Tale of three trailers is now complete....

[khier]

.... Well, a sort of.... The trailer hitch is still under construction. 

What started as a quick project to relief some of the frustration of the Lamborghini LP 500 never ending story turned out to be a lot of work in itself. 

I started initially with a multi piece body to achieve some degree of modularity. This was found to be a major printing headache. Different parts deform differently and create more room for flaws. Moreover, the joints were flimsy and needed kit design enhancement. Therefore I decided to start from scratch again, reinforcing the parts wherever possible. I haven't printed any of the models yet, but based on experience it looks a sturdy design. 

I have a soft spot for tiny trailers, so I started with a 2000mm design. That would be exactly 80 mm in 1/25. But since Hasegawa and Revell 1/24th models were intended as towing cars, my engineer's mind derailed immediately and stretched the trailer to 2400 mm and 3600 mm, meaning 100 and 150 mm in scale.

After everything was finished I discovered I made the trailers as RHD. Not a big deal though as the STL data can be easily mirrored before printing.

Here are the pictures of the digital models. Photos of the physical models will follow once available. I hope you like them.

[stitchdup]

nice work, I'm sure i'll be printing some of these fairly soon for some of my veedubs

[khier]

9 minutes ago, stitchdup said:

nice work, I'm sure i'll be printing some of these fairly soon for some of my veedubs

 

 

It is helpful to receive feedback from various sources. By this way I can correct errors and handle shortcomings.

Edited August 5, 2023 by khier

[stitchdup]

2 minutes ago, khier said:

 

 

It is helpful to receive feedback from various sources. By this way I can correct errors and handle shortcomings.

i'll send you a pm

[TarheelRick]

Some nice looking trailers. One suggestion is to move the axles a bit rearward.  It may be the way they are presented in the photos, but each one appears to be too far forward, which would make the trailer almost impossible to tow and would cause them to sit tail-down nose-up when disconnected.  As a former welder I have built a few trailers and that was a mistake I made on the first one.

[khier]

4 hours ago, TarheelRick said:

Some nice looking trailers. One suggestion is to move the axles a bit rearward.  It may be the way they are presented in the photos, but each one appears to be too far forward, which would make the trailer almost impossible to tow and would cause them to sit tail-down nose-up when disconnected.  As a former welder I have built a few trailers and that was a mistake I made on the first one.

This is the prototype I wanted to model:

 

https://www.dub-box.com/

[stitchdup]

10 hours ago, TarheelRick said:

Some nice looking trailers. One suggestion is to move the axles a bit rearward.  It may be the way they are presented in the photos, but each one appears to be too far forward, which would make the trailer almost impossible to tow and would cause them to sit tail-down nose-up when disconnected.  As a former welder I have built a few trailers and that was a mistake I made on the first one.

these trailers are only for rear engined vws. all the weight for the van is at the back so the wheels have been moved further forward to keep the balance in the centre of the combo. if the wheels were further back the steering would be far too light to be safe as all the weight  of the trailer would be pushing down on the rear of the van. keeping the wheels centred on the trailer relieves this and makes it easy for people that cant reverse to move the trailer. it would be garbage on a front engine vehicle as the balance would be off

[khier]

I said the tale ended. This was not true. 

I spent some time test printing the parts (many thanks to Bill Geary/Mr. Obsessive for assistance). The outcome yielded major design revisions.... Again....

I tested single body and separate roof designs. Each has it's pros and cons as far as the printing and finishing are concerned. 

I found also I have to change the chassis design removing tiny parts from the main structure as they tend to break easily.W

Well, that was all for the time being. 

Edited February 2, 2024 by khier