I have a 16' landscape utility trailer and I'm looking at building some short walls for it so I can use it to haul firewood. They need to be fairly easily removable as for most of my uses I wouldn't want them on it.

Looking at weights of a cord of wood, seems like there's no point in going too high with the walls. It's a 7000# trailer and it weighs 1740#, so theoretically I can have about 5250# of payload. It'll probably be more like 5000# max once I factor in the weight of the walls, and I'd rather not max out the trailer either.

Anyway I'm debating how I should go about this. I had at one time considered using 2x12s to make a 24" high wall all around, but not only is that a fair amount of weight, but seems like I probably don't need to go a full 24" high. So I'm thinking about using 3/4" plywood and make it 16-20" high. The uprights on the rails are about 10" high. They already have holes that I can bolt to. I'm thinking maybe for the sides, I could have two 8' lengths 16-20" high, connected by hinges to hold them together and so I can fold it up when not in use. Carriage bolts through the plywood and the uprights on the existing rail. In the front corners I could either bolt through a piece of 4x4 to lock them together or maybe some sort of latch for easier disassembly, less space and lighter weight.

I'm just throwing around ideas right now. Anyone have any thoughts about how to do this better?

Thanks

With the supports that close together, I don't see a need for 3/4".  Half would be plenty IMO, and yeah, carriage bolts with wing nuts would work and be fairly easy to remove.  Just make sure the wood can't slide back and forth and slam into the side boards.

Are you moving wet or dry cord wood?  That's going to be a massive difference in weight.

Also, there's already a safety factor built into that 7k lb weight rating...so I wouldn't worry about loading it right to it's rating.  The bigger problem with wood usually, is making sure it's loaded evenly and with the proper amount of tongue weight.  Pay close attention to that.

Half inch plywood.

Edit

Supports are predrilled.  Use your idea.

To some extent I would just have 5 pieces of plywood.  No hinges and no bolts.  Lay em flat when going out.  Place something on top to give some height so a strap can be run over item and hold things in place.  I have some scrap 6x6 blocks but have used a single cement block or whatever else for this.

As you load trailer they go in place and fire wood will hold em in place against the framework on the sides of the trailer.

When younger I muscled things all the time so I understand hinging the sides and what not, but lazy older me would keep the pieces seperate.

I don't guess the tailgate needs anything.

When you travel with the sides up they will see a lot of load from the wind.  I don't see a need to have that load in place going out but whatever.

Over the years my dad had some plywood scraps.  He would buy good quality plywood and stain it and as time went on and something got damaged or something smaller was needed we cut em up here and there.

Only replaced em once while I was a kid til I moved out on my own.

So I would not be set on a height just for the trailer.  I would look at plywood and my needs and a minimum of cuts and go from there.

Not attaching em to the trailer will make initial loading a bit more annoying perhaps.  And at the same time I would just add the pieces as I needed em.  If you have a helper it might be nice being able to load from a side before both side pieces are in.  Basically the front one has to be in cause I would start loading at the tongue and probably put the first 2 side pieces in.  Person helping can just work on putting pieces on trailer deck towards back and person actually stacking the load then has a nice working pile.  Otherwise everything either goes over the raised side and needs to be lifted higher or it all comes up the tailgate.

Thanks guys, little behind on updating this.

Ended up moving forward with my plan pretty close to how I originally described it. I just used 1/2" plywood, made it 18" high. Figure that's higher than I need, but gives me a little safety buffer as I will be using this on the road. Instead of running bolts through the uprights, I bolted 2x4 pieces onto the plywood that fit in my stake pockets. This way it doesn't take any tools to install or remove. I just pull out the sides, unfold, and drop in. The piece on the front just slides in also, blocked by the rail on the front and a couple of thin blocks that I screwed to the plywood on the inside. It all looks like it would be unwieldy, and to be honest even I kind of thought I might need a second person to help install and remove. But there's enough flex, I'm easily able to put it in and take it out by myself in no time at all.

Hope I didn't screw up with the type of plywood I bought, but if I did it's not a super expensive lesson. I hit it with deck stain, hoping moisture and/or rain doesn't destroy it immediately. But as I said, I'll only be using these sides when hauling firewood or other materials where they would come in handy. Any time I'm not hauling, I intend on removing them and putting them inside. I won't even have them set in the stake pockets when traveling empty to where I'm going to get firewood. I'll fold it all up, strap it down, and install when I get there. I know nothing's going anywhere once there's a load of wood inside the walls.

I actually just used it for the first time today. I'll get some pics of it up tomorrow night. But for now, here's some pics of when I was putting it together.







Folded up and ready to be put away:

I got this load of Black Walnut, oak, Locust and some Hackberry from a friend a couple months ago:





Closeup of the two Black Walnuts.  I'll save the majority of this for my woodworking neighbor.



The really good news:  It took my tractor with it's grapple about 5 minutes to unload the trailer of those logs and stack them in my firewood processing yard:

Put the walls to use yesterday. Worked great. They slid right in. Kept everything contained. Truck and trailer pulled great. Applied some deck stain sealer, but only one coat. They got rained on quite a bit yesterday and this morning. Just got the trailer unloaded an hour or so ago, going to be taking them off shortly. Hopefully they don't warp.





The tree I got the wood from:



After:

Looks great to me.  Thanks for posting, as I was considering something similar and wondered if i needed any sidewalls.

Certainly looks like it worked!

If you ever can, spring for a dump trailer.  They make smaller ones for bumper pull.. But they make handling firewood a breeze.

This is my 14ft gooseneck.  Even just thrown in was about 3 cords.

Timely thread.  Looking at adding sides to my trailer to haul wood.  4' x 14'.  I don't have any pre drilled holes or 2x4 support pockets.  I'm thinking 1\2 in plywood 4' high by 14' long.  Not that I'd be filling up the trailer that high with wood.

You could use U bolts as well.  Just get them big enough to go around your posts.

Well I did this today... Treated lumber and 3\4" ply.  Local box the 1\2" looked horrible so I went a bit bigger\heavier.  Now to get some good tires.

How tall are those?

4 foot.  Sorry 3\4 ply

Remember firewood weighs ~4000 lbs / cord.
https://www.firewood-for-life.com/firewood-weight.html
4x4x14 = 224 cu ft.
1 cord =128 cu ft.
224 /128 = 1.75 cord capacity.
4000 x 1.75 = 7000 lbs.
What?s the weight of your plywood & lumber?
What's the GVW of the trailer? Check the tag on the tongue.
Be careful... that's prolly way over the limit for the trailer.
Ya don't need tickets or a wreck..
I'would have only brought the ply to the top of the rails & called it good.
Take care..

A buddy of mine is a firewood junky. He’s built several 4’ X 4’ X 18” skids out of 2 3/8” upset tubing. With a channel iron slots for his forks and tubing bases on each end. He then beefed up his ramp to allow for easier unloading. He then sets them under a cheap car port and once he needs them he sets one or two on his porch. I think he said he had about $100.00 in them going to the local scrap yard and cutting his own metal and paying by the pound.

I don't plan on hauling more than a rick at a time.  It's an old camper frame.  The high walls are for when I am helping with house moves.  My church seems to have them often.

I am using some scrounged old wood for outside stuff.  Go looking in the used paint aisle.  Found a can of stain that had leaked at some point at the lid, but with shaking it seems mostly full and mostly liquid.  Asked at the paint counter and popped it open and looks great to me.

Just a leak from it or another can maybe caused it to be put with the used paint and marked down.

Stain is something for decks I think, it is outside rated but not anything astounding.

Will use it to seal things up and the scrounged wood should last longer.

3\4 in plywood is about 60lbs per 4x8 sheet.  So I used somewhere between 4 and 5 sheets so let's say 260lbs.  2x4s are about 1.28lbs per board foot so lets say 105lbs.

So the trailer weighs about 365lbs more with the wood sides.

You could use some type of woven wire fencing, a little framework and that would hold firewood and not add much weight to the trailer.  Plywood will come apart fairly quickly if you don't keep it covered.