Outdoor Welding

There is also the matter of connecting them if I weld them in place. I'd probably have to make a 3 piece connecting tube/rod or put it on before I weld them in place. I'm thinking 3 pc connecting rod so I can add a sprocket later.

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Two separate unsprung wheeled jacks will only rarely share the tongue weight.

I increased the ground footprint of the retractable mast end wheeled jack on my shop crane by adding an outer pair of wheels on a longer axle. They no longer caster well so I made a steering handle that attaches to the axle and forces the wheels into line with my pull.

The first version had a hitch coupler on the end of the handle as a tow bar. That worked well going forward unloaded but transferred all the pull to the jack and its mount, and I couldn't back up, so the second version has a separate rigidly attached coupler and a tee handle to pull on the caster axle by hand but not with the tractor.

Most wheel jacks aren't rated for this much weight either.

Landing gear... one of the plans for the connecting tube assembly is snap pins rather than bolts or welding. Makes it dead easy to make sure both jacks contact the ground at the same time, or close enough.

While I didn't mention it in the original post I also plan to be able to stand on the drop foot, and then lift the front of the trailer higher than is normal when unhitched to facilitate some types of loading. There is already a tilt down support with drop foot in the rear to prevent back tipping when loading unhitched, or when hitched to a lighter truck.

I thought about chopping the tail and adding arched ramps, but it starts getting overly complicated. This is simpler from a fabrication standpoint, and I can keep using the straight ramps that slide into carriers on the bottom of the trailer.

I will need to pick my final weld-on height with the trailer hitched to the truck to make sure I have enough ground clearance when running in order to maximize everything else. I'd like to have about 12 inches clearance under the landing pads with the trailer level on the truck with a load. I'll probably just set them at 13 inches unloaded.

Most wheel jacks aren't rated for this much weight either.

Landing gear... one of the plans for the connecting tube assembly is snap pins rather than bolts or welding. Makes it dead easy to make sure both jacks contact the ground at the same time, or close enough.

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I don't quite get that.

There's also semi trailer landing gear, for a price.

That is a light duty variation of what I am doing. I'm using a pair of

I don't think I need anywhere near 24000 lbs of lift. A single 12000lb jack would be more than enough. It only had one before. I am going with duals for stability, and awkward jacked up high loading and unloading. I'd like to be able to drag a sedan up onto the bed. Now even to load a full size truck I have to add a timber to act as an arch to the ramps.

I also have a 3500lb electric winch I took off the trailer, that I plan to mount somewhere to to use as a chain drive for the connecting link. Its slow speed internal gearing should be just the ticket. If I need to hand crank I can put it in free spool or remove the master link in the roller chain. Why somebody built this goose neck and only put a 3500lb winch on it I'll never know. I suppose if they only used it for easy rolling loads it would be okay, but I found even the 9000 lb Warn winch to be marginal sometimes. This trailer is getting a 12000 lb Badlands for loading.

The Warn has been semi permanently mounted on a lower trailer.

Sorry, never uploaded that video to YouTube.

The other Badlands will eventually get put on a tow hitch mount or a bumper mount on my truck.

That is a light duty variation of what I am doing. I'm using a pair of

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I bought a motorcycle transmission output sprocket to drive the Kawasaki rear wheel on my sawmill, and didn't notice that it had 13 internal splines which made indexing the shaft cuts difficult. A 52 tooth change gear from the AA lathe solved the problem.

The sawmill head lift uses two bicycle sprockets connected with plated chain. Their Sturmey Archer style rounded drive lugs were also somewhat difficult to adapt to threaded shaft hubs, from measurement difficulties.

Interestingly, I welded on one jack one day using stacked weave tacks and it looks like it won't fall off. Couldn't get vertical up or vertical down to work at all. The next day I welded on the second jack with all the exact same settings and ran two 12 inch beads vertical up continuous. Neither looks like a pro welded it I am sure, but I don't think either jack will fall off. It was breezy both days, so MIG would have not worked at all.

Maybe it was a little breezier the first day? I don't know.

Interestingly, I welded on one jack one day using stacked weave tacks and it looks like it won't fall off. Couldn't get vertical up or vertical down to work at all. The next day I welded on the second jack with all the exact same settings and ran two 12 inch beads vertical up continuous. Neither looks like a pro welded it I am sure, but I don't think either jack will fall off. It was breezy both days, so MIG would have not worked at all.

Maybe it was a little breezier the first day? I don't know. Bob La Londe

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I like to divide weldments into manageable sections that bolt together, and disassemble to modify, repair or replace. This saves me from questionable out-of-position welds. The size limit for me is how large I can accurately drill or mill after welding.

In building custom industrial machinery there was a lot of manual alignment and drilling/tapping of bolt holes which is easy to do reasonably accurately with a set of transfer punches and a Portalign drill fixture (or freehand with practice). Taper and aircraft length drill bits in 1/8" pilot and optionally tap and shank sizes can avoid obstacles and span beam flanges. I've never needed a magnetic base drill.

Use bolts long enough to put the shank in the shear plane between assemblies for full strength. I assume the bolts aren't tightened enough to gain grip from friction between plates, and thus their shanks bear the full load and they are reusable.

I'm not sure how that is relevant to welding on a complete jack assembly to a complete trailer assembly. I guess I could have welded on flanges and then bolted the flanges together, or perhaps made up an assortment of plates and u-bolts and cut some holes in the deck to run the fasteners around the frame. I'll just have to live with my welds and see if they fall off.

I'm not sure how that is relevant to welding on a complete jack assembly to a complete trailer assembly. I guess I could have welded on flanges and then bolted the flanges together, or perhaps made up an assortment of plates and u-bolts and cut some holes in the deck to run the fasteners around the frame. I'll just have to live with my welds and see if they fall off. Bob La Londe

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It's about welding mounting plates to the legs while horizontal and then drilling instead of welding once they have been clamped in place on the trailer. I listed the simple equipment I use to locate and drill structural steel accurately enough by hand outdoors. If the welds you don't trust fail that might be the fix.

To a certain extent that is self deprecation, and to some extent I know what a "pretty" weld should look like. I really don't think 48 inches of weld will fail catastrophically all at once without warning causing both jacks to suddenly fall off under load.

I should atleast see some movement and hear some metal screaming as I run frantically to get out of its path.

Next is some real wheel chocks because I intend to use the jacks to tilt the trailer detached from the tow vehicle for loading. I thought I had some big plastic ones around, but they seem to have disappeared.

I am concerned my shade tree engineering may have been wrong and I may have to cut them off and reweld them higher. LOL. We shall see. That could also just be my inner pessimist.

I am concerned my shade tree engineering may have been wrong and I may have to cut them off and reweld them higher. LOL. We shall see. That could also just be my inner pessimist.

Bob La Londe CNC Molds N Stuff

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That's the sort of rework that convinced me to not do things I couldn't undo. To remind myself to at least think twice I put a pencil eraser on the end of my Xacto knife.

I've noticed very skilled machinists avoiding old fashioned freehand metal working like the plague, so I wrote that how-to in case you hesitate to try it. They left me those jobs, such as laying out and drilling hole patterns on sand castings.

Snag, Richard, Clare, Leon, Everybody... did I just read that right? Did he just call me a machinist?

I HAVE ARRIVED.

LOL

You been there quite a while now Bob ... don't let it go to your head .

Snag, Richard, Clare, Leon, Everybody... did I just read that right? Did he just call me a machinist?

I HAVE ARRIVED.

LOL

Bob La Londe

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You best not be so sensitive to what I call you.

Besides, I'm not a paying customer.

The closest I've ever been to being defined by a job description was probably communications contractor. I don't really think of myself as a machinist. Mold maker, maybe, but there is a lot of basic machining I only learn when I need it.

Bolts?? I don't need no F'n bolts. Bolts are for guys who don't know what they are doing and will need to replace/repair parts!!!

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I didn't need bolts either once past the prototype stage, spotwelding may be faster and cheaper. On a new project I almost never knew what I was doing until I studied the problem and built enough to experiment. That's the nature of R&D. Design for manufacture follows after confirming that the prototype works well. Often design engineers "throw it over the wall" to production engineers instead of collaborating. That's why I learned machining processes and limitations.

In the mid 1970's there were no experienced automotive electronic engineers, they were all new hires learning practical matters they hadn't in school by trying to keep up with changing government safety, emissions and fuel economy regulations that sometimes conflicted. 5 MPH bumpers added weight, the best economy setting turned air into nitric acid pollutant. The intake air flow and exhaust oxygen sensors were from chemical instruments I was familiar with.

A group of auto execs flew into Boston and drove over an hour to central NH with a warning buzzer blaring because they didn't know how to silence it. When they arrived we earned confidence (future orders) by unplugging the buzzer and disconnecting the load switches under the seats. They were contracting time-critical projects to a very small company in a state not widely known to be so high tech.

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The link to "BusinessBalls tree swing cartoons" shows how far a project could go astray in Britain. It's getting that way here too, depending on which party is in power and the opposition's resentfulness, currently very high.

Segway posted prints of how cartoonists imagined "feature-creep" of the project. Engineering was small and multi-tasking enough to avoid compartmental division that causes the very real coordination issues mentioned in that article.

Segway engineers had a CNC lathe and mill to make samples of what they designed, unlike the auto factories with their strict union rules. I often had to take a machining project home (and charge the time) because the CNC was tied up. My older model shop sized machine tools are easier to use on scribed layouts. jsw