TRT Widening trailer

[Hessel]

In Australia and New Zealand they have al kinds of trailers. Real special are the widening trailers. After finding some real nice pdf drawings I decided to develope one of these trailers. It is a quad axle trailer with 4x8 wheels. This meant I had to figure out how to get these wheels. In the future I want to make a 2 axle widening dolly as well so I needed 48 wheels without any spare ones. The solution: I had them 3D printed.

During the time it took to develop the thing I discovered a model in scale 1:50 of a Drake-trailer. Mine is from TRT.

This is the model of the Drake trailer.

And now some pics of the developed trailer and the tire spread out.

And some details

And the developed wheels, rims and tires are separate parts.

All the parts are CNC milled and I'm working on the assembly of them.

Hessel

[bigred63]

Can't wait to see to see the finished model.

[richellis]

Ill be watching this progress, I saw this style trailer on telly being used in Australia (Heavy Haulage Australia)

[truckabilly]

It looks like a great project. I am looking forward to seeing the progress too.

[Tony Bryan]

Great project, TRT in New Zealand are mainly into fire engine bodies, and make trailers as a second business, even though they make a nice trailer, and are more than happy to share there drawings, I don't think they are exported to Australia, but one company from New Zealand does, and that is modern transport engineers

They build a similar trailer for heavy haulage here in Australia, and is used by companies such as Heavy Haulage Australia, Lampson's etc, The trailer was originally designed for Lampson's, to carry this crane, and is 5 rows of 8, extendable swing wing with 2x8 widening dolly, the whole unit is designed for 130ton

Here is a pic

This really caught my eye when I first saw it, and am also drawing this in cad to have cnc cut in 1/16th,only the detailing left to go I have all the assembly pictures, and had a tour of there factory when they where assembling another for Lampson's

They run a similar hydraulic suspension as you have design, this may help, the hydraulic ram is inside the frame on the right, and pivots on the left in the frame itself

Dolly in the back ground, (jeep as it is known in the States), and the idea behind the Hydraulic goose neck and suspension is to be able to lift the trailer over small obstacles

Your project is a fantastic one, I like that you are doing something from the bottom of the word, or top, depends how you look at it, and really look forward to seeing your progress, and what rig you come up with to haul it

Auslowe also make a nice rim that you could use for this, they cast the tyres in rubber and the rims in resin

Have fun

[Bennyg]

Nice.

Ben

[kilrathy10]

This is one very ambitious project....I'm intrigued....Can't to see what you get done over time......

[marcay]

hello

I have just visited TRT.co.nz site

it's great

big project

[Bowtienutz]

Very interesting. I don't belief there is any counterpart to that to that in the us other than a two lane specific trailer. Nice challenge .

Vince

[raildogg]

I am very interested in this project. I would like information on where to get drawings of this trailer. The only issues to scratch building one is the suspension. All those parts. I must re think my future projects, this might be on worth doing instead. Please send me a link for the drawings.

[Hessel]

The parts that were CNC milled and the tires and rims that I ordered. All parts are milled of 1mm polystyrene sheet. Thickening is realized by just glueing several parts together. I do not have a CNC machine of my own so no possibility to experiment with several thickness of material. The first pic shows a sheet I needed twice. It measures about 70x30cm. In general I needed about 1m2 polystyrene to get everything covered.

Hessel

[BigBad]

This is going to be quite the project! Good stuff!

[Hessel]

Assembly of the first parts.

Hessel

[truges]

That's pretty crazy - looks awesome!! Looking forward to seeing more.

[Bastardo]

I've had ideas of a project like this a few years ago - to draw and mill parts out of sheet styrene. I had some sci-fi vehicles in my mind and seeing this done it sure brings those ideas back to life

I love the project so far! Keep it up and update it daily, please...

[george 53]

You, sir, are an ENGINEER in plastic! That is one HECKAVA project!. But if your goin by the blueprints, it should work in scale too! GREAT thinking and design on your part! I'm truely impressed by your skills. Your a VERY committed modeler! It's gonna look GREAT!

[Hessel]

Well I'm still working on the thing so every day But I will try to get it right. Some more pics of the progress.

Hessel

[george 53]

This is amazeing,Hessel. I would think it'd be a real bear to keep all thise panels in perfect alignment! So far so good! Watching this with MUCH interest!

[Hessel]

To keep up with the daily update is still possible.

Joining the assembled subparts makes it possible to try the widening structure.

Hessel

[marcay]

superbe !!!

[Bennyg]

That's coming along quickly.

Ben

[BigBad]

This is going to be super nice! Any plans to market a kit of this big boy? Good job Hessel!

[Hessel]

Things come together just fine. Some detail photo's, The suspension is just fantasy by me. I asked TRT and Tuff for info but unfortunately none of them replied. For a kit?? Not at this time. Just in the finishing stages of a concrete mixer trailer as a kit.

Hessel

[Tony Bryan]

Excellent build and a great subject, is all I can say,

[Toner283]

I am not a big truck modeler but holy BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH that's cool. looking forward to seeing this progress. Any chance of a pic with something in it so we can judge scale to see just how big this trailer is?