Great Day For Fabricating

Bottom left in the photo above are four 1-1/2" couplings. I'm going to bore them out for a slip fit over the piece of 1-1/2" pipe I'm going to use for my axle. Originally, I was just going to weld the wheel flanges on both ends after slipping the couplers on but I think now I'll get another coupler and weld it to the flange plate. If I had thought about it a little more, I wouldn't have cut the threads off the one end of the pipe. I could have just threaded the coupling on and off to make the axle removeable easily enough. Now I'll get another coupling, bore it out, weld it to the flange, and then fasten it to the axle with some set screws. Definitely should have thought it through a little more before I started. 

The pipe I'm planning on using is about 3" short of what I need. The little stub on the right above is the piece I'm going to weld on to stretch the axle pipe. It's sitting on the jig I made for splicing tubes, pipes and shafts. The bottom of the angles have a flat milled on them so a clamp will have something to grip. The gap between the top angles allows me to reach in and tack the two pieces together in three or four places so the splice will come out straight after welding. It's a handy little gizmo to have for this sort of thing.

I finished most of the fab work on the trailer yesterday afternoon. I still need to weld in a couple of angles to support the wheel chock. Those will get welded in between the first two crossmembers. I ordered a coupler, jack and some "D" rings. I'm heading uptown today to see about some shocks and replacement bushings. I'll be making a trip to the lumber yard in a couple of days to pick up some 1x4s to replace some trim boards on the shack. I'll get a piece of plywood and some self-tapping screws while I'm there for decking. I haven't decided on sides yet. I need to figure that out and weld some stake pockets on before painting and decking. If I was to get really ambitious, I might have this project completely finished before the snow flies. However, there's work around the shack that's more pressing than the trailer right now.