Bridge Built Out Of Old Trailer House Frame

Bridge Built Out Of Old Trailer House Frame FARM HOME Miscellaneous 19-5-20 A few years back Donald and Donna Bickel, Ridgeville, Ind., built a picnic shelter in a patch of woods that's on the other side of a creek from their house. They had an old house trailer frame on hand and decided to use it to make a 53-ft. long arched bridge across the creek. "It's only 5 ft. wide so it's not wide enough to drive a vehicle over but we can drive garden tractors and riding mowers over it," says Donald. He cut 7 ft. off the 60-ft. trailer and cut 2-in. wide notches about 7 ft. apart on the underside of the frame so it could be bent up into an arch, with a flat section in the middle. After cutting each notch he used a come-along to pull the frame tight, then welded it back together. He also welded an 11-in. sq., 3/8-in. thick steel plate onto each side of the welds for reinforcement. The trailer frame was originally 8 ft. wide. To make it narrower he cut out everything between the frame's two steel I-beams, then moved them closer together and welded angle iron back in to brace them. He welded 1/8-in. thick diamond plate steel on top of the frame to make the floor and used 11/2-in. sq. steel tubing to make hand rails. "We built it next to our workshop and then towed it to the creek on the original trailer house wheels," says Bickel. "Once we got to the creek we chained one end of the bridge to a tree on the other side of the creek. Then we slowly winched the bridge over the creek using wooden planks that we put down on both banks. Both ends of the bridge are supported by railroad ties that rest on piles of rocks." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Donald Bickel, Rt. 2, Box 251, Ridgeville, Ind. 47380 (ph 317 857-2167).

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