Trailer hiab project, advice please

[Daniël Bos]

I still say turntable trailer. This was a 7m log, tad over 3ft at the base (I shifted it back a little before I strapped it on...).

Loaded with just me and the landy.

Why do you want the hiab? If it is for logs, a portable petrol winch and knowing how to parbuckle would serve you well.

[Treewolf]

I presume you tow that with the Landy? Is it air-braked?

[muttley9050]

The hiab is for logs and bags of sand/firewood. Also when milling heavy slabs I can use hiab to move from log when cut. I don't really see the benefit of a turntable trailer except the extra length. Logs for me rarely need to be more than 3m. On the rare exception of needing long beams occasionally I'll mill in situ and borrow a friends 5m trailer. Longer than this and it's a haulier.

The problem I see with winching is its OK to load if your happy to make a mess, but not so good for unloading or moving milled timber or bags.

 

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[Daniël Bos]

The above trailer is 5m, and built with three 1800kg axles, so It's very hard to overload a single axle.

Because the rear axles are so far back, I can safely load a beam of up to 9m as long as it's uniform in size. (5m trailer, 1-1.5m overhang at the front, 2-3m at the back gives a balanced load).

If you'd put the above log on a "normal" 5m trailer it would lift the towing vehicle clean off the ground.

 

Other advantages are:

-No nose weight, which makes it much easier on the towing vehicle.

-No transferring of trailer movement to the vehicle results in no bouncing rocking or snaking, again much, much easier on the vehicle and much safer to tow.

-Much more comfortable to to because of the above

-More manoeuvrable, yes it takes some practice but it can get to places you couldn't get a fixed trailer of the same dimensions.

-It doesn't cut the corners as much, yet I can turn around in a much smaller space as the "dolly" bit will turn right back which means I can reverse with the trailer at a smaller than 90°. A fixed trailer wouldn't get near these angles before the drawbar touches the towing vehicle.

-Really cool and fairly unique hence less knickable I hope...

 

It's one of these things that unless you try one for a month or so, you'll never get just how much more useful it can be. A bit like the step from an ms250 to a 346xp, similar size on paper, big price hike but boy is it worth it!

 

 

As far as winching goes: It's no good for lifting bags. For getting logs on a trailer however it's as good as a crane (not as quick but much stronger, I've lifted logs of well over legal weights onto that trailer with some fence posts and straps, logs that would be well out of reach of the lifting abilities of a small hiab).

I don't see how it's messy? In the pic above the landy was just towing it on, not winching (it has no winch) this is why I suggested a petrol powered (chainsaw powered or similar) winch.

[Marko]

For anyone who keeps tipping their hiab trailer over when unloading to the side, the Mog mower jacks that I intended to use as stabilisers for my hiab trailer are now on ebay. They weigh 27kg each and are rated at 1.2 tonne each.

[Daniël Bos]

Some more pics of big logs going on with no lifting gear.

[muttley9050]

I can see the advantages you say now, but think the expense for me for the amount of use it will get would be too much.

I also like the way your loading up. Not quite what I had imagined from your initial posts. I assume you just wrap the rope around the log enough times so it unravels as you pull it up? What technique do you use to fix the end of the rope?

Up until the last few years I've been very much in construction so the techniques and knots/hitches involved in moving timber is pretty new to me. I also don't have a need to move as much timber as guys in your trade as everything I move is purchased for a job rather than a arising.

Thanks for helping me here.

James

 

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[Dave177]

Without wishing to rock the boat (or Trailer) I was under the impression that trailers with a steering drawbar could only be towed by agricultural vechicles ie Tractors etc?

 

if not then I imagine a smaller version of the one pictures would be great although the payload would be minimal once the weight of the trailer and crane are taken into account.

[Jonny69]

Without wishing to rock the boat (or Trailer) I was under the impression that trailers with a steering drawbar could only be towed by agricultural vechicles ie Tractors etc?

 

if not then I imagine a smaller version of the one pictures would be great although the payload would be minimal once the weight of the trailer and crane are taken into account.

 

I saw a massive box van being towed by a 90 defender on the A14 last week. Had to do a double take, it looked like it was an artic trailer. definitely a bogey trailer. Also saw a catering van, similar setup but a lot smaller which was wobbling around horribly, he was only doing 50.

 

The catering van looked a lot like this

 

 

The other one was twice that cm3

 

EDIT: Just read on the Bateson trailer website, EU law says you cant have a turntable with overrun brakes. So they are no longer making trailers like this. Maybe you can still use old ones though??

Edited May 2, 2014 by Jonny69

[william127]

There is company called monster tunning who have an airbraked , 4 axle turntable trailer made as an exebition unit, they tow it with a massivley tuned 8 wheeled defender, looks amazing