Good Friends, Good Works

Our friends Rose and Orville came to stay with us for the weekend and put in some hours working on the trailer. Orville is the Tearjerkers Chesapeake Chapter Director. We installed cedar siding to the interior, sealed it all up from the exterior, and insulated.

Orville was the cut man and I fit and secured the cedar to the interior framing. This was a huge help, without a cut man I would have had to crawl in and out for every board.

The cedar is a closet lining material. It is very light, has tongue and groove, which makes it really easy to follow the curve, and comes in packages of six 8' boards. It comes in at about $1 per square foot. There is an aromatic version of this cedar which is darker and has more aroma, but it comes only in random lengths up to four feet. We wanted to have as few seams as possible and accomplished having seams only in what will be the back of the closets.

The color was also much more in line with our aesthetic.

Any available seams were taped and corners calked, for strength and to prevent air flow.

Pink fiberglass insulation was installed in all the curved areas, and in the flats rigid foam was used. Every void was filled with either insulation or caulk.

Thank you Rose and Orville for all your help, especially for working with the sloppy and itchy materials. Thank you to our friends Trina and Bill for their support, and the Cranwells for showing up on cue with pizza in hand. We love you all and it makes our trailer even more dear having our friends help in building it.

Moving on Up.

In this post I will get through raising the walls and finishing the framing. First I raised the head and foot bulkheads. The vertical members in the head are located to attach electrical boxes to, and the foot to mirror the floor joists underneath. I went ahead and drilled all the holes, pulling the wiring through before setting the bulkheads. In this picture you can see the rejected trim ring from the first varnishing attempt, it has a rough mock-up of the cabinetry for the galley hanging in it.

I skinned the bulkheads to square them up and attached the port side. I set it in a bed of silicone caulk and glued and screwed it to the floor and bulkheads, being careful not to place a screw beyond where the trim ring will cover. In the foot bulkhead I had to pick the perfect length screw and drive them from the interior, sweating the whole time and praying it did not pierce the exterior skin. I followed the same procedure for the starboard side. At this point I could really appreciate all the work of preparing the sides with their candy coating of varnish, water will never get to the wood.

The last easy, flat piece of framing was the ceiling. It has a rough opening of 14 x 14 1/2 for the attic fan. Originally I made it straight 14 x 14, but changed it after hearing how difficult it was for our friend Trina to install hers without leaving a cavity for the fan wiring. Thanks Trina!

The final step of framing was the curved portions. The rejected trim ring came in super handy. I cut out the parts of the curve I needed, used them as templates to cut out mirror images for the other side, and installed them with the framing.

This gives a guide at the edges for the interior paneling and provides a nailing surface to hold it in place.

The one thing I don't have is a good picture of the cabinet bulk head. It will serve as the back wall of both the galley and cabin cabinets. It is about 16 inches forward of the foot bulkhead, its bottom is the same height as the top of the foot's, and it runs all the way to the top of the trailer. The top member is a full 2x4 on edge with the top edge ripped to match the curvature of the side. I went with a more stout framing member because it will be what the galley hatch hinge is attached to. I promise to include a picture in the next post to clarify what I am talking about.

Finally the Foundation

Hey everybody, sorry to be gone so long, but I promise to catch you up. This post will encompass the deck preparation. First I needed to bring the joists of the frame up to an even height. I needed something that I wouldn't have to worry about rotting so I chose Azak, a PVC material. I had to plane it down to thickness and notch it out to fit. I attached it to the metal frame with self tapping screws, making sure to seal them to the frame with caulk.

Then I fitted a plywood layer to the frame, leaving a slight gap at the sides to accommodate a bed liner finish to seal the edges.

I was again dealing with size issues and had to make it out of 4 pieces gleaned from 2 sheets of plywood. I fit them together with a tongue and groove that I milled into the wood, making sure to have the seams over a metal part of the trailer. This will help prevent water from getting to the seams.

I then laid out the floor joist. I tacked them in place temporarily so I could flip the whole thing over and secure the plywood permanently from below.

Katie then helped seal the plywood by first painting a coat of bed liner, then filling all the voids with paintable caulk, and then applying a second coat of bed liner making sure to seal the edges.

I then attached the floor system to the trailer with 4 carriage bolts in each trailer joist. We then hoisted the whole trailer up into a rack that I made to give access to the under side. The idea was to flip it all the way over, but the welded on light boxes were in the way, so it ended up propped and looking like a medieval trebuchet.

This gave us great access to really seal up the bottom of the trailer. We caulked any seam or void, sprayed bed liner in all the irregular places and rolled it on thick in the field. This was an incredible amount of work, but now I feel confident that the trailer will not rot out from underneath us. I fully intend for this thing to last 50 years.

We then ran all the rough wiring. This is the first time I have ever done this and it had me tearing my hair out. I am praying that it all works because all the wires are sealed up in there but good. Next was two layer of rigid foam insulation sealing between the layers with caulk. At this stage we realized that the opening of the doors was much higher than the floor. To prevent the circulation from being cut off in your legs when sitting in the doorway we decided to raise the floor 2 1/2 inches. Before you scream, "what about the weight!" it only adds about 25 pounds. I only raised the cabin area, not the galley, which affords a great surface to attach the galley bulkhead to.

We filled this layer with some pink fiberglass insulation we had left over from insulating the crawl space at our house.

I finished the deck with tongue and groove plywood lapping over the edge and sanding flush to make a perfect edge to attach the sides to. Now the foundation is complete. Stay tuned to see the walls raised and the roof put on.

OOOPS, Time to Back Up and Punt

We drug both sides outside when I finished finishing the second side, and crap if they didn't look totally different. Side one was a sickly yellow compared to the second, which was much closer to the color we were trying for.

We thrashed our hair and put on sack cloth, and finally decided to make side one again. So close to assembly, and now a major setback.

Now we are in superdrive to pump out another side. Thank God we had two more sheets of the oversized plywood. The deck and floor will have to be pieced together, but there are design benefits to be had by going in this direction. I will not have to creatively frame the floor to bridge the gap from the five foot wide plywood to the five and a half foot wide trailer.

To save time we will be building the floor at the same time we are finishing side one-number two. We started by stripping the trailer to its bare bones. I am going to be building a rack that will attach to the axle so we can flip the trailer over and back to prep both sides. We will also be using the bum side as a template to mock things up. Lots and lots to do.

Moving On Up

We finally feel like we are making some real progress. The first side and it's trim ring are sealed up in a beautiful candy coating of spar. After several checks and double checks that we were orienting the plywood correctly, I used the trim ring to outline the second side.

Again we cut the outline of both the side and the trim ring at the same time.

And then raise the trim ring and cut out the inner profile.

I leave the line and use a belt sander to even out the curves. We finish this stage by filling any void in the edge of the plywood. I hope to drop the door before Thanksgiving and be prepped and ready to paint next week, which puts us on schedule to have the finish done before Christmas, then it is assembly in the new year!

Catching Up

Last weekend we made a lot of progress. First we cut the inner diameter of the trim ring.

This is what the side will look like with the trim on.

Then we taped off the door and cut it out.

Kate is a great photographer.

Now it's On

Step number one is complete, threw down for the trailer today! Spent about twice as much money as I was planning, but as Confucius say, "good house needs good foundation." We looked at so many options, from Harbor Freight bolt togethers, to Carry-Ons, to custom welded frames, even used boat trailers.

The nice thing about this trailer is that the sides are designed to be removable, so the 5 x 10 frame is designed to stay stable with or without the sides. It is actually 5 1/2 feet wide, so that is going to call for some creative engineering. Maybe a roll off design so we can use the trailer without the teardrop? (Kate doesn't really like that idea.)

The next step is going to be finding the oversized 5x10 plywood. Anybody know where I can score some? We also looked at some cool flooring for the cabin today. Speckley industrial 12x12 floor tiles. We think they will look cool and stand up to anything. I cant wait to make some saw dust!

Designing the Frame

We have had an adventure trying to find a trailer that would be suitable for our needs. Everything we have seen has had rails around it, and I cannot justify paying $750.00 for a new trailer and immediately cutting it up. Plus they are only made with L-shaped steel and I think cutting the rails off would undermine the structural integrity. I have been searching through other teardrop project blogs and came across Ken and Noel's Blog, and I am going to completely gank their design. These are pictures of their project.

They have many of the same concerns that we have with the size of typical teardrops, they are usually 4x8 feet. To accomodate a queen mattress it would have to be at least 5 feet wide, and to give the puppy a place to sleep that is not on the bed, we need a couple of extra feet in length, so we are stretching the dimensions to 5x10 feet. They had this frame constructed of tubular steel, with everything needed and nothing extra, for $650.00.

I returned to Wellers Trailers during business hours and the nice salesman said he could order anything we want. I did not have a design or pictures in hand but from my description he seemed to think around $600.00 would do it. So I drew this design, and I will take it and the pictures to him to get a quote. Let's cross our fingers he doesn't say $1200.00!