Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Building a trailer from a kit...part 1

At 5:30 today I began my venture. I bought a 4'x8' trailer to haul my pictures to arts & craft shows. Hopefully I can make a buck or two with it!

The kit came in two boxes, and the wheels were separate.




After opening the boxes, and extracting the parts, I decided this wouldn't be too difficult. So I start with step one...assembling the front half. The rail parts are tube steel and angle iron. Many pieces are exactly the same, I'm sure for ease of mass-production. I lay the parts out, start putting the bolts and nuts together...and realize I have a piece backwards. Grr...ok, no biggy...four bolts..I unscrew them, turn the part around, and replace the bolts. Being careful not to over-tighten and make it out of square, I finally get them replaced.



On to step two...adding the braces. Not a problem, right? Yea, keep telling yourself that. I got all four of the braces on, loosely, and realized that to install the tongue, the pre-fab holes didn't line up just right. OK, I start taking the nuts back off the bolts, look at the diagram again, take a couple more bolts off, THEN realize I had it right to start with!! ARGH!! So I put them all back together the way I had them to start with.



By now, both of my index finger's knuckles are ripped and bleeding. So I got the first half done, and have yet to curse. So I guess I'm doing ok.



BUT....(there's always a but)...I go into the restroom to wash my hands, turn the water on, pump soap into my hands, and start rubbing them together. Was that hand soap in the pump bottle? You guessed it...NO! It's hand sanitizer. You know, the alcohol based gel that LOOKS like soap in a bottle!! Yea, so now I am barely 35% done with the assembly of the trailer, AND my knuckles are burning like alcohol in an open wound! WONDER WHY!?!

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