Trailer is (looks) done...from the outside

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next year, new tent

On the road! 53 days from demo to road trip:

confession time. since march 30, the shop has gradually become a true disaster. my MO is to clean just enough to accomplish the next task. so far, the table saw has been cleared twice. rest of the te, just give the fence a healthy shove, make room for the cut. nothing significant has been shoved off yet. 

view of the inside of the front, showing the carry bearing for the crank handle. under the plywood, between the cleats, is a chunk of rock maple, about 3.5 inches cubed, with the curve of the trailer front cutting away just under half of the cube. the hole in the maple was machined on a cnc milling machine, is just slightly over sized for the crank. 

btw, thus is un unfinished storage space, hence the glue drips and rough cuts. don't have time to be neat in there. 

machinist's trick: how to enlarge a pilot hole in sheet metal with a fluted drill bit, without turning the hole into a triangle (you know what I'm talking about if you ever tried this. not iust sheet metal, also other thin materials.)

Drill through 4 layers of tshirt rags, or 2 layers of terry microfiber rags. The rags fill the spaces in the flutes and keep the drill centered. 

Result, perfectly round larger hole. (original hole size below).

new door latch installed. man, is this better than the craptastic original latch. solid. 

inside latch. teak plywood panel inside door. i love teak. only place we covered the frameing, had to for stiffness. against philosophy of keeping all spaces open on one side, for better damp prevention, and better access for repairs, with no finished surface to replace. that's the high labor part, for what, vanity? right. 

new crank hatch. just an electrical weather proof outlet cover. installed upside down for angle. needs a gutter above to deflect water. on the list, after this trip. 

you can see bolts in weird spots around the cover. they hd down the rock maple carry bearing, needed for the new longer crank, to keep it in line. weird spots due to funky angle of winch crank axis after deer hit. got it as straight as we could. winch was split open, had to weld back together, couldn't get it back to original geometry. character, history, i like it. 

actually installed thr maple bearing( just a block with a close fitting hole) on sunday. forgot to mention it. 

ALMOST road ready. can drive now, and camp in it, but it needs exterior corner trim to keep moisture out of the corners.

Sunday Monday

3 days till we leave to go camping. 

Sunday got the other bench back in, now theres one on each side, the table can sit on them and make a bed. 

Got the front slide out bed installed, after figuring out the offset mounting. 

Worked on the lights a bit, and built the front bench/ shelves. Had ripped out the kitchen and a cabinet, so had to replace with something for stability. 

(looking back at both benches). Reused the bench frames, re skinned with nicet plywood, and added strategic access holes

Lights all done, wired. Today I finished the taillight standoffs, had to bandsaw the curve of the back into the cylinder Dad machined for me. Fun using an angle plate to hold the part on the bandsaw. 

Also assembeled the door, using the teak plywood, and got all the old door trim back on. Took a bit of head scratching to figure out what to do with the pile of parts. 

3 days left, and one night have a kids concert. Still have to install rear bed, door, door lock, trim at edges, and vent hatch. 

Will finish front bench later, got one shelf in, still debating the rest. 

Saturday PM, 5 days to go

Well, it looks like the bulk of the work will be done tomorrow. This week was hit and miss, got the marker lights wired, top sides skinned, some minor fussy bits here and there. 

Today, finally got a full day without rain so I could skin the top. Glue drying:

Rear end, minus tail and license plate lights:

Waiting for dad to finish the tail light standoffs, and glue needs to set overnight before I raise the roof. 

I'm supporting it on a bench so it drys with the correct camber in the top:

Sunday

Skinned it (bottom anyway):

Between rain, kids events, barely got any time to work on trailer this week. Thursday I started wrappping the upper curves with 1/8 in luan plywood. I couldn't bend it as far as I thought from the testing. Had to cut it back and use strips. 

Then on Friday, had to cut it back some more:

After it set up, I finally got to fair the front and rear curves with a belt sander this morning:

Finally ready to sheet with Aluminum. Just picked it up this morning. 

Got the roof sides and end frame finished last night.  Not a lot to look at, looks about the same as some of the other views so far.  Tonight I hope to get the small curved ends of the roof skinned with the 1/8 inch plywood. The front curve is too tight to bend, have to score the back.

One joint about to get planed down flush:

Tent trailer rained out Sun and Mon

18 days to go, was only able to get one side of the roof replaced Sunday PM between rain bursts. The other side is ready to go under the plastic.

new side. rear curve frame waiting to be installed. then I can sheet it. then I can finally confirm the template for the cnc plasma cutter for the aluminum siding. 

Tent Trailer saturday night, 20 days to go...

got home after dinner about 9, built the upper rear curve frame.  

bloomsday tomorrow, have to spend all morning shuttling family all over the place. hope to get the sides of the roof replaced and the front and back skinned.

Tent Trailer: the roof continued

started to tear the roof skin off last night. it's a bit worse than i hoped, probably have to replace the whole thing.  it will be better in the end, i'm adding a half inch to the height of the roof, won't have to tack on a strip at the bottom.

(that's the old floor sitting on there to keep out the rain)

got the whole roof stripped. definitely have

to replace all the wood, and even the center

strut between the foam pieces. (the roof is

really a foam and aluminum sandwich with an internal 1 x 2 frame, with one 1 x 2 down the middle, which rotted to nothing for 2 feet, was soaking wet).

this means the only original parts of the trailer will be 3 1 x 2's in the roof, the roof foam, and the steel frame/axle/wheels.

so this is typical crap i have to deal with. they built this so freaking cheap they just used box staples on a butt joint at the corner of the roof.   

 

all i can do is pull the staples, stuff some gorilla glue in there (it foams to fill gaps), and drive in some long screws. if i try to suck the gap tight, it will warp the roof, the aluminum skin on the underside is already attached, and isn't coming off until next year.

same with the other corner. 

you can start to see an access hole for storage in the new roof end.

have to remove all the rusty staples and plastic trim inside the roof, so i can replace the 1 x 2 down the middle.
happy to see that junk gone.

the original back end. never got this very far east or south.

finally, got the front upper new curve built. it's only clamped in place, still have to replace the roof sides before i can attach permanently.

Tent Trailer roof on

 ok, i've finally caught up to today. put the roof in place, and get to start tearing off the old skin.  i expect to have to replace a bunch of the wood inside, i know there was rot in there.  i replaced the front and back ends 9 years ago, so maybe i'll get away with just the sides.

starting to get a bit interesting to see if i can have this ready by friday, 23 may. 3 weeks to go exactly.

borrowed a long block and belt sander from a co-worker, the walls have some high and low spots that need to get worked out.

Tent Trailer aluminum research

stopped by alcobra metals to ask about aluminum for the exterior.  $40 for a 4 x 10 foot sheet, might take 3 or 4. they can cut using my cad files, maybe takes 2 or 3 days.

.032" thick, 5052.  durable, utility grade, cheap.  scuffs easily, but who cares, we'll treat this like a horse trailer, not a piece of jewelry.

Tent Trailer: skinned the front

got the front skinned tonight. had something else to do as well, don't remember what now, so that's all i could get done.

the roof isn't really there yet, just messing with the posting dates, using photos from the future. 

Tent Trailer skinning the ends

tonight i got the rear curve skinned with 1/8in mahogony plywood.  cheap, like they use on the hollow core doors. i would have skinned both ends, but my brad nailer wouldn't hold the skin on, it's so thin. i had to drive 17 minutes out to harbor freight for a cheap ($23) staple nailer.  got there, didn't have my wallet. had to go home, hap bailed out on me, went back and got the nailer.  got to listen to the first 9 songs on the new pixies album, way louder than hap would have put up with. home by 8:45, done with the skin around 9:30. this picture was actually taken several days later, didn't put the roof on until this friday.

Tent Trailer recap

weekend of april 5th was challenging. rain on and off all weekend, high temps around 55°F, and I needed minimum of 55 for 24 hours for the VCT tile to set right.  plastic on and off several times a day.  checking weather radar, looked like a 4 hour gap saturday afternoon, so I decided to lay the tile.

putting down the floor:

grinding off the proud screw heads

subfloor done (water-proofed on underside)

really, the whole reason I had to strip it to the frame was the deer crushed the passenger side front floor, which anchors the winch that raises the roof. july 4 weekend 2013, we hit the deer friday pm.  I had to jimmy/jerry/jury rig the winch mount with a clamp and a pair of vice grips at our friend's place (we were staying with friends for the weekend at their river lot (secondary, our friends aren't THAT swanky), and they're building a cabin, have a lot of tools around.


to repair the floor, I had to start from scratch.  I always thought the design of the original trailer was ugly and a waste of space.  this is the perfect excuse to get the boss (dana) to let me rebuild it.

anyway, back to laying tile. we chose grey VCT, off the shelf from home depot.  available sat am, not special order, .78 a sq ft, and my neighbor has some left over yellow we can use for accents.  50 ish sq ft, around $40 bucks.

this is becoming the theme.  what's available now, cheap, and not ugly.  that's what we'll use.  there's a challenge in working with limited materials, in finding off the shelf solutions, and not overthinking every decision.

also, we're going camping at bumping lake, outside Yakima, in the mountains near Mt Ranier on Memorial Day weekend.  we don't have time to make a big deal out of every decision.  

tiling complete, weekend of april 12th, i think (after our spring break, see below):

looks blueish, called grey, ???

ok, so my time line gets a bit fouled up. now i think the bad weather was this weekend of the 12th.

in any case, the first full week of april was our kids spring break. we rented a cabin on the Oregon coast at Arch Cape. I brought a work laptop, so I could figure out the wall construction, and design new curves for the front and back ends of the trailer. for 10 years, this ugly trailer's been parked in our back yard; i've probably spent hours staring at it from the hot tub, wondering why they didn't add more space on the front and back, and integrate the curve of the bottom with the roof.

looking back at this before photo, you can see what's left of the front "curve" shape sweeps up and back into itself at the joint with the roof. (and by the way, you can see what a piece of crap this was, right?, but we love it, when its open, it's 8 feet turns into 16', with 3 full beds. always get the best night's sleep in it, and get to keep all our stuff up off the ground):

just by adding some matching curve to the roof, a more integrated, practical space can be made, with more storage, and a sweeter, more teardrop shape. 

for a couple hours on vacation, i ignored the kids and tried to get something going:

the green represents the new shape of the front and back.  everything shown wood is exactly the original design, which i can't alter due to the lift mechanism, and the size of the frame. and don't worry, the curves do actually meet correctly, they just look staggered from the angle.  the roof is a half inch wider than the base for drainage.  trim will even out the transition.

i tried a bunch of shapes, (like 4), and finally realized this was the best i could do, given the restrictions on overall length, and remembering the bed support struts at the last minute, which angle in to the bottom of the front and back.  

from the solidworks cad model above, i just made working drawings of the walls, like this:

 right, i know this drawing is over dimensioned, it's just for me, so who cares. if you don't know what i'm talking about, then you're lucky. and the 4 decimal places is just so i know which 1/16" to hit, not implying tolerances at all, i make those up on the fly.

i sent the cad files to my brother jon in San Francisco, to cut out on his shop bot, a CNC router.  takes him almost no time at all, and everything's close to perfect.  even with $8 to ship the parts to me, it's a screaming deal. in the mean time, i get the walls ready.

so now i build the walls.  this is the weekend of april 19th and 20th, i'm pretty sure:

during the next week, i put the end walls on:

the plywood for the walls is a new ish cheap ($20 a sheet, only need 2) 1/4 inch underlayment from Home Cheapo. they make the color really consistent for even bleed through of cheap vinyl flooring, so the back side actually has a nice color.   we won't panel the interior, so i install it good side in:

at this point, i'm not using any plans, just copying the old parts laying around the yard.

you can see the pockets for the lifting struts

the winch is finally back in place. the actual damage from the deer and rot is fixed.

every single piece of anything gets bedded in caulking or glued together, to keep out water. the old one didn't have a drop of sealant inside anywhere. they relied on the exterior trim, installed with rv tape, to try to keep out water. probably worked for a few years, but cracked from vibration.  once water got into a double sided wall, it never left, rotting every corner, the floor, no wall was free of rot.

april 28th. the end pieces have arrived (last week), and i can't wait to get them put together. 

every joint is glued with gorilla glue (water activated expanding polyurethane, awesome to make water tight joints, and really strong) and screwed with hot dipped galvanized screws.

april 29th. every day after work i try to make some progress.  the family is being really patient with my lack of attention, housework, crazy demands to come help me hold something up. i hope the neighbors are OK, a couple times i got a bit loud, stressed from having glue setting up on parts and kids wandering away back to some screen or device.

by the end of the night on april 29th: