From The Mechanic

Join the discussion with the Mechanic on all sorts of DIY Project topics, including news, tips and much more about building things. DIY is our specialty, so please enjoy the reading and images, then comment on things that catch your attention. To filter the posts, just select a category from the top line. (Use the X to go back to the full list.) Also, if there is something you’d like to see, please request it. This site is for you.

What Are Your Essential Tools

9 Essential Tools For Your DIY Shop

We’ve been asked many times about “What are the most essential tools for your shop?” Well, that’s a hard question, because frustration and wailing are the result when the right tools are not available.

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Welding Trailer Spring Brackets

Engineering: Welding Trailer Spring Brackets

There is some disagreement in trailer building about how to weld-on trailer spring brackets (also known as spring hangers). Some of you have sent questions about which techniques are best, especially

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Thread Tapping Straight

Get Thread Tapping Straight

A Tap and Die set is a near must for a DIY fab shop. While the thread creating functions are pretty easy to visualize, sometimes getting the tread to start straight and run true is a different matter.

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Bend A Metal Bracket

Reasonably Accurate Way To Bend Metal

There are a bunch of ways to bend metal for a bracket. Do a search on YouTube and you’ll likely find several techniques. Well, we don’t want to dis any of those because

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Drill Matching Bolt Holes

Drill Matching Bolt Holes

So many times we need to make matching holes to bolt something on. You purchased something to mount on your trailer or your workbench or some other project, but now you need the exact

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Which Welder To Buy?

Which Welder To Buy?

I’m looking to build one of your trailers, but I need to know which welder to buy? What type, and do I need 110 or 220 volt? What about other projects from your site that may pique my interest?

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All Thread or Threaded Rod

Threaded Rod For Custom Bolts

You can use threaded rod (often called All-Thread) for a million things. Make a long bolt, or just the right size fastener. It’s also good for special brackets if you weld to it. And, if you’re not careful, you can make it fail in a million ways too.

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How To Weigh A Trailer

Tricks To Weigh Heavy Things

Do you need to weigh something really heavy but don’t have access to an industrial scale? How can I weigh heavy things — like my trailer frame — without a specialty scale? When we look at “Where Does The Axle Go” and other build objectives, often it is not convenient to haul things down to […]

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Living Tiny In A Bigger Way

A Tiny House Size Quandary

OK, so you want to Live Tiny. That’s awesome. What can you do without? What do you really want to have? And how about that claustrophobia?

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Which Trailer Plans To Buy?

Which Trailer Plans Should I Buy?

I want to build a trailer, but there are so many options — and some are mutually exclusive. So, which Trailer Plans should I buy? Many people know just what they want. Others grapple with certain decisions like weighing the benefits of various lengths, or widths, or capacities. Choosing which trailer plans to buy is […]

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Using A Workshop Hydraulic Press

4 Pressing Issues

A shop press is a fantastic tool, and when you need it, there’s not much that can really substitute. On the other hand, we need to keep things in order because when things go bad, they can easily go really bad in a hurry.

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House Crane Winch End

DIY House Crane

Here is a Reader Submission showing his Solutions! A big Thank You to “A Treehouse Dweller” for his story about building a house crane to access his tall home. This is !

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Is there escape from covid-19?

Escape From COVID In DIY

fWhat more can we say about Coronavirus? The daily press updates are full of horrible news! There’s so much concern and sadness everywhere. Then there’s the “Stay at Home” mandates. I need an emotional escape from COVID !!

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More Trailer Plans for Torsion Axles

More Trailer Plans For Torsion Axles

More New Product Announcements: The Mechanical Elements line of DIY Trailer Blueprints has just expanded – AGAIN – with more trailer plans for torsion axles. These new trailer plans fill

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Converting a Trailer

Converting A Trailer

The concept of re-purposing or converting a trailer is absolutely awesome. My hat’s off to anyone who can find a way to reuse and convert something from end-of-life to new-again. We need more of that in our world!

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Plans In Metric

Do You Have Plans In Metric?

Virtually everything on the internet is by definition “World Wide”. Even though Mechanical Elements (Synthesis Engineering Services) is physically located in the USA, we have a world audience, so it’s a fair question

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How Much Will It Cost To Build?

How Much Will It Cost?

Before starting a project we always want to know — or at least have some idea about — how much with this thing cost to build? If you’re like me, resources are limited, so knowing how much you’re going to sink into a project is smart. So, if I buy these cool ______ * fill […]

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Trailer With Attitude

Does Your Trailer Have Attitude?

When we think about airplanes as they fly, or boats as they sail, it’s not uncommon to imagine how they move. An airplane rolls some as it banks into a turn. A boat pitches up and down with the waves. So, how do these factors — Pitch, Yaw and Roll — apply to trailers and […]

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What Do You Want for 2020

What Do You Want In 2020?

A new day, A new Year, and a new Decade! We don’t get to say that very often, so it’s kind of cool. Anyway, as we look to the near future for Mechanical Elements, we want to know what you want in 2020. How should we improve the website? What new plans should we create? […]

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JTP Building A Trailer

Building A Trailer — Customer Video

We’ve been working with the great folks at Johnson Trailer Parts for a while. Their business is primarily selling trailer parts, but they understand the greasy hands-on Do-It_Yourself paradigm!

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Plans Download Screen

Where’s My Plans Download?

This is a Frequent Question about Downloading Plans after placing an order — And we want to help you! If you have not yet accomplished the plans download after your purchase, definitely, read this.

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Do I Need A Trailer Spare Tire?

Does My Trailer Need A Spare Tire?

What about a trailer spare tire. Do you really need one? Some say yes, and we do see them on many trailers, but they are rarely used. What if you just go without? These are great questions — and we do see a lot of trailer “spare tires” that just dry-rot in place. If they […]

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Understanding Bolt Choice

How To Choose Bolts

This is Page 2, a continuation of our Bolts 101 article. Here we discuss choices for bolts depending on the application. The previous post, Page 1 of Bolts 101, gives a ton of background information, so we recommend reading that first, then this one on making a good bolt choice. Both pages focus on the […]

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What Bolts for DIY?

What Bolts For DIY? – Bolts 101

Bolts are an amazingly simple yet complex fastening method. They’re used everywhere so mostly we take them for granted, but why are there so many different kinds? And what bolts should I use?

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Review of the Folding Trailer Tongue

Trailer Folding Tongue – What I’d Do Different

On a recent trailer, I experimented with a new folding tongue design. Now it’s time to review — What do I like? What would I do different if building another?

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Finishing or Trailer Frame Painting

Recommendations For Trailer Frame Painting

(And finishing other DIY Projects.) Now you’ve invested all that time and effort into building an awesome trailer, how should you finish it? Of course we don’t want it to rust. And, we want it to last. So, here are some recommendations

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Small Trailer with Big Benefits

Excellent Small Car Trailer Caught In The Wild

Caught on the streets, this small trailer provides big benefits. It’s an excellent example of using a trailer instead of a truck, and this business owner understands efficiency.

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calculating-axle-position

Calculating Axle Position

There’s always more to it. Our previous post titled “Where Does The Axle Go?” has spawned a lot of great questions. Here is one in particular asking some very relevant info about calculating axle position.

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Steel for the Next DIY Build

Starting Yet Another Project

This is what the beginning of a new DIY build looks like. Of course, there’s the planning stages, the design stages and finally the acquisition stages where all the raw materials begin to come in.

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Study of Torsion Axles In Triple

Why Shouldn’t I Use Torsion Axles In Tandem Or Triple?

Torsion axles are awesome, so Why not use torsion axles in tandem? It’s a frequent question, along with the corollary “Why shouldn’t I have torsion axles in triple?”

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