Finishing Touches

So after a rush last fall to finish the build during the flood-pocalyse, followed by a successful inaugural camping outing, the trailer went into storage for the winter.  Fast forward a few months, and it's time to get ready for the 2014 camping season, where I hope to log some serious miles and some serious camping weekends in my new toy.  Two important installs are needed to be ready for the season, as follows.

The first item is the battery.  After some research, and a near purchase of an Optima Blue Top battery, I decided on the 27 series sealed, AGM deep cycle store brand battery from Cabela's.  I decide on this battery for a few reasons.  First, I wanted a sealed AGM battery because I wanted to store the battery inside the trailer for security and weight balance (in the back, behind the axle and not adding to tongue weight), and I was concerned about spills and gas venting inside the enclosed space.  Also, AGM is rated well for cycles and charge holding.  After doing some research, the Cabela's battery was better reviewed than the Optima, and was better priced per ampere-hour too.

So to install I decided on the under-counter shelf in the back.  After weighing some options, I came up with a fastening arrangement involving 5/16 eye bolts, Tee Nuts, and 9" rubber tarp straps.  The tee nuts enabled machine threading the eye bolts through a piece of plywood separating the cabinet from the sleeping quarters with flush face on the back side.  With a paper thin vertical clearance to spare, the battery install looks like this:

Next up is the diamond plate stone guard.  Having met some nice fellow campers in September, one thing I noticed about their vintage canned ham camper was that the aluminum skin on the lower front face of their trailer was sandblasted after years of over-the-road towing into a flimsy piece of foil.  To protect my trailer skin, I decide to install a sacrificial rock guard on the lower face of the trailer, as found on many of today's teardrops and Airstream campers.  Fortunately for my budget, what I came up with also cost hundreds less than the commercial RVs.

Instead of a bare piece of aluminum, I decided on a piece of bling, and what better way to toughen up a teardrop camper than diamond plate?  The shiny stuff I found out is called Tread Brite.  After a few phone calls I found what turned out to be the Mecca of aluminum supply in the Mountain West, and 80 bucks later I was the proud owner of a 15" piece of .080 sheet.  Working off the idea of "floating" the stone guard and not allowing metal to metal contact, a few custom plastic washers and some strategically placed butyl caulk snippets, and I had my solution:

 

 

Ta-Da.  That's it.  I have more electrical work to do when I have time, but for now it's time to go camping.

Happy Trails!!!

Wake of the Flood

Deadhead anyone?  So if you remember my last post, I was nearing completion of the trailer during Biblical flooding the week prior to a planned camping weekend.  The rain almost derailed the project and the camping trip.  As it turned out, the rain did wash out mountain roads and I was forced to take lengthy detours to get to my dad's to finish the project, adding to the challenge.

From last time, almost all of the aluminum was skinned with the exception of the kitchen door opening.  Also remaining was to install the mattress, tile the counter top, install door latches, and do a finish prep on the aluminum.  So here's the home stretch in pictures.

Finishing the trim involved adding narrow strips of cut aluminum sheet down each side of the kitchen door opening, and then trimming down the curved exterior edge to the bottom of the trailer, as seen in the following picture.

Next up and as you can see, is installation of the mattress.  After cutting to size using an electric carving knife, the mattress installs through the rear of the trailer with a little elbow grease.

The counter top finish is next.  18" Armstrong vinyl adhesive floor tiles from Home Depot cut to size do the trick.

Next, latch plates for the chain bolt are needed.  After a little trial and error on the alignment, these from Home Depot work out.

And well,  guess what? That's it....well, not quite.  During the aluminum skinning, I mistakenly decide to store the trailer under a moving blanket and a tarp, thinking this would be protect the aluminum from scratches and keep it dry.  While it did protect from scratches, water did get in and being unfinished/unsealed/unpolished mill aluminum, caused a rather nasty oxidation stain, seen on the driver front in the pic below:

After doing some research, it seemed I could do a number of things to address this stain and produce a desirable finish surface on the aluminum.  This included buffing and polishing to a reflective shine, acid etching, using an abrasive like scotch brite pads, or leaving the finish largely untreated and trying to limit surface treatment to the stain, and then using a sealant.  In weighing these options, I found that I did not want a mirror finish, and did not want the high maintenance that came with buffing.  Acid etching goes almost too far in the opposite direction in terms of taking any shine out of the metal, leaving it grey.  An abrasive would leave a swirly, scratched finish that would be hard to keep consistent, while also dulling the appearance.  Since the metal had a reasonably nice shiny but smooth finish that I decided I wanted to preserve, what I arrived at was using Bar Keepers Friend Powdered Polish and Cleaner with a foam sponge and some elbow grease to treat the stain.  Important to this was the fact that Bar Keepers is a non-clorine/non-bleach product, which would have etched the aluminum.  The very mild abrasive effect of the Bar Keepers lifted the stain without significantly altering the finish:

The final steps in finishing the trailer included cleaning with lacquer thinner, and sealing with what I found to be the best aluminum product on the market, Sharkhide.  Specifically, the Metal Protectant in a quart can goes on smoothly with a cotton baby diaper, self-levels, and dries quickly forming a tough corrosion barrier.  Treating the whole trailer produced a nice finish:

Whew!  One last detail is to add a goofy stuffed animal as a camping mascot, load up with gear, and I think we are finally ready to camp:

And here's proof:

So there it is.  The initial build of the Colestear teardrop camper is done.  Three summer's worth of a project.  My estimates are around $3,500 in materials, along with a lot of sweat equity.  I'd guess 400 hours combined build time between my dad and myself, fabricating from scratch.  Working from a blueprint or building a second one, I'd say we could cut that labor time in half.  And who knows, maybe I'll decide to build another, or go into business as a custom builder (I think it would beat my day job for sure).

In the end, it's been a fun and rewarding project.  I'm very thankful to my dad for all of his help, craftsmanship, and expertise he lent to the project.  I don't think I could have done this build without him.  I look forward to many great camping outings in the years to come.

There are few enhancements I may still add to this trailer, including a sink/grey water collection, a camp stove, and possibly hacking a window air conditioner.  Details on all of that later.  In the mean time, Happy Camping!!!

Here are a few more pics to commemorate the successful build and the inaugural camping trip:

Make Thee A Teardrop Trailer

I wrote in the last post of finishing the woodwork and electrical, buying aluminum and cutting a memory foam mattress.  I thought I was "Rounding Third", or something cheesy like that.  Little did I know from there it would take working through the rainest month ever in the history of the (dry?) mountain west to finish the camper, a marathon month at that.  Turns out it was a month worthy of building an Ark, or in this case, a teardrop trailer.  At the time of this writing and in the wake of the epic 2013 Colorado floods, I am currently isolated from the trailer, unable to access my parents' house due to road washout closures.  This project of course being a minor concern in aftermath of such a disaster, my camping trip has arrived less than a week away with no way to get the trailer out of the mountains.  What shall I do?

Well regardless of what happens next, here's how I got to this point.

The focus after last time was the 2' x 8' roll of coiled aluminum.  Bought from a semi-trailer supply shop as a roofing repair material, I found this aluminum to be the best compromise of quality and price.   As important, I needed 8'6" continuous to cover the sides, which this product provides.  As a 3003 alloy, this aluminum has a nice shiny mill finish that, with some care will look nice for a long time.

One of the first tricks was to figure out how to cut aluminum from a 23' continuous sheet.  To do this, we decided to roll the sheet out on my dad's porch and at .040 thickness, air tools- specifically the Husky Air Shear from Home Depot, were in order to do the cutting:

Before hanging and finish cutting any aluminum, we needed to prep the body of the trailer some.  For one, the plywood sides of the trailer hang down past the sides of the c-channel trailer frame, and as-is would be exposed to road spray and grime.  So, a search again at Home Depot found the perfect aluminum drip edge to cap the bottom of the plywood.   Applying with a silicone sealant and staples, the drip edge is a great fit:

With the drip edge in place, the full sheets of aluminum can be cut and hung.  Liberal use of hand clamps enabled temporary hanging of air sheared aluminum while Sharpie lines are drawn:

From there, manageable pieces of aluminum can be cut to precise size on the table:

Critical to the proper fit of the aluminum, was to allow about 1/16" gap at the edge of the metal for expansion and contraction due to differential expansion rates between the aluminum and wood.  Turned out that the Great Neck Three Piece Aviation Snip set provided a versatile set of hand snips for making right hand, left hand, and center snip cuts to finish the aluminum, all of which proved essential.  Using clamps and brads, the aluminum was temporaily hung.

We decided on a center-out, door-first fit strategy to minimize the likelihood of bulge and waves (or tin canning) in the aluminum.  A combination of drill, RotoZip, Dremel, and Sawzall were all used to cut the door openings.

With openings cut, doors and windows are hung.

Additionally, holes are drilled, wires run, and lights hung.

Along the way, at each of these openings in the exterior, a bead of silicon is applied along with strips or "boogers" of butyl caulk to limit water intrusion.  The same goes for the ceiling fan.  In this case, the fan is sealed with a trip layer- a sandwich of two layers of butyl caulk with a closed cell foam seal in the middle:

 The fans is finished with wiring connections and the installation of the trim ring on the inside:

Switching gears a bit- as part of the body prep., the stock wheel offset was compromised by adding 3/4" CPVC and 3/4" plywood to the sides of the trailer (all to stretch the interior width to 60" to accommodate a queen mattress, if you recall).  This created a potentially dangerous rub/interference situation for the tire sidewalls.  To get some of this back, wheel spacers were in order. At first, I considered hubcentric bolt-on billet spacer.  These tended to be expensive and a tricky fit.  A simpler, lower cost alternative came in using a slide-on over stud spacer.  The hang-up up with this approach was the need for a longer wheel stud to extend through the spacer.  After Northerl Tool confirmed they don't source replacement studs for my trailer, an exhaustive internet search found an appropriate replacement in the Kodiak Trailer 2" stud.  Using an unmounted bench vice (only a little redneck) to press out the old studs, and in with the new, the whole thing comes together perfectly:

Switching back to aluminum, with the doors, lights, and power receptacle installed, it was time to start installing edge trim.  Having two sheets of aluminum overlap in the middle of the trailer roof, a piece of flat insert trim with moulding from Frank Bear is used to cover the seam in sheets:

By the way, you've probably noticed the tarp in some of these pictures.  Have I mentioned the rainy theme of this part of the build?  More details coming...

Next up, the lower edge trim is installed, along with the fender, to finish the lower edge of the trailer.  The trim is notched to allow the brackets for the fender to lay flat:

Next up, edge trim is installed working from the front, over the top.  For this trim, it is pre-drill at 4" intervals.  Select holes are added to avoid conflicts with body screws and to secure screw trim ends.  Pilot holes are punched using the the trim, and then overdrilled in the sheet aluminum using a 1/4" bit to allow some movement in the sheet.  A bead of butyl caulk is pressed into the elbow of the trim for weather seal.

From here, the trailer side of the hurricane hinge is installed, with moulding.  This specialty hinge proves excellent weatherproofing:

After some delay, the kitchen door is skinned, with the hinge mounted at the top first:

The hinge is notched to provide a lip at the top.  The door has a hole drilled for the latch T-handle, and T-channel edge trim is added.

The kitchen door is hung by sliding the hinge on from the edge.  After, it awaits weather seal and final fit.

Along the way, running lights are installed.  This involved cutting conduit and using self tap screws with clamps to secure.

 Wires are run through the conduit with solder splice connections for the side marker light.

 

Brackets are drilled for the rear lights, before hanging.  Wiring for the rear lights is run through the trailer wall into kitchen before running down through the floor.

Whew...I'm out of breath.  So here's where it stands:

I'm so close I can taste it.  If I only can get there to finish it.  Whenever I do, I need to finish trim around the kitchen door opening, set door strike plates, and finish and seal the aluminum skin.  Until then, whenever that is....