Almost There

What with my truck being sidelined and having other things to take care of I fell off on my schedule to get my horse trailer finished. I'm almost there. I have finished all the sheet metal work and primed and painted the interior. I'll be painting the exterior this weekend. The uprights and the main frame of the roof was fabricated from 14 Gauge 1 1/2" square tubing, and the roof bows were made using 1" 14 Gauge square tubing. A diagram is shown after the break.

I used 14 Gauge material to cut down on overall weight and 22 Gauge sheet steel for the same reason. I used 6013 sticks to weld the tubing. I didn't have any significant burn through and the welds held up well during destructive testing of a test piece. I like to test my welding choices for soundness using a test piece specifically fabricated for that purpose. If the tube piece fails in bending before the weld does my choices were sound. The roof bows were fabricated from 1" square tubing as mentioned. I tried a piece with a 7 inch radius but I felt when I looked at it in place it just didn't go with the angular theme I already had on the chassis. In fact it started to look like a pill bug. I went with a angled roof look and the dimensions of the roof bow is shown in the next drawing.

The uprights were 80" long giving a total height of 7' 7" to the top of the roof. This gives an inside height of 7' 6" which is a good height for horses over 16 hands high. The dimensions were also chosen such that a full (4' x 8') sheet of 22 Ga. steel would just come to the bottom of the circumferential upper frame. All of the sheet steel was attached to the frame using 3M VHB Tape. Though this was my first use of that system to attach sheet steel, it holds well. The attachment order and placement has to be spot on. If you misalign something it's not coming off, I know I tested a piece. I clamped and strapped all the pieces for 24 hours to give the VHB tape time to build it's strength in the bonding process. A photo of the interior is shown below. 

I've got some clean-up to do, some woodworking, and the finish electrical. I'm going with a retro sort of look so it will have wood sides in the horse stall area, and a wooden deck covered with rubber mats. The exterior paint scheme will be a Burgundy gloss from the late 40's. I hope to be hauling those boys soon. I have some interesting excursions planned.