Building a Two Horse Trailer

I've decided I want a custom horse trailer. I want it as wide as allowed, and with as much head room and length as is feasible. As always I like to roll my own so this will be a fun build. A horse trailer poses an interesting design challenge. It needs to be light, yet strong, and needs to account for a shifting load. It also needs to be able to be hauled with your average pick-up truck.

I've hauled some interesting loads, but the worst is a live load that shifts around on you. On occasion my machismo has got the better of my common sense, "sure I'll give it a whirl" I've been heard to say. One such instance was a load of ostriches for someone I knew. I had no idea that ostriches, stamp, kick, fight, squawk like mad and in general carry-on during the trailering process. Getting the damn things in the stock trailer was my first clue as to the general wrongness of the proposition, but what the hell they're in there now so let's go.

On to the horse trailer. I started with a simple beam to give myself some basic design inputs. I did the original calculations myself but there are plenty of beam bending calculators out there on the web. For the design I used a total weight of 2500 pounds for my two horses, and a trailer weight of 2500 pounds. My initial design set-up looked like below. So this gives me a starting point and I then proceeded to a more detailed design which I will describe later.

Making a Lance

I have a supply of 1080 steel on hand to make points for a variety of bladed items. I like to use 1080 because it tends to be rather inexpensive, easy to work, and heat treats easily. As usual I heat the piece to the Austenite region and then for this steel, a water quench. I follow up with a low temperature (200 C) tempering cycle to stress relieve the steel while still maintaining a reasonably hardened piece. My most recent build was a lance.

I decided on a hybrid form of a Lakota War Lance, and a Zulu Assegai. The total length of the piece including the point is just short of 6 feet. It can be thrown or used from horseback to spear game. A picture of the blade joined to the shaft is shown. I only finished the point to a 320 grit as it will become scratched with use. For a darkened blade you could use a 3-5% Nital etch.

Anatomy Of A Pack Saddle

Making your own tack for your horses has a big upside. It's custom fit for the horse and the quality is as good as you can make it. I made the saddle for my pack horse and it's lasted for 12 years now and has seen all sorts of rough duty. Nothing has ever failed, and I don't ever expect it to. My saddle for my trail horse was made for me by a saddle maker I know since I don't have some of the equipment needed for the job. It too is custom fit and when you ride for days on end having a saddle that fits the horse and your backside well can be a blessing. This post is about how I made a pack saddle.

The first thing you need is a sewing machine that can accept heavy duty needles and thread and go through at least 4 layers of heavy weight duck canvas. I use duck canvas because it's relatively inexpensive, comes in a variety of neutral colors, and can be made water resistant or nearly water proof. A mixture of beeswax, and linseed oil makes for a good water resisting agent or you can use a silicone based commercial product.

Planetary Orbital Eccentricity Updated

In my previous post on the subject I mentioned how I didn't have the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit quite right yet. I have pretty much corrected that. The old data set and the new are shown below the break.

No not that Climatology

Well, back to writing some posts. A fellow I know needed me to help him move some cattle. That meant quite a bit of time in the saddle, and then hauling winter feed to the new location. Oh great I get to ride drag, and no that doesn't mean riding in women's clothes. It's where you get to smell the cow flatulence all day and eat dust for hours on end at the back of the drive.

I have worked with a lot of people over the years in what I call planetary sciences. This also includes atmospheric research. Over the years I have built a number of instruments and conducted experimental studies in support of this type of work so I naturally developed an interest in the subject. One aspect of this field is obviously the climate of earth both in the past and the present. The present day arguments over modern climate change don't hold much interest for me but the past or paleoclimate studies do. 

What Do You Believe?

Given our last election and some of the rather unusual events I thought I would create a mathematical model to explore this strange space. So the first thing to do is to express the thing in some form and see if it makes sense. An exponential model first comes to mind such as:

Explosives Applications: The Shaped Charge

One major use for explosives is in the oil and gas industry to complete a well. For a simple well the process is straightforward. The well is drilled, cased and then perforated. This involves inserting a length of tubing with a series of shaped charges along it's length into the cased well and setting off the charges that perforate the casing and the oil and gas bearing strata.

A shaped charge in its simplest form is nothing more than a metal cone surrounded by explosives. The charge is end initiated and the explosive collapses the conical liner into a jet of material that penetrates at very high velocity. The jet penetrates in the same manner as I previously posted about hypervelocity penetration. A model of a simple 65 degree angled shaped charge is shown in the first video. As the detonation proceeds up the charge the cone collapses inward in a symmetrical manner with an upwards momentum. At the collision point the cone coalesces into a jet of material that has a high velocity and has a final form of a long slender rod.