It's looking more and more complete. I still have to attach the hatch, install the windows, and the lights, then we're ready to go.

Here's a view of the front right corner.

close-up of the fender. I still need to make the hubcap shiny.

The head of the bed.

Cabinets above the foot of the bed.

Finishing the frame

The frame was painted, axle mounted, and the body attached to the frame.

It's a trailer!

While it was upside-down, I painted the front. Once the body is mounted on the frame, it would not be very easy to paint the lower nose without messing up the frame.

seams

Once the outer skin was on, I fiberglass taped the seams. I wanted to glass the trough that the frame sits in. There are two reasons for this.

1. The plywood the walls were made out of turned out to be junk. I need to be real careful to keep water away from them. The tape covers the bottom edge of the outer skin.
2. The glass helps bond the walls to the floor. I also taped the inner wall to the floor. This way, the integrity of the wall/floor joint isn't dependent just on the 1" wide glue strip built into the wall.

The cut-out on the side is for the frame doubler which is needed to make the frame wide enough for the spring brackets.

ceiling skin

It's been forever since I've posted, and work has been progressing, so I'll do a series of quick posts to get everything up to date.

The ceiling has been glued to the "shelf" formed by the inner wall. The cross pieces cover the seams. 1" foam will go in the space and then be covered by the outer skin.

Here's a view of the inside.

The frame for the kitchen. The lower box will be where our feet go when we're sleeping.

A 1x3 nailer is attached to the boarder. The outer skin will be glued to this.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of attaching the foam and outer skin. I didn't want to bag and vacuum the whole trailer, so I nailed and clamped the skin. I wasn't terribly happy with the process or results.

Attaching the walls

The walls are attached to the deck with liquid nails and 1 1/2" #14 screws. The deck was pulled out of the frame and put on a table so I could get underneath to run the screws up from the bottom. The sides are visible on the right side of this photo.

I cut a slot in the deck for where the tails come down to the deck. The slot will give any water that runs down the tails a place to go other then into the kitchen area. The wood here will be sealed with a good waterproof sealer so the water drains out rather than soaking in.

Here are several pictures of the sides after they were attached. A piece of bailing twine was used to tie the sides to the ceiling of the shop to hold them in place while everything set up. I'll build the rear bulkhead before moving anything. The bulkhead will provide shear strength so the walls will stay in place.

Laminating the walls

Here's a couple of pictures of laminating one of the sides. The process was the same as for the door in the previous post.

Grandson Jonathan decided to do a compression test on the sandwich construction.

Laminating the door

I haven't posted for awhile, but work has been continuing. Here I show how the door was laminated. The walls will be done the same way. Wood framing has already been added to the inside plywood. GreatStuff foam goes in the cavity.

Next, the 1" foam goes in and more GreatStuff foam.

Next, a bead of glue on the frame pieces, and then the outside plywood goes on top.

The outside foam is tacked down with small brads (sorry, this picture is sort-of out of order)

Finally, the whole thing gets vacuum packed.