Starting a new camp trailer

Hey, any progress is better than none. This time of year it's hard o find the time for projects.

 

I have been doing work slowly over the last couple of weeks. I finished the floor framing, and started on the profile for the walls.
First had to extend the walls. Used the router to create a lap joint and glued the pieces together. This gives me a wall blank that is 9 ft. 6 inches long. I only need it to be 9 ft 3 inches for my profile.

nothing like a bag of old concrete to use as a press.


After that all dried, I marked out the profile and modified my design slightly.
I cut out the basic profile today. Need to still cut out the door, wheel well and the hatch.

Went shopping for electrical and building supplies for the trailer today. While at Home Depot I found these hinges.

They are enamled gate hinges. $6 a piece including screws. Better yet they are simular enough to the design on the Wrangler to look good with it.

 

Looks way too cool. are you planning on any sort of siding or just finish the plywood walls? Keep up the interesting work and posts.

 

I am actually going to do an old boat builders technique for the exterior to make it water proof. A good coating of tite-bond III with a light canvas or duck cloth stretched on top of that. Let it cure for a few days. Then top coat it with a thinned tite-bond III mix and let dry completely. This makes a waterproof layer when it is dried.

No toxic chemicals involved, no hazardous waste, easy clean up. I like it.

Then I can use a standard exterior house paint to make it any color I want.

 

Side profile is cut out.



Remember this is only 4 ft tall and 9 ft 3 inches long from point to point.

 

Nice!

 

Lookin' good HudsonHawk, at least it's not 15 deg there, like here.

 

Looks good but I have to ask one question about your design. One of the finer points of the tear drop trailers were the tops with the exception of the back hatch were rounded and made of one piece, it helped keep water out. Are you gonna make the top out of individual pieces due to the squared corners and then seal the seams or, I guess my point is how do you plan on doing it?

 

Flat pieces with sealed seams. Then over that will be the water proffing I discussed a couple of posts above.

 

This is the stuff I use on a wooden boat. Their books are fantastic.

http://www.gougeon.com/

You can get this stuff at West Marine.

Marine topside paint might last longer.
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Finally after a couple of months waiting for the weather to warm up enough for the glue to cure properly I have made some more progress.

I finally decided on how I was going to seal the rear hatch. Had to make a failry elaborate piece to match the contours of what I wanted. This allowed me to finish up the framing of the walls.



Test fitting it.



With the rear glued and clamped, I was able to frame out the door opening.










I will route out the frame to match the door opening and some electrical chases tomorrow for the marker lights.

Then need to pick up the insulation and skin the interior of the walls. This way the walls are complete when they finally get mounted on the frame.

 

Very nice carpentry.

 

Finshed the door opening out. Need to add reinforcements in the walls to support the cabinates and galley shelf.



Routed out the wiring chases for the marker lights. There will be simular cut made in the floor to keep the wiring from chafing.

 

Great Job!!!

I enjoy seeing it progress.

 

This is so cool. Definitely want to build one of these some day. Keep the inspiration coming!

 

Okay, finally getting the walls to the point I will be able to put them up.

Installing the inserts for the hinge bolts. I am using the same thing to mount the fenders to the body.




Insulating the walls. Obviously the 3/4" insulation I picked up is just slightly thicker than 3/4". You can see the reinforcements that are built into the walls for the cabinate installs




Nothing a belt sander and a bit of time wont fix. The places it still looks like it's too thick is a result of the insulation bowing up.




And finally the interior skin is on. The backwall will be where the interior skin ends. This is the first wall finished. The second wall is together and drying right now.



This wall weighs 51.4 lbs. currently.

 

Really looks great!

 

Good job! Thanks for the pics.

 

I'm loving this build, I would really like to build something similar someday.