5" drop center axle and welding jig

[Frank S]

I am building a small 6 ft by 6ft trailer out of a scrapped mobile deer stand. Originally the spindles were welded at the very rear of the stand to give it a 3 point stability but the pipe they were welded to was nearly rotted off so I decided to move them forward and make a small utility trailer out of it by moving the axle forward, plus I wanted to lower the bed a little so I needed to make a drop center axle.
To do this I flipped my tilt top table over to utilize the beam as a welding fixture. I added a couple of scrap drop offs from my fork carriage project to lay the axle tube on then clamped the spindles to the table with bare wheels mounted on them to hold them square
this is what the fixture looked like and how the drop center axle turned out.

[DIYer]

Thanks Frank S! We've added your Axle Welding Fixture to our Welding category,
as well as to your builder page: Frank S's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Axle Welding Fixture by Frank S

tags: welding, fixture

[DIYer]

Thanks Frank S! We've added your Drop Center Axle to our Trailers and Towing category,
as well as to your builder page: Frank S's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Drop Center Axle by Frank S

tags: trailer, axle

[Manitoba Man]

Well thought out
. Simple and effectve. Bob

[Frank S]

Well thought out
. Simple and effectve. Bob

Thanks Bob, the nice thing about is when I built my table 20 odd years ago I put the single beam under it because I wanted the ability to tack up fixtures where ever I needed At first I thought about using a 1" thick plate and no beam but a 4 ft. by 8 ft. plate 1" thick will sag under its own weight without support plus the plate would weigh over 1200 lbs very hard to flip or place in any of the many positions the 1/2" plate is around 600 and change and the single 8" H beam is enough to support it Plus I cut 2 slots in the beam so I can move the table with a forklift.
The beam makes a perfect measure off place when needing to measure in 2 planes such as the axle the 2 cut offs I tacked to the beam and the table were the perfect angle to allow me to rotate the axle for welding. By strapping the 2 wheels this gave me a 4 point contact at each end to keep the spindles in near perfect alignment. the only measuring I had to do was from the tube to the table top since the tacked on pieces held it true in the other plane having the tube parallel to the table top insured the drops would be parallel to each other as well. Making the construction of the drop axle easy peazy