Welding has begun, the chassis is coming together! Every little step taking time and patience. These first steps have helped us understand the real time and effort this build is going to take - but it is exciting, even though there is so much to do!
The design has taken countless hours in coming together. Every detail being VERY important to the millimetre. Some of the finer details are still being sorted - which may not be wise since we have began building, but it's the way it is now.
We chose a Gaffa independent coil suspension from WA. Since we took delivery of the suspension we have read a few blogs about similar suspension builds failing. Thankfully we chose the Australian design and not the Chinese copy. Taking a closer look at these copies, they don't have the same welds and extra reinforcement that the Gaffa brand do. So we feel pretty confident ours will hold up.
Along with our suspension we ordered a Unitank water tank, also from WA - who kindly dropped off the tank to Martins Trailer Parts and it was all delivered on the same crate. For those health conscience organic freaks such as myself (Christine) we did check to see if the tanks had BPA in the plastic - they assured us they were BPA free - which was quite important to me as it will be a large proportion of our entire water source for quite a while.
It didn't take much time at all for Stephen to decide his welding expertise should be kept to the tacking and we hired an experienced welder to weld the structure of our new home together. Peter has been fantastic and has joined Stephen working close to midnight some evenings and on weekends.
A little frustrated this week as we've had a few hitches with the hitch plate and will organise take 3 early next week. Just a few millimetres out with cutting the holes just doesn't work! So, all being well next weekend the hitch will be attached, the hubs and brakes put together, wheels put on and the chassis should be rolling!! YAY!
Here a few photos of the progress so far ....
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| The very first weld/tack made by Stephen with Bill our friend and engineer looking on! |
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| The frame begins ... is that a boat you're building? |
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| Measure twice ... cut once. |
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| Peter our welder working hard ... Thanks Peter!! |
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| Suspension now on the chassis. Our eight year old daughter was looking at it strangely for a while and then with relief in her voice said "oh it's upside down" She was picturing that strange device on the inside floor of the trailer. |
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| Grinding for a smooth finish |
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| Following the design |
