Size of Aluminium tubing / Dolly

fsylvestre

New Member
Hi all,

I want to build my own dolly and I have no access to a Seitech dolly right now. Can anyone tell me what is the size of the tubing, and the thickness of the wall?

I plan to use the Vosper plan that you can see on the Dr Laser site but in aluminium. Did anyone try it? Do you have any comment?

Thanks for your help.

François Sylvestre
 
fsylvestre said:
Hi all,

I want to build my own dolly and I have no access to a Seitech dolly right now. Can anyone tell me what is the size of the tubing, and the thickness of the wall? I plan to use the Vosper plan that you can see on the Dr Laser site but in aluminium. Did anyone try it? Do you have any comment?
François Sylvestre

Its 1 1/2" square by 1/8" thick (no I am not going to convert it to metric for you :eek: ). But, have you ever heard of the Time Value of Money? By the time you source, purchase, design, cut, assemble, re-assemble, redesign, etc you are better off dropping the $320 and buying a Seitech. It comes in a box in several pieces so you will still have the thrill of assembling it :D
 
Hi,
another professional Alu-Dolly works with rectangular diameters. Its from Toni-Riera, Spain trd-bcn.com. I got it (modell: RF TR-2001-racing) quick from my official Laser-store in Germany, because my "drLaser"/John-DE-plastic-tube-dolly broke down and 20 hours later my vacation started (I had no time for repairings). It is 10-15 percent cheaper than the Seitech-dolly and is very easy to handle and also very durable.
If you build it on your own, the goods will cost about 150 US-$. Time to build it is about 1 d (included: getting the goods from the home-depot-store). :)

Ciao
LooserLu
 
LooserLu said:
If you build it on your own, the goods will cost about 150 US-$. Time to build it is about 1 d (included: getting the goods from the home-depot-store). :)Ciao LooserLu

1 day to build it. This is my point exactly. My time is worth at least $50 per hour x 8 hours = $400 + $150 for materials = $550... :D
 
TheBoathouse said:
1 day to build it. This is my point exactly. My time is worth at least $50 per hour x 8 hours = $400 + $150 for materials = $550... :D
Your time is worth whatever someone is willing to pay you on that day. If it's a day where you have no work it would seem to me that your time that day is worth 0.

I would agree with the above statement if you spent every waking hour working and getting paid, but not many of us manage that.

Many of the posters here are in high school or university, with no/low paying jobs, so saving money is always a consideration.

A differant perspective might be the quality/usefullness of the finished homemade dolly vs. the commerical model
 
TheBoathouse said:
1 day to build it. This is my point exactly. My time is worth at least $50 per hour x 8 hours = $400 + $150 for materials = $550... :D
Thats true!..... and not, Mr Fox.

Lets make some calculations Mr. Fox:

The price to hire me is not US$ 50 "brutto", it´s "netto" 10 Euro, without expenses of course.
By the way, 1 Euro is about 1,25 to 1,3 US-$....
It is not correct to add the social-cost and tax to that wages during a freetime-work, I think. If I work for a job during that time that I would save for not building my own dolly, I also do only see the netto-wage in my wallet to earn that money for paying the professional build dolly.

So, lets make the things more in details:

It needed more than the official price which is here in GER at about 299 Euro for the TRD and over 330 Euro for the Seitech to get that dolly. I spent 1 h to get that dolly (time for internet-demand and payment at the German-Bank). Cost of the transport:via Postal-service DHL in Germany to transport a big box like for the TRD/Seitech is about 30 Euro. This means for a TRD over all: 339 Euro brutto I have to take out of my wallet.
Time to work and earn money to buy that professional-manufactured-dolly: 8 h.
This has the trivial restriction: I have to have such a job. [In reallity: I have not such a job, I´m employee, that get´s every month the same money, no matter if I work more or less than that time that is contracted with my boss.]

But lets imagine I have an "additional-job", where I get that extra money (f.e.: washing cars, cutting the grass in the neighbours gardens for 10 Euro each hour, which is far to much for that work here). So, 80 Euro I can earn during that time I do not construct a home-made-dolly – but never 8 x 50$=400$ (or 8 x (50/1,25)= 320 Euro).

This means, the professional dolly would cost me 339-80= 259 Euro.


Now the other side:

8h to get the goods for the dolly and construct it. 1h to get the construction-plans and understand them and make a list for the home-depot store.
This is 9h à 10 Euro = 90 Euro.
The price for the goods for a homemade dolly is about 150 Euro here (aluminium tubes, stainless-steel-bolts/nuts/washers, stainless-steel-plates for the connection of the tubes, 2 axles, 1 foam-tube 2 air-pumped wheels of a wheelbarrow, etc.-etc...).
Transport-cost from home-depot to home are about 10 Euro.

This is together: 90+150+10= 250 Euro for the homemade dolly.

Can I say: I saved about 9 Euro with creating my own Laser-dolly?
(- Or with out looking to that money/time-calculations: 339-160= 179 Euro?)

No, I think, this would not be correct. Why? Well, the dolly has warranty and in my opinion, a professional-manufactured dolly is easier to dismantle (in reason of professional conection-parts that I can´t constuct in that quality in that time) and has a better quality of (alu-)material.

This also was nearly my quick-calculation on that day (20h before take of into holidays) the axle of home-made-PP-plastic-tube-dolly-“à la Mr. John-DE” broke down.


But, when I´m at home, in my freetime, in my opinion it is not correct, to measure all with economic scales. What will cost “5 min cleaning my tooth” etc.? Would it be correct to say: “making a breakfast at home is more expensive than at an US-fastfood-restaurant, so in future I should never eat at home?” I think, this goes to far.

I understand the Laser-store-owners in the massive economical pressures from the Out-of-the-box-boat-builders to sell more things to the sailors, but it´s every customers own decision whether she/he goes to a store and get a thing or build it her/his own. And I´m sure, Francois will do the right thing for himself.

P.S. My PP-Plastic-tube-dolly was reconstructed later on. But in the opposite to Canada, until today, we have no suitable PVC-Tubes and suitable ABS-Cement for it here in GER - what a luck for the owners of the GER-Laser-stores ....;-)

Cheers
LooserLu

@Steven: I checked again the link to TRD ("RF TR-2001-racing"-dolly) in that reply. You are right, take http://www.trd-bcn.com/. My Browser (I.E. 6) corrects that mistake (I forgot “http://www.”) automatically, but maybe other browser not, Sorry for that.
 
49208 said:
Your time is worth whatever someone is willing to pay you on that day. If it's a day where you have no work it would seem to me that your time that day is worth 0.

welll... valuing that time at zero can lead to some strange decisions. Let's say you're a guy in college, and you have a day with no work, and the choice is between spending it building a dolly to save $100, versus spending it with that lovely young woman down the street who's been begging you to teach her to windsurf. Valuing your time at zero makes the choice to spend the day building the dolly a foregone conclusion.

You might say, alternatively, that your time is worth whatever you would pay to have it back.

With all that said, I got annoyed by the price of Seitech dollies and looked into building one myself, and realized that it would cost nearly as much, that it would take a long time, and that the result wouldn't be as good, so I just grumbled and bought the Seitech. It's probably worth at least half what my boat is worth! If I were on a student's budget, or if I had easy access to a decent shop, I would certainly build a dolly instead.
 
LooserLu said:
Thats true!..... and not, Mr Fox.

Lets make some calculations Mr. Fox:

The price to hire me is not US$ 50 "brutto", it´s "netto" 10 Euro, without expenses of course.
By the way, 1 Euro is about 1,25 to 1,3 US-$....
It is not correct to add the social-cost and tax to that wages during a freetime-work, I think. If I work for a job during that time that I would save for not building my own dolly, I also do only see the netto-wage in my wallet to earn that money for paying the professional build dolly.

So, lets make the things more in details:

It needed more than the official price which is here in GER at about 299 Euro for the TRD and over 330 Euro for the Seitech to get that dolly. I spent 1 h to get that dolly (time for internet-demand and payment at the German-Bank). Cost of the transport:via Postal-service DHL in Germany to transport a big box like for the TRD/Seitech is about 30 Euro. This means for a TRD over all: 339 Euro brutto I have to take out of my wallet.
Time to work and earn money to buy that professional-manufactured-dolly: 8 h.
This has the trivial restriction: I have to have such a job. [In reallity: I have not such a job, I´m employee, that get´s every month the same money, no matter if I work more or less than that time that is contracted with my boss.]

But lets imagine I have an "additional-job", where I get that extra money (f.e.: washing cars, cutting the grass in the neighbours gardens for 10 Euro each hour, which is far to much for that work here). So, 80 Euro I can earn during that time I do not construct a home-made-dolly – but never 8 x 50$=400$ (or 8 x (50/1,25)= 320 Euro).

This means, the professional dolly would cost me 339-80= 259 Euro.


Now the other side:

8h to get the goods for the dolly and construct it. 1h to get the construction-plans and understand them and make a list for the home-depot store.
This is 9h à 10 Euro = 90 Euro.
The price for the goods for a homemade dolly is about 150 Euro here (aluminium tubes, stainless-steel-bolts/nuts/washers, stainless-steel-plates for the connection of the tubes, 2 axles, 1 foam-tube 2 air-pumped wheels of a wheelbarrow, etc.-etc...).
Transport-cost from home-depot to home are about 10 Euro.

This is together: 90+150+10= 250 Euro for the homemade dolly.

Can I say: I saved about 9 Euro with creating my own Laser-dolly?
(- Or with out looking to that money/time-calculations: 339-160= 179 Euro?)

No, I think, this would not be correct. Why? Well, the dolly has warranty and in my opinion, a professional-manufactured dolly is easier to dismantle (in reason of professional conection-parts that I can´t constuct in that quality in that time) and has a better quality of (alu-)material.

This also was nearly my quick-calculation on that day (20h before take of into holidays) the axle of home-made-PP-plastic-tube-dolly-“à la Mr. John-DE” broke down.


But, when I´m at home, in my freetime, in my opinion it is not correct, to measure all with economic scales. What will cost “5 min cleaning my tooth” etc.? Would it be correct to say: “making a breakfast at home is more expensive than at an US-fastfood-restaurant, so in future I should never eat at home?” I think, this goes to far.

I understand the Laser-store-owners in the massive economical pressures from the Out-of-the-box-boat-builders to sell more things to the sailors, but it´s every customers own decision whether she/he goes to a store and get a thing or build it her/his own. And I´m sure, Francois will do the right thing for himself.

P.S. My PP-Plastic-tube-dolly was reconstructed later on. But in the opposite to Canada, until today, we have no suitable PVC-Tubes and suitable ABS-Cement for it here in GER - what a luck for the owners of the GER-Laser-stores ....;-)

Cheers
LooserLu

@Steven: I checked again the link to TRD ("RF TR-2001-racing"-dolly) in that reply. You are right, take http://www.trd-bcn.com/. My Browser (I.E. 6) corrects that mistake (I forgot “http://www.”) automatically, but maybe other browser not, Sorry for that.


Hey LooserLu, since I have placed a value of $50 per hour on my time (which I think is cheap) and it took me 10 minutes to read your reply I figure you owe me $8.33 USD.....Please send me a check when you have it :p
 
on the flipside I also looked in to building a dolly or buying one. Granted the 'time is money thing', I enjoy building things on my own so I don't look at the opportunity cost of what the labour cost is because you would drive youself nuts analyzing everything from cooking your dinner to painting a room, heck even washing your own hair calculated by 'the boathouse' does not pay. Does he look at the lost wages while sleeping, as it cost you $400 to sleep each night.

That said, I purchased all the plastic parts for the Seitech $178CDN, bought a length of anodized extruded aluminum box tubing $37, SS fasteners $10, 1" round alum tubing for the handle $5, reienforced hose for the handle cover $4 and had on hand 2 wheels and webbing for a sling. At $234CDN vs $525CDN for a real one makes sense to me. Besides those that take 8 hrs to build it obviously are not that handy, it took me about 2 1/2 hrs to cut the pipes drill the holes and tighten the nuts and bolts. It looks almost the same as the real thing except that the wheels and sling are different. I could have engineered the main beam to detach (like the real one) but decided to kept the main length intact as it added extra rigidity.

Now when it comes to the PVC dolly that makes no sense as it is too flexible and too flimsy.

Sailing is a hobby and I figure the time I spent building this is still connected to my past time. My other passion is British Sportscars and if I add up all the time I spent working on it, it would have been cheaper to buy a new Porsche. But I enjoy doing the work, gives you great intrinsic feelings...and one can't go life around looking at everything as extrinsic.
 
My guess is that Mr Fox from "The Boathouse" sells Seitech dolly's, and that his hourly price of $50 is part of the $340 one has to pay for these dolly's. How else can we explain that someone who could make $50 per hour "wastes" his time on this website?
Nevertheless I agree with Mr. Fox to some extend. If you want to make your own dolly merely because it is cheap, and you are not handy (or clumsy), you might end up - after spending money on this project - buying a real one. On the other hand, if you enjoy building one, and you are confident you will be able to build a decent one, why not spend some hours on this project? There are other values in life besides money!
 
TheBoathouse said:
Hey LooserLu, since I have placed a value of $50 per hour on my time (which I think is cheap) and it took me 10 minutes to read your reply I figure you owe me $8.33 USD.....Please send me a check when you have it :p

@ Mr. Fox: 50US-$/h is cheap, true. If you would call my boss that I should work for you in my business-profession (maybe designing your own highspeed railway) he would want to have more than 60 Euro per hour from you...:D

Now, aft you have read this reply Mr. Fox, you should get in sum 10 US-$. Can you agree, if I ever in my life come to your country, I come to you and polish 1 of your new Laserboats and measure the correct mast rake of it, but you have to pay the Teflonpolish, ok? In choice to that, I spend you a couple of German-beers ;) ...
Cheers
 
Well, I never thought that such a simple question would raise so many philosophical questions. Thanks you all for you input and to be honest you make me wonder what is the best option. I do have a very good job and I earn good income. I also have three kids and unfortunatly, like the majority of us (I never saw a post from Mr Gate or any Americas' Cup boat owners (and I bet that they do not sail Lasers anyway :p )) I have to make choices.

I bought a new Laser last year and I realize that now I need two things: Laser covers and a dolly. I am no good at sewing so I guess that forces me to buy the covers. I am not that good at building things but I enjoy it very much. So that's why I came up with the idea of building my own dolly. Seitech dolly are the norm and I do not think that I can do better. Now the real question is (the time / value thing does not apply from my standpoint because I enjoy it) "Am I able to build a dolly that I will use over a number of years without saying, every time that I take my boat to the water, that I should have paid the extra 250 / 300$ CDN?"

If, at the end of the day, I come up with a piece of gear that works less than very well, then Mr Fox you conviced me to buy a dolly. (The CDN$ is going up those days vs USD$, so this help... ;) ) However, if, from the experience of others it seems possible to build a dolly that can perform close to the standard set by professionnaly built dollies, then I am willing to try and enjoy myself in my garage for a weekend...

I cannot wait for your comments!

François Sylvestre
 
It is quite easy to build a cheap dolly.

Go to the BORG(Home Depot) and buy 4 lengths of chain link fence toprail. They are about 10'5" in length. They are galvanzied. They are about $6 each. Cut the rails to length and flatten cut ends with a hammer. Drill holes and attach using stainless steel bolts. dolly frame made.

Now make the two rails for hull support using electrical conduit. Again cheap at BORG. Bend to suit, cut as above, attach as above.

Now add wheels to dolly. At the BORG, wheelbarrow wheels are cheap (get the ones with an axel). Attach to the toprail with 1.25" ubolts. Adjust axel location using u bolts to get a balance point.

Cost: less than $60 for a almost completely galvanzied dolly.2 hours of work.

Made mine 15 years ago, actually copied it from a guy in Canada. Works just as good as a Seitech. Perhaps I should post the design?
 
TheBoathouse said:
Its 1 1/2" square by 1/8" thick (no I am not going to convert it to metric for you ...
For an aluminium-dolly with rectangular-diameter-beams diameter 3cm x 7 cm and thickness of 0,2 cm will work. Length for the axle-beam: about 130 cm, lenght-beam: about 220 cm, lenght of the "_/"-part is about 60cm.
1 inch is 2,54 cm, 1 foot (12 inch) is 30,48 cm.
Ciao
Looserlu
 
I hope you can see the attached jpg of the plans
 

Attachments

  • laserdolly.jpg
    laserdolly.jpg
    17.8 KB · Views: 514
Looks like a great dolly to me! I have problems reading the text on the plan. Could you try to load up the document as well?
Thanks!
 
I have been having trouble loading up documents. Hopefully you should see a zip file of the jpg drawing. I may have a photo of the dolly on the laser upside down on the car. Has worked for many years.

I just noticed in my original post that I said I bolted it together. That was what I originally did. But I had a friend with a MIG welder and we welded it up. Bolts held fine. While you are at Home Depot, get your top rails and then go over to the electrical aisle. Look for the pipe benders. Put your top rails in the bender and bend your rails! No need to buy a pipe bender! I also would bend one end of another top rail to use as your (removable)handle. I should also add that the front pipe is a corner post - which is of a larger diameter.
 

Attachments

  • laserdolly.jpg.zip
    5.5 KB · Views: 559
I have been having trouble loading up documents. Hopefully you should see a zip file of the jpg drawing. I may have a photo of the dolly on the laser upside down on the car. Has worked for many years.

I just noticed in my original post that I said I bolted it together. That was what I originally did. But I had a friend with a MIG welder and we welded it up. Bolts held fine. While you are at Home Depot, get your top rails and then go over to the electrical aisle. Look for the pipe benders. Put your top rails in the bender and bend your rails! No need to buy a pipe bender! I also would bend one end of another top rail to use as your (removable)handle. I should also add that the front pipe is a corner post - which is of a larger diameter.
Hello. I can’t get that zip file to open. Would you mind resisting it? Thank you.
 
The zip file you wanted to download is from 2004, and it turend out the file inside the zip wasn't a jpg, but a Claris / Apple Works file.
Luckily LibreOffice still can handle those, so here is the file in a more modern format.
 

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  • laserdolly.docx
    15.4 KB · Views: 167

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