Flat pack trailer kit. pop top works, and we have a tent

[saltydawg]

I am trailing along and like the panels a lot, strongly considered that or a similar material to make the shape and do it seamless looking forward as well

I will be glassing all the exterior corners, then filling and sanding. Btw I changed the rear detail a little to save some work that was honestly kind of wasted space. Now the rear section on the road side will have a counter about 30 inches wide by 15 deep. I am going to install a small sink there, sense the shower and bathroom "tent" will be on that side, its kind of the bathroom sink.

Twisted one benefit of this type pf construction is weight, the side walls are 12'4" long and 68" tall ( looses 5 inches interior height to the frame overlap, roof and floor ) And they have 3 1x1 .83 steel tube built in to to tie to the roof opening for the lift top. They weight maybe 75 lbs I think closer to 50 or 60 and I can move them around my self. I am 49 ( just turned it sunday ) and I am probably just average strength. At this point I have been doing almost all this by myself for moving things.

[twisted lines]

Presto, Inside & outside beautiful walls.
Video about through off my equilibrium but I made it! & neat bagging.
Pick up some leaf bagg's your gonna need them.

[saltydawg]

Presto, Inside & outside beautiful walls.
Video about through off my equilibrium but I made it! & neat bagging.
Pick up some leaf bagg's your gonna need them.

What leaves? Seriously I have a back pack blower and I still have trouble keeping up. But thats what I get for having over 5 acres and about 4.5 of it large trees. But I cant see any neighbors and I shoot guns off me front porch.

[saltydawg]

ok in the span of 3 hours we went from just a floor to 4 walls and half a bed platform. All the rivets are in, most joints are caulked, all the sheet metal angles on inside corners are bonded and riveted it. Windows are cut in, the door is not cut out all the way so the wall stays square. The front part of the bed is fixed and has the support for the kitchen slide out, the rear section sits on the angle on the walls and will be hinged to lift for storage.



Next is the 3 pieces of steel tube that brace the roof and form out the area where the top will lift.

pics

[OP827]

... Next is the 3 pieces of steel tube that brace the roof and form out the area where the top will lift...

Did I read it correctly that you will have a lifting roof top? Do you have a design sketch to share? And I am also really interested to learn your method for fiber glassing the panel seams outside. Are you going to fair and paint the seams only or the whole body?

Awesome progress just in 3 hours, looking great!

[saltydawg]

Did I read it correctly that you will have a lifting roof top? Do you have a design sketch to share? And I am also really interested to learn your method for fiber glassing the panel seams outside. Are you going to fair and paint the seams only or the whole body?

Awesome progress just in 3 hours, looking great!

I will be fairing the joints and painting the whole out side, yes it kind of lessens the benefits of the fiberglass skin. I plan on painting the sides and front a very light gray, top will be white, I just dont want a big white blob of a trailer. I will be using boat paint so adhesion to the fiberglass should not be an issue.

The lifting top will be done with a hinge similar old VW pop tops, infact I thought about just buying some repo VW hinges. I know how the hinges will work, I just have not built them yet. There will be one on each end ( front and rear ) on the street/couch side, and one straight lift on the curb side that should stabilize the top. Sense the rear hatch will be lifted with linear actuators I am debating using one to lift the top too.

[saltydawg]

Okay filling in a few blanks. they are not glued yet, just being cut to fit. Having only about 1.5 hours before dark kinds sucks thou.

[aggie79]

Looking awesome!

[twisted lines]

You are making it look so easy

[saltydawg]

You are making it look so easy

What its not easy, just because I have 2 hours for planning for every hour of actual work. plus probably 200 hours of internet research. It is actually easy, make a bunch of big panels, cut them to fit, glue it all together.

[NevadaBlue]

Watching with interest. I like what you are doing. My son is getting ready to start a build and I’ll have him watch too.

[saltydawg]

Really sad thing is I love the uev series of trailers and the look of the sawtooth xl. So I kind of crossed them and made it bigger than a teardrop. Well a few days ago I found a trailer I fell in love with. The lifestyle recon r2. If I really did not want a camper I could just pull over and open a door and walk in an sleep I might have gone with another project. Crazy thing is the recon is an incredibly simple design and would be very easy to build.

[saltydawg]

Okay A couple of pics just to keep the thread alive and moving.



First the corners that are complete are getting tapered and rounded for the fiberglass tape and eventual filling and smoothing.



The other pics are the steel framing for the pop top. As you can sort of see the frame is 1x1.5 tube which is welded to 3/4x3/4 tube that goes down inside the 1x1 tube that is built into the walls. It in effect ties the pop top opening to the walls, which the tube in the walls goes all the way down to frame. The pop top opening would other wise be a weak point in the whole boxing and tieing everything together. Also you can see how the front sloped roof is taller than the side wall, it has a 1x1 aluminum tube built in to the rear edge of the front slope. This is to allow the front seal on the pop top roof to have a place to seal, it will also flow right in to the pop top roof so any driven rain while driving will want to go right on to and over the pop top roof. There will also be a second seal on the steel frame that makes up the skeleton of the pop top, the pop top is basically a steel frame with a panel glued to it. The 1.5x1 tube is about a 1/2 inch taller than the thickness of the roof edge panels. This will give me a dam to prevent water from just running in to the opening, as well as I sloped the roof edge panels away from the opening. I still need to cut the foam to fit, glue it in and do the outside skin on the roof top edges.



hope the pics make sense

[saltydawg]

I forgot, the wiring for the exterior, interior, and kitchen lights as well as the tail lights and rear hatch lift motors is also all ran. My exterior lights are small 100 lumen yellow leds lights, and the kitchen light is a 220 lumen white led light with its own switch. I also plan on having under body lighting that is yellow on a separate switch.

[saltydawg]

Okay all external corners are tapered, rounded and glassed with 2 inch 6oz fiberglass tape and epoxy. It actually went really fast, took just over 1 hour to do them. Process was roll on a thin coat of epoxy, wide enough to give the fairing compound ( epoxy and micro ballons ) a nice epoxy surface surface to bond to. Then cut the glass and put it in place, and roll more epoxy on until the cloth is just saturated. the strength comes from the glass, as long as the epoxy fills the glass thats perfect, you dont want any extra. I will need to sand it due to not being a perfectly done job ( mostly stupid bits of foam and skin from routing the edges round ) and the corners where the end of the fibers dont want to lay down. Then I get to start fairing it out to give a smooth surface for paint. I have total boat wet edge polyurethane coming. It will be gray below the graffic and white above. I bought flat paint to help hide and flaws and waviness in the panels.



A few pics