Need a hinge guru....

[deanbrown3d]

Lol I know this sounds strange - but....

I want to make 4 sides (about 15" tall) to my 16x7' trailer, which currently has a 6" steel side wall. I want it to carry mulch and driveway rock gravel.

So, what I really want is a single hinged rectangle that folds up to

16' max, with one corner only to join together to fix it in place. I can get three sides to fold in on each other flat, but I can't work out how to do the last side. Need some special type of hinge or something, I am not sure.

All help welcomed!

Thanks

Dean

[Morris Dovey]

Dean...

One way might be to make 8 panels: four 3'6" wide and four 8'0" wide. I'll post a drawing to alt.binaries.pictures.woodworking to show hinge scheme. If you use hinges with removable pins you can store it as a 16' flat assembly or two 8' flat assemblies.

Be wary of overloading your trailer and/or tow vehicle with the gravel.

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

[woodworker88]

What you need is a special type of hinge that folds both ways, called a double-acting hinge. Imagine a Jacob's ladder toy, except of steel. This type of hinge has two sets of overlapping leaves, and can be folded completely back on itself in either direction. This would let the sides fold back and forth in a zigzag pattern. Like this, except bigger:

are the ones you commonly see in restaraunts between the kitchen and the dining area, where they have the doors that you push open and they swing close, back and forth until they stop. In fact, the spring type might be useful for keeping the sides closed until needed, rather than flapping open. Hope this info helps.

[Rumpty]

McMaster Carr

[deanbrown3d]

ww88 - thanks for the hinge info. I'll look into it. But I think that Morris is right, I don't think there is any way to get it to fold up to

16' long with two 16' uncut lengths.

At least, not with my logic anyway

Dean

[woodworker88]

It should work, because the pieces fold back and forth in a zigzag patter, 8'-16'-8'-16' sections

[Vic Baron]

Smallest zigzag would be 24'

Best solution is segments no larger than 8' - with the right hinges it would zigzag to 8' and be six segments thick.

V

[Robert Bonomi]

_Of_course_ there is a way to do it.

Think about how a paper-bag folds flat. where the short sides 'V' in, and the long sides just collapse against each other.

Apply the same logic to your project.

1) lay in the two long sides, as single pieces. 2) make the short sides, so that they butt up against the long sides. 3) Now, _cut_them_in_half_, and put flat 'butt' hinges on the *outside* of that cut-line. 4) lastly, put the short sides in between the long sides, mark the _inside_ corners of those joints for hinges, and install those hinges.

[deanbrown3d]

Robert - That's it! Great solution! I can put an external plank on each of the shorter sides to hold them out flat, ye-oldy-castle-door style!

Thanks

Dean

[Robert Bonomi]

Almost painfully obvious, once it's been pointed out, isn't it?

One caution on that, the supports for the castle-door 'bar' have to be on the _long_ pieces, in order for it to fold up 'flat'.

Or, depending on how much time you're willing to allow for install/remove, you could run carriage bolts (head on the _inside_ of the container) out through the reinforcing bars.