Skip to main content

Detailed Factory Tour and Processes

15:56
27:17
24.7K views

At 15:56 in

How Dump Trailers are Made | Inside Look in an Amish Trailer Factory

What happens here

Brian, the owner of Belmont Trailers, provides a detailed tour of the factory. He explains their lean manufacturing process, which optimizes efficiency. The process starts at the 'saw line' or 'cut line' where structural steel is pre-cut according to specific trailer model production sheets. These pre-cut parts are then loaded onto carts and moved to specific fabrication lines. Each line utilizes fixture tables (jigs) to ensure repeatability, consistency, and efficiency in welding sub-frames. The video shows the beam welder, which fabricates engineered beams up to 44 feet long by welding top/bottom plates and webs from specialized steel. He points out the pierced frame design, where I-beams for cross-members are welded *through* the main frame, not just butted against it, increasing stability and rigidity. The tour then moves to the Dexter axle assembly area, where 12,000lb axles are prepared. After fabrication, all steel trailers undergo a phosphoric acid wash in a dedicated wash bay to prepare the surface for painting. Smaller parts go through a separate conveyorized wash and paint system. Before painting, all seams are meticulously sealed to prevent water ingress and rust. The trailers then proceed to the paint booth where a two-part polyurethane primer and topcoat are applied, able to accommodate trailers up to 44 feet. After painting, the trailers enter a flash-off area for drying.

Goal: Belmont Trailers' owner, Brian, guides a tour through the manufacturing facility, explaining the lean production process from steel cutting and fabrication to painting and assembly, highlighting key quality control measures.

Tools and materials

  • 12-Volt Batteries
  • Beam Welder
  • Conveyorized Paint System
  • Dexter Axles
  • Fixture Tables (Jigs)
  • Forklifts
  • Hose Fittings
  • Hydraulic Pumps
  • Paint Booth
  • Phillips Wiring Harnesses

What they say

Hide

head a bit. Guys, this is Brian with Belmont Trailers and we're going to walk through this factory. Thanks, man. Thank you so much. It was awesome to be able to come through here. Glad to have you. And show people how things are made. Our manufacturing facility is set up very much in a lean manufacturing process. What that means is that we've laid out the factory to be as efficient as possible. So the way the factory is laid out, you'll start at the front of our facility here. We have our what we call our saw line or our cut line. All of our trailers, when we put an order into our system for a trailer, a production sheet is generated for that specific trailer model. And every trailer model that we have has a cut list or a saw list uh for that particular model where our guys will precut all of the structural steel that is needed for that particular model. And the parts will be pre-cut. They'll be put on these carts that you see here specific to that trailer model. And then those carts will then be taken to the specific line that that trailer is being manufactured on. So we have five lines here. a custom line. We have our utility landscape line. We have our equipment line and we have our dump line. Cool. So, the carts will be staged at the front of every line in order to be able to start the fabrication process. So, each one of our lines, you'll notice um we have what's called a fixture table uh or a jig specific to that trailer model. So, what that allows us to do is for repeatability, for consistency, and for efficiency, all the pre-cut parts will be placed into that fixture table, our guys in Fab will weld them up. They'll be able to pick that subframe up, flip it over, weld the other side, and continue on down the process in manufacturing the trailers. Once the trailers are manufactured, again, all of our trailers are steel. We paint all of our trailers with a two-part polyurethane primer and a top coat. And before the trailers are painted, they go through a phosphoric acid wash bay, which is what you see here. So there's no trailer in there at the moment, but very much like a car wash. The trailers will get washed down with that phosphoric acid wash. Then in addition to the wash bay for the actual trailer subframes, we also have a conveyorized paint system and wash bay. So, this system here allows us to hang all of our small parts, things like ramps, gates, uh, toolboxes, things like that that are going to be mated up with the subframe later. They can…

Auto-generated from the video audio.