| 16 | Door Holes Cut | 2/20/2012 |
| | Starting off I needed a compass large enough to draw the 6" and 18" radii. I found a way to adapt the compass I made for the teardrop profile to these much smaller curves. I felt like 36" x 28" was a good size for the door. Using a fence clamped to the trailer sides (sides already clamped together) I clamped the circular saw blade guard in full open position and loosened the depth adjuster to plunge it into the straight cuts. (Sounds dangerous but it gave me a great deal of control and worked great!) Then cut the curves and corners the circular saw can't get at with a saber saw. Turned out better than I thought! The inside pieces are the actual doors and will look great with windows in them (proportionally speaking).
Man hours: 3 |
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| 15 | Propped Up Unfinished Bulkhead Walls | 2/19/2012 |
| | I wanted to put the bulkhead into position (just propped up on boxes and leaning against other pieces of the bulkhead) to see what the counter height would be like, if it would clear the cooler, and how it would affect the doors (since the bulkhead will be the back of the cabinets. I found that I could make nice 12" deep cabinets and still have a comfortably large door near the mid section of the cabin with the bulkhead dimensions I am going with.
Man hours: 1 |
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| 14 | Building the Bulkhead Walls | 2/2/2012 |
| | I based my measurements for the bulkhead walls based on what I considered a comfortable counter height (and clearance for a cooler) as well as the balance between a fairly shallow galley cabinet allowing deeper cabin cabinets. Using 5.0mm plywood and 2" x 1" (actual 1.5" x .75") pine boards for framing I cut all the pieces and glued the framing to the first side. It's a 3 section wall that will be insulated with foam between the framing members.
Man hours: 5 |
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| 13 | Insulated Wall Between Cabin and Galley | 1/27/2012 |
| | I determined where the insulated wall between the cabin and galley will be placed, and drew the the placement onto the inside of the galley area. It will provide 6" or 7" deep cabinets in the galley and still give plenty of room in the sleeping cabin, even with a 12" deep cabinet set. Everything is drawn out on paper and tomorrow evening I can begin to cut the plywood for the wall sections and have the walls framed, insulated and glued by the end of the coming weekend. (Not glued into the trailer, just prefabbed so that things can move quickly in Spring)
Man hours: 3 |
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| 12 | Test Fit of Sides | 1/14/2012 |
| | I made a couple of right angle jigs with studs and scrap plywood. First clamping and then positioning and screwing the sides to the jig allows the sides to be attached to the deck for a test fit. With the sides screwed into the deck in what will be the final position, the profile ends meet the deck perfectly. This is the first time it actually felt like progress was made.
Man hours: 4 |
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| 11 | Cutting the Sides | 12/30/2011 |
| | I made a compass out of a piece of scrap so I could draw the 4' arc on plywood. The other arc is a 30 inch radius and the rest of the lines are straight. I think the design is very clean and simple. At the hatch (48" radius) I also drew a 47 3/4" radius which will be cut and trimmed once I'm sure 1/4" will be correct for the hatch seal gasket. Once the lines were drawn, and 2 pieces of plywood clamped together, a hand-held jigsaw made cutting out the profile simple. I kept the cut about 1/16" to 1/8" outside the line. My little Porter Cable 14" x 2" belt sander made another easy job of getting right down to the drawn lines for a pretty precise profile.
Man hours: 2 |
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| 10 | Profile | 12/24/2011 |
| | I drew out my own profile. I like the geometric regularity of radiused curves. I also did not care for the profile of the Cubby. The perfect profile is a balance between making the most of a 4' x 8' rectangle and something that doesn't look hideous as a teardrop side (ie. a 4' x 8' rectangle). The Cubby is a nice looking profile but I wanted the place where the roof vent mounts to be perfectly flat, and redesigned the profile for that. One thing I really like about the Kuffel Creek design is that they have you cut the trailer down a few inches. You might wonder why (and the plans don't really say why) but it creates more curve on the front, and plywood bent into a curve is very strong. The drawing here shows my design measurements. The profile I designed is something like the Kuffel Creek plans without plotting a zillion points to obtain their varying curve. Mine is very simple. The galley hatch is a 48" radius. The upper front curve is a 30" radius. ...and you simply draw a tangent line from the 30" front curve to where the upper edge of the deck lands on the profile, whether your trailer is a full length 8' trailer (somewhat like a Ben Roy) or you modify the length for more frontal curve. The drawing below shows the tangent and my angle which I calculated to be about 98 degrees. You simply draw 2 arcs and a line and you're done, and the profile looks classic and clean.
Man hours: 3 |
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| 9 | Deck Surface | 12/18/2011 |
| | I used 3/4" cabinet grade plywood for the deck top. You will see that the deck frame is almost 1/2" shy of the trailer side on each side. This is to allow assembly of the sides. I cut the plywood down to the size of the frame, screwed to the frame in a few places to hold in place and then used a belt sander to make the plywood perfectly even with the frame. The trailer and deck frame are both within 1/32" measuring diagonally far corner to far corner. The deck is attached to the trailer frame with 3/8" carriage bolts with the heads sunk into the plywood with a 1" spade bit. Under floor storage is also in place with a framed hole and a rectangular lid for this storage area.
Man hours: 4 |