Doors and windows and handles... oh. my...

    It has been awhile since the last post because I have been working on a couple of things that really don't amount to anything of interest to anyone else and don't come with any cool pictures.  The hatch finishing process has been  a hassle, and tracking down an aluminum source has proven to be somewhat problematic.  But...  This just in! Breaking news!  Today we were able to place a confirmed oder with a local metal company for all of the aluminum parts necessary to put a roof over our heads and a skin on the galley hatch.  This is big because I feel like once I have the metal phase complete, I can move from scratching my head over the  build to scratching my head over the logistics of the trip itself.  That said, I have made some progress on the camper in the mean time.  The doors to the sleeping cabin, and their hinges, and moldings,  have all been sitting around the shop for quite some time, so I figured it would be a good time to tackle the door installation while I figured out the metal supply business.  The door installation process turned out to be much more time consuming and tedious than anticipated, but I will spare you the stops and starts; I'll give you the version that makes it look like I know what I'm doing.  Brevity is a virtue, right?

The first step is to bend the t-molding around the door.  This molding covers the gap between the camper side and door, and will eventually get a weather strip around it to seal out rain and wind.  Here you can see the straight length of molding, the end made flush to the flat side of the door, clamped to the lower, straight section of the door.  

Pulling away from the clamped section, the molding is bent around the door a little at a time.

Here the bend is complete and clamped into place.  Then the top end is marked, cut to length and filed smooth.  At this point, screws are countersunk through the molding into the edge of the door every 3"

Once released the molding rebounds a bit but is ready for a bead of silicone and final application to the door.

The hinge has been cut to length, and had countersunk holes drilled in it.  The door has already been hung and pilot holes have been drilled in the edge of the door as well as in the edge of the door opening.  All that remains is to lay a bead of silicone and screw it in.

Ta da! it's a door... almost.

   

Looks pretty good, but it seems to be missing something.  It would be nice if there were some way to open and close the thing, and maybe something to fill up that big hole and keep the bugs out.

Locking door handle

Sliding window

 

That's better.

   

       There are a few more things to work out before the doors are really operational, but they do go some distance to completing the look.  I still need to do the weather stripping and there is an aluminum drip rail that needs to be bent to the shape of the top of the door.  It will need to be bent on a form and attached to the camper side just above the door so that it carries any water running down the side of the camper around the door opening.  I also need to monkey around with the door handles a bit to make them latch correctly.  All that said, it is very good to get some of these parts out of their boxes and into their rightful places.  As the girls see the camper coming together, they are both getting pretty excited about the journey ahead.  They've both been talking about it quite a bit.  Yesterday, as Kinsey was helping me weatherstrip the doors, she said, "I can't wait to see it roll out that door."  It made me smile.  Their mounting excitement makes me realize two things.  I have made them a pretty serious promise, and there is less time than I think to make it happen.

Kat's Comments 

The girls have both had their turn so it's only fair that I get a a chance to chime in. Right? Watching this whole process has been amazing. Not only are we getting a gorgeous teardrop trailer out of this but my husband is now blogging. The mind boggles. He has been working non-stop for months juggling multiple projects. The man is crazy. Crazy awesome. I get called in from time to time to offer opinions or hold things. Mostly hold things. This weekend I held the doors and then the windows. What Ry doesn't tell you is how hard each of these steps were. Things are never as simple as one would hope. But here's the thing, despite parts refusing to fit or not being as advertised, Ry has consistently been able to make it work. I have always called him my fix-it man. Whenever I have issues with making some thing or another work Ry figures it out for me. The trailer is no different. While there may be a wee bit of profanity involved, in the end he gets the job done. So while I miss having him around, I am am eternally grateful for what he's enabling our family to do. Cheers, my dear, and don't worry, we'll figure it all out in time.

   

Building the Galley Hatch

    In this post, I'll be going through the process of building the galley hatch.  I'll start by shaping and fitting the parts for the hatch frame and end with the application of a sub-skin similar to the process explained in the last post for closing up the roof.  The hatch is the last major exterior component that remains to be built before I can start the process of finishing it off with aluminum.  You may remember that the interior of the sleeping cabin is a combination of sapele and maple.  I have decided to go with white oak and sapele in the galley.  In keeping with this scheme, the hatch frame will be made of sapele and the skin of 1/4" oak plywood.
    If you have read the post about making the camper sides or the one about the building the trims, then you are familiar with the process of making parts from a master template.  The same process and the same template were used to shape the curved rails for the hatch frame.  Next the ends were cut so that they butt into the spar running across the top of the galley opening, sit on the galley floor, and follow the curve of the side wall.   Satisfied with the fit, I marked them for the placement of the cross braces, and screwed them together without glue so I could check the fit and work out the size of the skin before making anything irreversible.

On the left are the hatch side rails, on the right the cross braces, and in the middle are the oak dowels that will be used to make pegs for the joinery and plugs for the screw holes.

A marking stick helps to figure out the spacing of the cross pieces.

Once the spacing is marked on one, the two sides are matched up and the marks transferred. The marks on the broad side of the pieces indicate the placement of the screws and pegs. 

Once it is screwed together, I stuck it in the opening to check the fit... pretty good.

Here you can see the frame butting against the hinge spar at the edge of the roof.

     Now that I know that everything is copacetic, it's time to take it all apart, but there are a couple of things I need to do first.  I need pegs, plugs, and holes to put them in.  You always want to do everything you can before you get the glue out.

The plugs on the left have beveled ends so that they will easily tap into  the countersunk screw holes.  The pegs on the right have tapered ends and flats sanded on their sides to about 3/4" from the end that will be exposed.   The Flats are necessary to give the glue somewhere to go.   Without them, the hydraulic pressure created  by driving the peg in can split the wood apart along it's grain.

Here you can see the 2 1/2" peg and screw.  The blue tape flag on the drill is my depth gauge.

All the holes are drilled.

Here the frame is disassembled and ready for glue.

     In that last picture you can see how the joint works.  The screw driven into the bottom hole acts just as a clamp would to draw the joint together while the peg glued into the top hole prevents rotation of the cross piece while the glue sets and permanently bonds the two pieces.  Because the screw is a mechanical fastener, there is the possibility that it could eventually loosen with the seasonal movement of the wood and road vibration.  The glued peg is what will give this joint it's real strength.  Once that peg is driven, there is no separating those two pieces.  Looking at that picture I realize something else;  It bears a striking resemblance to something you might find in a set of IKEA instructions, and as such I feel a little conflicted about my seemingly excessive wordiness.  I should be able to explain this whole thing with a few line drawings of a grinning chubby dude wielding a drill and hammer.  I guess thats not going to happen, but I feel I should do something to honor the inherent IKEA-ness of this particular bit of joinery.  I hereby dub this joint, the SCROOPEG joint.

I removed one side of the frame, applied glue to both sides of all 5 joints, and using the screw heads to register the parts, pulled it all together by driving the screws.

I squeezed the top of each joint with a clamp, painted up the inside of the hole with glue, and drove in the peg until it bottomed out.

All of the holes are pegged or plugged.

Using a piece of plastic laminate to protect the wood, the plugs and pegs are cut off close to flush.  I'll grind them flush with a sander.

     Now that the hatch frame is assembled, it's time to work with the skin.  First, I cut my sheet of 1/4" oak plywood a couple of inches longer than what I will need.  I'm going to have to rabbet the edge that will receive the hinge (make it thinner) so that it will be flush to the masonite sub-skin on the roof.  The extra length will give me a second chance if I screw it up.  

The top edge is made flush and screwed down.  Then each cross member gets a screw in the center and at each end.  You can see the rabbeted edge where the hinge will be attached.

At this point, the hatch is put back into the opening and the bottom is marked where it will be cut.

Here you can see the line drawn across the bottom where that extra length will be cut off.  

The pilot holes have been made for the remaining screws about every 3" along the frame sides and cross braces.

     The next step is to remove the skin and cut it to length.   I had Kat help me with the glue up because a helper is always good when you are racing against the glue.  We got the glue, a big pile of screws and some clamps all ready to go and we were ready.

So this is sort of a nutty angle, but what you are looking at is the bottom end of the skin being held away from the frame while the top edge is being aligned and fastened.  Notice the glue spread on both surfaces to be bonded.

Fastening down the top edge.

Because the first row of screws needs to be 1" back from the edge to be out of the way of the hinge, the leading edge needs to be clamped tight to insure a sound bond that conforms to the curve of the frame.

All glued.  When the glue has dried I will replace the screws with staples. this will make it easier to get a nice smooth finished surface.

    

   

Her's what the inside of the finished hatch looks like.

It's a hatchback.

   

Teardroppy.

     Now I have to put a finish on it.... ugh.  Once that dreaded task is done, it will be time to do some aluminum work, hopefully.  I  sent a quote request to a local metal shop for all the aluminum parts I'll need to skin the exterior.  Based on their website, I thought it was a good prospect, but I haven't heard back.  They may be a strictly wholesale company.  At this point, I don't know where I'm getting my metal.  I'll figure something out.
     In the last post I introduced "Kinsey's Korner".  This is the feature of the blog that will be authored by my younger daughter Kinsey as she shares her thoughts about our travels.  This time we will have the first installment of Zoe's portion of the blog.  With that, I give you... Well, Zoe hasn't yet settled on a satisfactory title for her segment, so for now we're going with this:

Zoe Says...

This SummerI'm going on a cross country trip.I am looking forward to seeing all of the different states, cultures,and wildlife.  My one worry is that we are going to be riding in dad's truck, and so far he's done an extremely impressive job of keeping it clean.  Dad is planning on having two children living in that vehicle for seven weeks... I wonder what it will look like at the end of the Summer?

                       It's good to know that Zoe and I share some of the same concerns.

Raise The Roof, Popov's in Da house!

    This time, I'll be talking about closing up the roof on the little trailer.  This was a particularly fun step because not only does it make the trailer seem that much more substantial, but it also feels a bit like closing a chapter.  The wiring, the ceiling, the trim installation;  all were contingent on access through the open roof.  Closing in the roof means (unless I really screwed up) that all of those things are in the rear view mirror.  It was also fun because Dan and Martha, my in laws, were up this weekend and as always, made getting things done just a little easier.  The kids are always glad to be kept occupied by GrandMar and as long as Kat has been my wife we have been keeping Popov busy with our projects.  For the uninitiated, GrandMar and Popov are Dan and Martha's grandparent names. As they have been a part of all of our family projects, it is fitting that they should be a part of the "Little Trailer Project".  The pictures below show the open roof ready to be closed in.

This picture shows the back of the forward cabinet with the wiring for the electrical outlets and reading light.

The blue box on the left contains the wiring for the fan / vent.  The one on the right contains the wiring for the interior dome light.  Further back are the wires splitting left and right for the exterior porch lights.

    The next step is cutting insulation to fit in each of the cavities between the framing.  I used two layers of 3/4" thick styrofoam sheets.  The two layers made it pretty easy to cut out for the wiring.  It was a fairly simple cut and fit process; matching angles and cutting around the obstacles.  The irritating part was all the tiny bits of styrofoam flying around and sticking to everything including me; I literally had to vacuum myself.

The insulation is installed and the wiring is marked where it goes through the spars.  Although the wires should be low enough that the staples will not reach them, I'll avoid those spots just in case.

     After The insulating is done, it's time to test the fit of the 1/8" masonite hardboard sub-skin.  I call it a sub-skin because eventually, it will be covered with an aluminum skin.  It must fit flush to the last spar (the hinge spar) and follow the seem of the camper sides and trim all the way forward.  To check the fit, I clamped it flush to the last spar, weighted the top, and pressed the front down.  After clamping the whole thing into place, I marked out the locations of the spars on the skin and drew lines indicating where all the framing will be.  

Here the masonite is clamped flush to the hinge spar.

You can see how the skin will need to be forced into shape.

With the top weighted and the front clamped down, I can mark the locations of the centers of the framing members (marked out on the blue tape).

     The next part requires some assistance and that is where Dan comes in.  We positioned the skin on the camper and made some reference marks so that we could place it without smearing the glue all over.  After a dry run placing the skin we were ready for glue.  A generous bead of glue was applied to the tops of all the framing members and we set the skin in place.  Once I was satisfied that we had it lined up just right, I stapled it down to the last spar, working out from the center stapling about every 3".  From there, we worked forward, one spar at a time; working out from the center line smoothing and compressing the skin as we went.  The 4'x8' sheet is about 5" shy of covering the whole top, so a piece was cut to fill in the remainder after we got the whole thing stapled down.

Glue.

More Glue.

Here she is with her sub- skin all stapled down, lookin' smooth.

Finally, the fan/vent hole is flush trimmed to the framed opening.

   This step makes the camper look more finished, but it also goes a long way to reinforcing its structure.  Tying all of the individual parts together with one seamless sheet means that they will all share stresses and that they all work together to make the whole assembly rigid.  This is now one very solid box.  

    Overnight, we got about 5" of new snow, and true to form, Martha took care of the catastrophe that was our post-breakfast kitchen, installed a gunk catching mat in the toaster oven and mended the puff ball on Kinsey's hat while Dan helped with the snow clean up.  As always, thank you D & M for all your help.  The snow brought with it something we haven't seen around here in quite some time: temperatures climbing into the 30's and it felt nearly tropical.  I mention this because it brings me to my final topic of discussion.  

     When we set out on our journey this summer, the little trailer will be pulled by my truck.  I love my truck and I really do not love child induced car filth. If you have children, you know what I mean.  In anticipation of a solid summer's worth of the girls trying to destroy my truck's interior, I got myself a Christmas gift: seat covers.  Until now, the weather has not permitted me to install them.  One look at the weather forecast confirmed that my window was narrow; the high tomorrow is a windy 12.  It was an absolutely beautiful day; sunny, calm , and 40 degrees.  It was really nice to just be outside comfortably.

Front before

Rear before

Front after

Rear after

    While we are on the subject of the kids, I have one last thought to leave you with.  One of our goals for this trip is to have the girls participate wherever possible, and a part of that will be putting their thoughts into the blog.   By way of introduction to that idea I have suggested that they write a little something about their expectations of the upcoming trip and the trailer project.  Without further ado, I give you the first installment of "Kinsey's Korner"...

                                                    Kinsey's Korner

      I guarantee that we will have a great time on our cross country trip. I just know it. I say that we will have a good time because we will be all together as a whole family. Dad's not at work. Mom's not at work. Zoe's not all the way down the hall in Tatham School, and me, I am not all the way in the first classroom doing Math work. I'm very excited about it. Maybe we'll see elephants, maybe we'll see red tailed hawks, maybe we'll see scary legends or ones as sweet as a heart full of love.

But my, oh my, am I not surprised that my dad can build a trailer with just a little help. If you ask my opinion I would say that my dad is very, very talented.