Two more terms - Deep Vee and "Cow Catcher"
"Wayne.B" wrote:
How much did you save by building the trailer yourself? Nice job but
it looked like a lot of work.
We won't have saved much money. Someplace between $0 and $1000.
Below is a long history of our trials and tribulations trying to get someone
to
sell or make us a trailer. The short story is: Even with all the work we had
to
put into it this was the easier route. AND we got a trailer that is EXCATLY
custom to our boat. It's nearly perfect and a very simple & clean design.
- - -
Our boat is a little unusual for a trailered boat. It has the prop and
a skeg hanging below the boat. Accommodating these on an "off the
shelf" trailer would likely have meant that the boat would set quite
high. Lots of ski-boat trailers would have been perfect...except our
boat is much heavier and longer. We did not find any trailer
manufacturer that wanted to work closely with us to figure it
out so the boat would set low to the ground.
We looked. We visited many dealers and some mid-level manufacturing
places. One place we visited is 1.5 hour drive each way. We had an
appointment
with them. Called to confirm the day before. When we get there the guy says,
"Oh,
we're short handed today. I can't spend but 5 minutes with you." Plus the
only
trailer that might have worked for us was under a stack of 5 other trailers.
We
asked, "Can we look around your yard here and get some ideas?" Nope,
that's
against rules. - - - Yea, thanks for having us drive out here for nothing
Another dealers: Oh we can help you. Talked to us for 40 minutes. Took down
our type of boat. What our concerns were (that the boat set low). Etc. Very
slick salesman like people. Said they'd look into it and call us. Ok,
great.
Never any call. I called them. Oh, yes, well call you back. No call.
THEN WE LOOKED INTO CUSTOM WELDERS...
GUY #1: Recommended to me by someone here was very nice on
the phone and was interested in our concerns that the boat set low...
but was 700 miles away and had never actually built boat trailers.
GUY #2: Builds BEAUTIFUL trailers and would have only cost
about $500 more than we'll have spent. We had an agreement with him
to build us one. But then he stopped returning any calls. We did nothing
to cause that. Asking around I hear he's like that. Probably because he
used to do lots of custom one-off trailers but now gets contracts for
50 at a time. I understand that. But why agree to build us one and then
not return our calls??
GUY #3: I went to his shop south of Boston. He agreed he could do one
and was to send me an estimate. 8 weeks and many unreturned phone
calls later I gave up on him.
GUY #4: We visited him the first time (hour drive each way). His trailers
looked
kind of "ugly" and we weren't thrilled by the design, but he was pretty
inexpensive
and it looked like it would do the job. He said he could start in 4 weeks.
When we visited the second time two weeks later (to bring him templates of
our boat) he said it would be another 4 to 6 weeks out. So we asked him if
he
wanted a deposit to hold that date. He said no.
When we visited him the third time (to bring another template that we had
forgotten
the previous time) we asked him if he'd mind signing a paper I'd listed out
details
on. He looked at it. Good thing I'd had the list. He was going to paint the
trailer his
usual green even though we'd asked him for black. I also had an "on our
about" date
and he looked and said he'd already booked other work and so could not start
until
about 6 weeks after what we'd agreed on.
This felt like we were being pushed around. We left a deposit anyway.
On the ride home we decided to ask for the check back and cancelled the
order.
Good thing we did. A few weeks later we visited a guy that restores boats.
He told us
(no prompting from us) that he's bought many trailers from this guy. But
that many of
them have had problems such as: Wiring was wrong. Wheel bearings were not
packed with grease so the hubs overheated when dragging the trailer home and
.......the best one.....when the boat weight was set onto the trailer the
fenders
came down and rubbed on the tires!
No wonder he was cheap.
BY THE WAY.......We're fairly easy going people...I think. We have a couple
of definite
concerns (mostly that the boat set as low as possible). But we're always
pleasant.
We have the money to spend on this. I really don't think we drove all these
people off.
What I think is that this boat/trailer is a little unusual. I think the
people selling "off the shelf"
stuff just didn't find it worthwhile to want to think through our issues
with us. I think there
aren't that many people doing custom welding that have experience with boat
trailers. The
few that do are either busy or not that good.
I've talked to a few boat restorers. Many seem to have the same problems.
- - -
SO, we decided to weld our own. It's almost perfect. It fits the boat
perfectly. It supports
the boat EXACTLY under the stringers. I'm quite certain it will be a cinch
to load the
boat on because we've designed it to almost self-center the boat. The tongue
weight will
(I'm pretty certain) be exactly what we want. It is very sturdy. The boat is
setting as low as
it possibly can. Any lower and the prop-guard would be closer to the ground
than we'd want
it to be.
It was a lot of work but also a fun project. Double Plus: Another point of
pride.
I've got half a mind to start building custom trailers. But I'd either need
a bigger shop and lots of
equipment or else I'd have to charge $10,000 per trailer. (Not for costs but
for all the work involved.)
Gary
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