Al Horse trailer

[robt]

I want to build an Al 3 horse trailer for my daughter. I have been scooting under some trailers to see different materials guys are using.Side rails and crossmembers, channel or square tubing? 1/4 3/16 5/16 wall. i have a plan but no material recommendations ...just get me in the ballpark

[DaveO]

i have a plan but no material recommendations

A plan that does not include materials specs? Is this a formal set of plans that you bought?

A trailer is a fine project, though in some eyes it may be ambitious. Generally, commercial trailer outfits can buy materials in quantity and get a price break so deep they can sell you a complete trailer, including labor, for less than you can buy the materials at retail. Not to discourage you from taking the project on, because I get the "I've always wanted to do this" or "labor of love" idea, just interested to know if you've thought it through those dimensions.

[Rambozo]

The design will dictate the material strength required. Keep in mind one thing, with tubing you can have internal corrosion that go unseen until something fails. With C channel you can inspect everything from time to time to catch things before they become problems. I would guess that horse urine is corrosive to most materials. Calculating the strength required depends on the load and the bending moment of the beams used. The math is not difficult, and there are online calculators that make it simple and have libraries of common materials to plug the numbers in, for you. Horses are rather heavy and have small footprints, so you can consider them something of a point load rather than a distributed load. Also they can't be strapped down like other loads, so there will be a moment of inertia to contend with.

[robt]

The plans I have are for a metal trailer which I built and worked great. But 2x2 3/16 angle in metal needs to be what in Al to be the same strength? Thats my conversion prb...and if I just go "a lot bigger " leads to overbuilding in my case .I need the engineered approach that Rambozo is suggesting...I'll look for those calculators ...thanks. I was just hoping some of the guys on here had build larger aluminum trailers and could lend their experiences.