does anyone use this ( flatbed-hooper trailer)

I actually flew across the country to Western Trailer's factory to look at one. They're nice trailers but wouldn't work for what we needed so we ended up building one.

Looks like the side boards on the one in the video are made of reinforced plastic for light weight which makes them look flimsy. The ones we looked at all had plastic covered plywood. They also didn't have the removable aluminum floor panels. Western builds very nice stuff but are very proud of them and they're price reflects it.

They're made for a very specialized market. We wanted one to haul corn about 600 miles one way but bring flatbed freight back. (due to the lack of hopper freight for the return) The reason the Western Hopper Flats wouldn't work for us is we wanted to be able to haul steel coils and the Western trailers are outside frame trailers and will not haul concentrated loads. Also they only make them with steel frames and I hate to paint!

After looking at what Western had to offer we ended up building this.

 

How many bushel's can you carry with that setup?

 

The trailer in the pic had 3 hoppers (one between the spread) and could easily do 1000bu. We made 3 of them and one was on a 96" wide trailer with 2 hoppers and it had to be almost running over to get a full load. We sold the last one last year and I believe it's in Texas now. Since the price of corn here went up considerably it became no longer profitable to haul it long distance. I believe the truck and trailer in the pics weighed just under 32k so it never needed to be filled full when running long distance. Just like the Western versions, they're very easy to convert back to a flatbed. In fact while the rear hopper was dumping the driver could have most of the front half torn down.

Another option Western offered was a "walking floor flatbed" which was really neat but again wouldn't work with concentrated loads. You could walk any load right out the back of your sidekit.

 

I have a grain kit that I put on my silage box in the fall, and if that trailer you built doesn't leak then you da man. Especially beans, those little ######## will slip through a pretty little crack. Pretty impresssive setup you have there Jfaulk.

 

Last years we got more grain in Ukraine and there were not enought grain haulers so operators got old containers, cut top, filled containers with grain, but they unloaded them in truck flipers (scare machines). They used 20' containers on chassis ore with BDF.

 

Anyone else bother to note that the video shows only one strap on the bulkheads strapped at front of trailer?

 

Whe use these kind of trailers to. And why do eastern europe trucks so old, and most of the times dirty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgWvOAxY4Qg&feature=related