Build Time?

[MJWBuffalo]

All:

As I am knee deep in planning my build this spring, I began to wonder how long it took people to build their trailer? Not so much days, months, years but in hours. Is it realistic to think you could get it roughed in, weather tight in 30-40 hours?

My current plan is to spend the first weekend prepping the trailer and floor (10-12 hours). Then build walls, cutout windows & doors and install along with roof supports the second weekend (10-12 hours). Third weekend will be finishing the plywood walls/roof inside and out, install aluminum to walls/ roof and add windows/ doors (10-15 hours). So in 30-40 hours I hope to be at the point that I can work outside without the threat of weather.

Is that realistic?

Matt

[Atomic77]

Here is my experience:
Whatever you consider to be "realistic..." double it and you'll be close. It seems like it never goes quite as fast as your brain tells you it should! I wish I could remember who said it here on this forum, but it was something like, "I do it the first time according to my plan, then I do it again and get it right." (Or something like that.) It is a learning process all the way. I quit trying to estimate time frames early on and focused on building something that would be a long-lasting, quality product. Set goals and do your best to obtain them without sacrificing good quality. Don't cut corners to save time, it's never worth it in the end. As for hours on our project, I quit counting a long time ago.

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[twisted lines]

The way I am reading this;
You Have explained to her, I only need your spot in the garage for a couple weekends

[Atomic77]

The way I am reading this;
You Have explained to her, I only need your spot in the garage for a couple weekends

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[MJWBuffalo]

LOL, you guys nailed that part of it !

The other side is that I am building my retro trailer as a food truck and am trying to figure out when I can start using it! If I go with the "Double my estimate" time frame, that's 6 weeks to rough-in (working weekends) and then another 4 weeks (double my original estimate) to finish the inside. So I'll need to figure 3 months to get it done and then another couple weeks for Health Department stuff. I am hoping to premier it next July so I better get started in April at the latest.

Thanks everybody, keep the hours coming! I'd love to hear how much time y'all have spent building your masterpieces

Matt

[Atomic77]

Good luck man!
(I would start now...)

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[tony.latham]

Is that realistic?

In my experience, no. But it depends on your construction method and strategy. Building a camper isn't like house building where you want to get it closed in so the journeymen can do the wiring, plumbing, and sheetrock.

Life is a lot easier if you do as much work on the walls as possible while they are on the bench. Don't get in a rush to assemble the parts.

With this last build, the interior surfaces of the walls took four coats of varnish --on the bench. The exterior surfaces were fiberglassed --on the bench. I made my own doors which meant building the stops while the walls were on the bench so I could use the door openings as a router pattern. The door hinges were fitted to both the doors and the walls while on the bench. They're plumb.



And if you work like me, everything takes twice as long as you think it should.



Tony

p.s. Hours? 600-700 hours. No joke.

[Modstock]

Here's an alternative.
Buy a food truck already done and have it wrapped to look like a retro trailer.
My honest opinion . This deadline, unrealistic.

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[Squigie]

I look at it the same way I look at my firearms projects: It's gonna take a whole lot longer than estimated.

Case in point:
I started a "resto-mod" type rebuild of a beaten, battered, neglected, and eventually abandoned rifle. Easy. Quick flip.
Strip it, clean it, repair it, get it back to shootin' form, and upgrade a bit, in about three months.
Yea... that was Memorial Day, 2016.

I'm currently inletting the stocks - the blanks for which had to be custom cut, because I customized everything else on the rifle. For a professional, it would be about a 5-6 hour job (factoring for the custom changes).
Me? I'm about 22 hours in, and still not done. I figure the inletting and rough shaping will be about 30-32 hours, before I get to final shaping (an additional ~3-4 hours, including sanding). Finishing won't add many hours to the total, as it only takes 15-20 minutes to do the daily oil rubbing. But it still takes time. I can only rub in another coat once per day, or more (minimum 24 hours between coats, often more). So, even though the finishing process only takes about 2-3 hours in all, that time is spread across about 10-14 days, when the project just has to sit.

By the time this "Quick Flip" is done, I'll have well in excess of 300 hours** in it. Hopefully, it'll be done a bit before Memorial Day 2020.
"Quick. Easy. I'll be done in three months..."


**(I'm probably short-changing myself there, all around. But I know for a fact that I never tracked CAD or paper sketch work. There was a LOT of time spent in CAD, designing some of the new, one-off parts that ended up on this rifle as replacements for the rusted garbage it came with.)

[booyah]

To build my modified benroy took me about 200 man hours of mostly evenings and a few weekend.
that was spread out over about 4 months.

If I were to do it again I could probably hit it in half the time.

[KTM_Guy]

I bet it takes 30-40 hours to build a production model trailer. Some things you just can’t speed up like glue drying, paint or varnish drying. You will get stuck on what to do next or a spot you are not sure how to do. It might take a few day thinking to get past that. Or if you forgot something it take 3 times longer to add it in later.

What do you have for space to work in? If I had a 40X60 space to work I could have save a lot of time. I worked in a two car garage. And a lot in the driveway. Even though you don’t need a lot of tools to build a camper it sure makes it easier. I have a lot of routers, it nice to have a bit mounted in each one and not have to keep changing them out. Same goes for drills/drivers. It saves time to grab a drill with a drill bit, then the drill with the countersink bit, then grab the driver with a torx bit. Saves a ton of time.

Good luck, and like was said start now.

Todd

[Tom&Shelly]

Read this rule in Reader's Digest as a kid, and I've found it to be more-or-less true for many projects, hobby and work related: "You take the amount of time you think a job will take, double it, and go to the next higher unit." I thought it would take all Summer to build my teardrop. So, one season. But double that, then change season to years, and I should have it ready in about two years; which, in my case will be this April.

Of course, there were "mitigating circumstances", but there are always mitigating circumstances, especially in hind sight!

Tom

[working on it]

...What do you have for space to work in? If I had a 40X60 space to work I could have save a lot of time. I worked in a two car garage. And a lot in the driveway. Even though you don’t need a lot of tools to build a camper it sure makes it easier....

* Space to work on it, tools to work on it, time to work on it... I thought I had the perfect combination of these, when I started my TTT build 10-1-2011. But, from another thread:

• My trailer build was sorta pre-planned, prior to joining the forum, which I did three days after I loaded my derelict frame onto my car-hauler trailer, and took it to a distant location to work on it. There, I would have room to work on it, a wide array of tools that I could use, a friend that wanted to help, and where I could hide it from the wife (hidden mainly for the cost). That distance back-fired on me, causing the "projected" build schedule duration of 6-9 months, to be almost quadrupled, as I first had it campable after 22 months, and camped in it just two weeks shy of two years of building. How many hours were spent working on it there, were probably not even close to the hours wasted.
  
  
• I had done several automotive projects at home, that stayed pretty close to schedule & budget before, but this "hidden" trailer project was unlike any other one, and certainly the distances involved contributed to that. The trailer build was started 50 miles from my home, and 90 from my job, or 110 from work-to-home-then to the trailer, if I stopped-by home to get parts when going from work to the trailer build site; or in other words, it was pretty damn distant from my position whenever I wanted to work on it, and it drove me crazy. I'd come up with a new wrinkle I wanted to try, or to get some measurements, and never could...until the next weekend, if then. And I couldn't always work on it, even when I had time; when my friend was gone, or during much of the week, or weekend, I often couldn't get to it. It didn't help that I was working/commuting 12-16 hours a day, on call 24/7/365, or that when I showed up to work on it, I'd often be sidetracked to help on another project, while there. That pattern went on for 11 months, even when I tried working on it for a full week of vacation time, from sunup-midnite, during three weeks of that period.
  
  
• I carried a notepad in my pocket for those eleven months, jotting down ideas as best I could, without ready access to the trailer, but I wasn't happy with the progress...there is no substitute for having the trailer close at hand. I decided to 95% complete the exterior, with the shell finished & painted, doors & hatch all sealed & lockable, with no interior done (except for the on-board generator). Then, suddenly w/o warning, I withdrew the trailer from my friend's shop and took it home, mad at my friend for delaying the build, but madder still at myself for missing my goal. I appreciated his help at first, where his skill was much needed, but as I got better at it, and he became less interested in it, it became apparent that it was not to my best interests to remain working on it there any longer.
  
  
• My original planning was probably inadequate for the semi-off road future I had envisioned for the TTT, but I would've taken steps to replace the weaknesses, as soon as I could, as I did later on my replacement suspension. But, I would've been camping earlier on, and able to use the time (and money) spent traveling to the trailer site to better effect, and the strain put on our friendship may never have developed?? In any case, building my TTT at a distant site cost too much time and money, just on commuting, and caused bad feelings to germinate; no hobby should put a strain on one, much less all, of those categories... which are pretty much the same reasons I gave up drag-racing ten years ago. But, working alone at home ever since, even when repairs or modifications have been rushed, needing to be done in a hurry, I found out that every hour spent is enjoyable, if only for the opportunity to just be "working on it".

* So, even though I had a fully-equipped automotive-fabrication shop to work in, with more tools than I'll ever have again to use, and 10x the room in my garage, the mere inconvenience of working away from home sabotaged my progress, and the longer my build took (there), the worse my feelings about it became. Only after I brought it home, did I once again get the "can't wait" excitement that I had at first. It still took me another 11 months at home, doing some work on it almost every day, 'til it was ready for its' first camping trip. I still modify it over many days each year since, so I can't even guesstimate the total hours involved.

[swoody126]

as i mature (translate to gaining more gray hair) i find projects taking 3x the amount of time it should have

you young whipsersnapsters are still in the WFO mode and should be able to force yourself thru projects like this in just 2x the amount of time projected

with a coffee pot and an "engineering chair" in the barn i find myself savoring the process to be as much fun as most anything i do during the process

projects do take on different aspects(improvements ±) as time is spent witha cuppa whilst sitting in the chair ;-)

it's more enjoyable to savor the build than to run thru it on some kinda schedule

bits n pieces of the buiding process have the ability to enhance your personal pride in accomplishment

IMHO once road-able it will offer pleasant respites from the next journey/project

otherwise you can take your coins and buy one already made and put the extra change in your pocket for gas and simply hit the road,,,

rather than waiting unti April why knot get started NOW and ease yourself thru it

just this old mans 25¢ worth this morning

sw

[KTM_Guy]

as i mature (translate to gaining more gray hair) i find projects taking 3x the amount of time it should have

you young whipsersnapsters are still in the WFO mode and should be able to force yourself thru projects like this in just 2x the amount of time projected

with a coffee pot and an "engineering chair" in the barn i find myself savoring the process to be as much fun as most anything i do during the process

projects do take on different aspects(improvements ±) as time is spent witha cuppa whilst sitting in the chair ;-)

it's more enjoyable to savor the build than to run thru it on some kinda schedule

bits n pieces of the buiding process have the ability to enhance your personal pride in accomplishment

IMHO once road-able it will offer pleasant respites from the next journey/project

otherwise you can take your coins and buy one already made and put the extra change in your pocket for gas and simply hit the road,,,

rather than waiting unti April why knot get started NOW and ease yourself thru it

just this old mans 25¢ worth this morning

sw

That was easily worth $.35. The OP has different needs for the trailer than most here but you are spot on. There were nights my wife and I would go to the garage to work on the teardrop and spend the whole night just sitting talking about places we will go, things to see, things we'll want to get for the teardrop. That time was priceless and something someone who buys a built camper would miss out on.

Todd