Buying your first welder

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Dec 6, 2019
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Not touching a stinger, or a gun for almost 40 years. Lemme give you new guys a piece of advice.

HF, CH any of the low budget welders out there. DON'T USE THE CRAPPY WIRE, OR STICKS THAT COME WITH IT.

My own ? HF Titanium 110 volt. I made one pass on some scrap and had to pull the spool. Installed a Hobart .030 spool and it works wonders. No blow outs, clean and STRONG weld.

Trust me kids. This is not only a performance issue. But a safety one.

You don't want your vehicle falling apart on the first or second ride. Might has well go to Walmart, if you do.

Other than that. Thank you all for posting your questions AND answers. Y'all saved me a lot of friggin time, effort and frustration.

Now for my Q. Towing a trailer with a Delta. Anyone got any thoughts?

So far. I have a 13 inch tow bar welded to the back frame. I was wondering if I should weld in stabilizers. IE 45 degree stuts.
 
Joined
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Having 2 wheels to keep clear of in the turns is always a challenge for a Delta and trailer combo. :)
One solution (not the only one, I am sure) is to make the delta look like a standard bike/tadpole from the trailers perspective with a bolt-on/detachable spar to move the standard trailer hitch out clear of the 2 rear wheels and on the centreline of the delta (which it sounds to me is what you are doing already). Paul (Stormbird) on here used a different approach with his Python Delta and it worked well enough on tour as Irecall. I am sure he can show pictures.
 
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I can only think of three regular solutions.
  • A long spar on the trailer hitch.
  • A long bar out the rear of the trike
  • A somewhat triangular trailer.
There is a 4th but it's somewhat unorthodox.
Attach the trailer on a link that allows only vertical and twisting movement (not sideways) and use a single wheel that is free to swivel. Effectively a large castor. You would need to build in the right caster to prevent the wheel oscillating like a shopping trolley. It would allow the trailer to be much closer but the bi-direction pivot would need to be tough enough to take the lateral forces it will not allow. The further rearwards the wheel is from the pivot the greater those loads. Ideally you'd want the wheel under the trailer to keep that distance down but that means it needs to be small.
 
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Dec 6, 2019
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Dual wheel trailer. Probably a longer tongue and definitely a long " spar " off the back of the trike.
 
Joined
Feb 7, 2008
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Standard trailer and hitch :-



Hitch was detachable at trailer end so just made a new place to fasten it on the trailer centre line , then added the normal cycle hitch near the right-hand wheel but pointing towards the left wheel.

As the hitch was almost on the rear wheel centre this was no longer than if a upwong was pulling it.

Worked fine no trailer/delta lock ups and could still out turn a tadpole ;):whistle:;):whistle:

More details is above is unclear.

Paul
 

SirJoey

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Would love to see a couple close-up pics of how this hooks up, Paul.
I have one of those factory trailers, & would love to be able to hook it up to some of my homebuilts. :)
***
 
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Hi SJ nice to hear from you.

My trailer was very old with a aluminium bottom tray . I dumped that ! which is why it does not appear in the pictures.



In the centre of the trailer there was a vertical metal tube pointing downwards , I drill through that and welded a fork stem pointing forwards as the trailer hitch post was a good fit over it.
I then added the hitch offset to the right hand wheel of the trike.



here the trailer hitch post is attached , I think in reality I swapped the position of this bolt on trailer hitch and the reflector to get the trailer in the middle.

You end up with some thing that looks like this:-



that is good enough for rock and roll.



The original hitch point can be seen on the right in this picture beside the white reflector.

The yellow strap is a safety device should the bolt or welding decided it was not along for the ride ;)

The draw bar was initially held with an orginary Q/R skewer however I found that it was coming undo [ did I tell you I hate them ? !!!! ] and so I held it with a 6mm lock nut in the end as once on the road there was no need to take it off and the 20 seconds extra it took to wield a 6mm spanner was peace of mind when on the road.

Paul
 

SirJoey

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Ah, very helpful, Paul, thanx!

That gives me some ideas! Looks like maybe I can fabricate a simple, bolt-on, no-weld solution
to a couple of 'em anyway. I don't have a shop or welder anymore, of course, but I do still have my
angle grinder & a vice, so maybe when summer comes & I can work outside at my aunt's once again... :unsure:

***
 
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