Well, trailer-building fans, it's been a while; so, this will be a long one. As I have continued to work on the folding portions of “MyAway”, I have found a few challenges. The first of these was that, because of the folding side height and angles, even with a 5” space, the folding sides and weather stripping would not fit. Also, the corners of the folding sides were hitting the area where a window would be. Add to that, a concern that the folding front sat too far back when in the up position.
First, I worked on the weather stripping. Since there wasn’t room to attach it flat against the front of the folding sides, like Andrew had in his version, I decided to attach them to piano hinges, and hold them in place with a square-shaped bolt. I found that this would work in the ‘up’ position; but, when I folded the sides down, the test hinges would not unfold flat. That problem took a while to figure out. One day, it just came to me and it was so simple! All I needed was an extra board on the front to push the hinged weather strips out. My picture shows a mock-up, using scraps and blue tape to test my theory. I will have to wait until the skins are on to add the actual ‘pushing’ board, weather strips and hinges.
The next challenge was that because the hinged weather strips will be flat when the sides are folded in, the weather strips will stick out on an angle, past the opening. This meant adding 2 inches to the folding roof front. This was solved by replacing the first cross board with a ‘T’ shaped board.
To move the folding front forward more, the front 1x3” boards on the folding sides were replaced with 1x4” boards. This also remedied the problem of the corner of the folding sides hitting the window glass.
Because I extended the roof, there was no longer anything to stop the folding front in the proper position. Also, because I had changed the angle, there was a ¼” gap between where the roof and the folding front were supposed to meet. To remedy these two problems, I removed the top two screws and pivoted down the 1x2” folding front cross board and cut three additional boards to the size needed to fill the enlarged space. The middle one was cut so that the top fits flush with the roof (diagonal cut) and the bottom, flush (flat) with the folding front and it was attached to the roof. A small strip of trim board was added to the outside bottom of it, as a weather strip and stop. The other two were added onto the top of the folding front.
Also, I had envisioned a locking system for that center board and found casement locks to use that will lock down the roof to the folding front and hold everything tightly in place.
Having found so many challenges already, there will probably be more yet to come. So, I will continue by moving into dress rehearsal mode, adding skins and everything I can to perform a run-through to check for any more problems with my folding roof design.