Hello everyone. I am building a single-wheeled trailer for use in my courier business. Eventually I hope to be capable of carrying much greater loads, but for now this will be a big step up.

I'll update this as the trailer progresses, and you can see the problems I run into, where I change my mind or get new ideas, etc.

Firstly, this will involve welding - I got a second-hand arc welder for £20, so I'll be welding things together rather than some kind of bolt-on arrangement.

Some home-made trailers that are particularly inspiring:

http://www.bikeforums.net/showpost.p...1&postcount=56
http://www.instructables.com/id/new_...eted_march_09/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Sing..._Bike_Trailer/

And a few othes that I'll post up when I find them again!

I was going to make the main frame and basket of the trailer out of salvaged angle iron, but I since was very lucky and found some ideal material. I will reveal the source, incase anyone else wants to try their luck. There is a very large Royal Mail depot not too far away, and I noticed a skip on their site full of bikes (none that didn't need a lot of work), bike parts, and separate front baskets. Here are what the bikes are like:



And the baskets I got:



I will use two, cutting one end off each of them, then welding them together. I started doing this with two of the wrong type of baskets - note how they are asymetrical, and bent that way, whereas the type I just showed above will be mostly symetrical once I cut that extra bar off the long edge.



So, today's job is to go back to the skip and see if I can get a partner for the "right" type of basket. There were three types I noticed, in all. I should note that I did in fact speak to the manager of the workshop on site and had his express permission to take what I wanted from the skip

Today I was also cutting up bike frame bits:


You ain't Raleigh any more...

I plan to attach that part to the basket of the trailer kind of like this:



With the forks cut off, turned 90 degrees (anti-clockwise in that picture), and welded back on. See the first link at the top for an example.

I will then have to fashion some kind of custom hitch, which I'll worry about later.

As for the back of the trailer:


Something like that. I'll improvise how well it needs to be attached. I don't know what wheel I'll use yet, but it will come from a kid's bike when I find one, I guess.

The piece in the above picture: this is what you call a frozen stem :/



So that's it for now. I'll post again when I've done some more on it. Eventually it will all be painted green, to match my company colours. I hope it will look pretty cool - we'll see.

Thanks for your interest.

--Joe