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[email protected] clare@snyder.on.ca is offline
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Default Aluminum Trailer Questions

On Wed, 10 Aug 2016 10:19:05 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Tue, 09 Aug 2016 21:38:50 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 10 Aug 2016 07:32:39 +0700, John B.
wrote:

On Tue, 9 Aug 2016 06:37:42 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

wrote in message
m...
...
All of the aluminum on my plane is 6061T6 - rivetted.
All flight surfaces and flight structures.

Aluminum boat trailers are routinely welded.

What's the difference?
--jsw

The boat trailer is probably not made from 6061 aluminum :-)

Actually, it is.
See
http://www.easternmetal.com/pdfs/alu...components.pdf

I can't tell from the photo but I seriously doubt that a welded
trailer would have been built from 6061T6 as the materials list shows.

If for no other reason than the area around every weld would have
magically lost about half its strength (ultimate tensile strength).
Why would one want to built a trailer of relatively high priced, high
strength, aluminum and deliberately destroy the strength of the
aluminum?

My son-in-law has an aluminum boat trailer made of 6061T651 - some
parts are welded, some are bolted. Being a high end factory built
trailer the weldments MAY have been heat treated - but T6 or T651
returns to about a T4 in less than a year after welding, and keeps
getting better from there.