

Sven wrote:

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BillGeorge 22 years ago

Have you considered a cable suspension bridge of some sort? Seems like spanning a gully or creek bed for use by 4 wheeler ATV's or dirt bikes, using heavy steel cables top and bottom and anchored at both ends it would be perfect. Then just add planks for the floor. It would certainly give the guys/ gals a little more excitement than a plain old bridge!! B.G.

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Pete 22 years ago

We looked at something similar and found this small bridge company.

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Good luck

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