trailer frame steel

Dec 15, 2005 6 Replies

I have access to an old detroiter trailer. Its about



60ft long and made about day 6 of genesis.

Its trashed but I was wondering if the steel frame has much value of a raw material for future projects.



It looks like a very light i-beam.



Does anyone have any experience in using this material? Is i like rebar, just an unknown mix? Is it weldable



etc etc



Al


If you don't want it, you can cut it up and stack it up in my iron pile. It should be a better grade of steel than re-bar due to the loading requirements on the frame. Shouldn't be problem for anything you want to build. Just remember that it's going to lose its cold rolled temper when you heat it up with a welding torch. Just design for non-structural applications. Same reason it's not kosher to weld on car frames. It can lead to joint failure. Bugs

Depending on HOW OLD it really is, the frame could be good old mild steel or some of the newer HSLA grades and may or may not be heat treated. One thing to keep in mind is that trailers have been flexed for a lot of miles. That adds up to a lot of work hardening, fatigue spots, etc.

I'd probably treat it as a notch better than generic rebar, noth> I have access to an old detroiter trailer. Its about

According to RoyJ :

Does work hardening from flexing explain the angle recovered from old bed frames? :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

I guess I should have said mobile home. It has been gutted and used as storage for a long time. It had a fire and has since be used to store kitchen garbage by the previous owners of the property. The fire didnt effect the steel siding so I guess it was not a big one.

I'm just balancing the work of hauling all the trash to the dump.

Al

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