Homemade ABS dolly

G

Goonie

Guest
Hey,
I took some pictures of my homemade ABS dolly. I have pictures of all the key components. I have only scanned one. I will scan more tommorow. Got to go to hockey now.

More to come... Stay tuned!


Laser+Dolly.jpg
 
Looks nice!

How did you make the bow-fitting?
(the piece that fits under the rolled hull/deck joint at the bow)

Cheers,

Geoff S.
 
John D.E. has a pretty good set of plans and drawings for this at
http://www.jdecm.com/laser/dollies.htm - The bow section is series of reducers for pipe dia and elbows for 90 degree turns.

I made the same dolly last year from John's plans, but in the NorthEast US, I could not find Black PVC pipe, I have a feeling it is stronger then the white piping I used. The problems I had all occured in the joints or fittings

I had a number of problems with the dolly once I started to use it on a beach. The PVC piping broke first at the joint under the bow. I removed the V section and just went with straight pipe, no joints from the axle section to the bow. That solved that problem. One of the upright supports broke at the bottom joint to the rear beam (the large pipe that contains the axle) - I replaced that and it lasted a few more weekends. I gave up when the other support broke as well, in the same joint.

I ended up buying a Seitech.......

Mine was used all the time in salt water, and it was hard to find a rim for the tire that wasn't steel, I finally found a plastic rim with a high enough load rating and wide enough tire for beach use that cost $10 per side at Northern Tool. I think the total cost of all piping, joints, wheels was somewhere between 80 and $100 US, by the time I was done splicing in new pipes from the axle beam to the bow.

I'm not positive, I think the fittings get more brittle as the tempature goes down, as my problems occurred during frostbite season in CT. If I had to use the dolly again this year, I was going to wrap/reinforce all the joints with fiberglass straping tape (the 1" or 2" stuff that is occasionally used to seal and wrap boxes for shipping) - I felt this might have had a good chance of preventing the joint from breaking due to the loads.

I also found you had to pad or wrap the support post and T joint that supports the hull in the rear to keep from scratching the hull just under the hull/deck joint.

Last disadvatage I found was the fact you couldn't break the dolly down for transport - I have a van and can put the Seitech in side in pieces, and I also built the same trailer box that John D.E. shows in the above web page and can store the dolly in the box when it's broken down.

The other advantages of the PVC dolly, besides the cost though, is you NEVER have to worry about somebody borrowing your dolly, and you can ALWAYS find your dolly amongst the Seitech and Spootrides :)

Good luck with yours Goonie
 
The dolly is working great! If you are actually going to make one, I will post more pictures and post the design changes/upgrades we did.
 
It might not be until next week. Lots of work this week.
 
thanx thats a great looktn dolly do u have plans?
 
never mind i checked out that website and got plans

thanx again
 
Hi,
your dolly is looking pretty good!!
How did you get the wheels on/into the axletube? It will be great if you can give a picture to us sometimes.
Greetings from Europe
LooserLu
 
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