Home Made Laser Dolly

Hi

I am looking for plans for a home made laser dolly. I recognize that there are several great commercially available designs out there but with now 4 boats being sailed from my property its getting hard to move them around with the 1 poor old dolly that I have. Since the cost will be multiplied by 3 I need it to be reasonable cost effective.


Any help or feed back would be greatly appreciated


Thanks

Barry
 
Either one is good as long as the total cost X 3 is reasonable the labor will be done primarily be me ,my son and his friends, by the poeple who are using the boats.
 
Barry,

I have been making one for my Minifish out of 3/4 inch steel pipe. It is pre cut and threaded galvanized pipe from the Home Depot. It is almost finished and I so far have about $35.00 into it. It is similar in design to one of the PVC pipe dolly's you can find plans for in this forum. I just wanted something a bit more ridgid that PVC.

Rather than using a strap to support it like a real dolly, I have used pressure treated lumber as bucks to cradle it. These bucks contact the bottom a few feet from the stern and I will have another point forward that will support it as well. I attached the wood bucks to a 4" X 4" that I routed a groove into for the axle. I attached the pipe with flanges to the 4 X 4.

Maybe this will give you an idea or two. I can take and e mail you some pics if you would like.

Hope this helps.

Mark
 
I made my own Seitech equalivent. I bought all the fittings and purchased 6061 square tube with radius corners and used my old wheel barrow wheels. The end cost for the venture is half the cost of a new one.

One can save extra money by making their own fittings from 1/4 inch Alum plate and only purchase the bow part
 
i did make myself a laser dolly to the exact specs as the seitech ones, out of aluminium. it worked great and i did take pictures of it for this website but they were too big to get them on....
 
I went to a railing place and got 1 1/4 inch square aluminum tubing (got a 40 foot section for some rediouclously low price) and then went home, cut it to basically match a seitech one with a few modifications. Went back, had the guy weld it together and add some gusset plates (i also cut those out from scrap aluminum) and then cut a piece of wood in a half moon shape to be endcaps over where the strap goes. I don't remember where the strap came from. Wheel barrow tires from home depot and a threaded rod with plastic tubing over it for a handle. The hardest part was putting in the axle, you have to put a few bolts through a round pipe and drilling took a few tries. In the end I don't remember exact details on price but it was 1/3 to a 1/2 the price of a seitech dolly and I think its superior becuase all the joints are welded instead of the breakable (highly breakable) seitech plastic version. 3 years going strong. The only thing I would do next time is paint it with some rust-olium grey becuase the salt water is starting to corrode my gusset plates (cheap scrap aluminum) and the axles (steel which did paint this winter).
 
Well I know that it sounds kind of lame, but I made my first one out of PVC pipe and nylon strap. The 3 inch PVC glues together very nicely. The wheels are made for wheel barrows and the nylon strapping is a tow strap from the same hardware store. The whole thing took about 3 hours to put together and cost less than $100 (USD). It works perfectly unless you are trying to rig up in a stiff breeze. It doesn't support the boat well enough to keep it from leaning. Remember to put screws in a each joint, since PVC isn't designed to stay glued under these conditions.
Ralph
#175237
 
I must have one of the weirdest materials for my dolly -- wood.

At first I was considering steel, aluminum or PVC. Then I remembered I had a lot of left over stuff from my home renovation (I don’t know the right name for the wooden beams put they are this plywood type of stuff with the approximate cross dimensions of maybe 5cm X 7 cm). So I decided to make a quick prototype T-frame out of this to figure out the dimensions I should have for the dolly.

The prototype frame started to feel quite good and with a little extra reinforcement it actually turned into a dolly I have been using with great success for the past few years.

As the frame costs next to nothing I suppose the most expensive part in the whole thing was the wheels.
 

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Actually i saw a wooden dolly the other day, but not only was the frame wooden but the wheels were wooden too! I think PVC would be a good bet and fill it with that expanding foam so it floats so long as you don't have to go too far and if it broke, its cheap to replace.
 
PVC floats well enough w/o any foam. The floating part kinda sucks as it makes it difficult to get the boat on and off it while in the water. If it would sink it would make things easier.


116794 said:
Actually i saw a wooden dolly the other day, but not only was the frame wooden but the wheels were wooden too! I think PVC would be a good bet and fill it with that expanding foam so it floats so long as you don't have to go too far and if it broke, its cheap to replace.
 
You are right. The floating of the dolly actually made it more difficult for me to launch. I ended up leaving the tubing open in several places to allow it to fill with water. The weight of the wheels kept it down pretty well after that. This isn't much of a problem if you are launching from a dock. All that I needed the majority of the time was a way to wheel the boat from the trailer, down the ramp, and off the dock. For this purpose the PVC works great. It is cheap and light.
Ralph
175237
 
to keep your PVC Dolly from floating drill holes in the areas that are not crucial in holding the dolly together or keep ends open or attatch weights to it
 

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