The Charlie Project

[Forrest747]

Well I had a bake sell of sorts and now have some funds to finish the trailer. must go out and buy stuff tomorrow before i find out i have to pay for something school related or meds to keep kids alive.

Just kidding. I sold my cargo trailer and one of my guns. its all good.

I did get some painting done on the lower cabinet frame and doors. I think i looks pretty ok. now to but the red grout to go with it.
THinking of adding a flip up table of some sort attached to the cooler slide. yet i need to do a little more fiberglass tape and epoxy and rear hatch and doors and paint and the list is getting too long.

[Forrest747]

Well after i placed the last coat of paint on the doors and let them dry i felt i needed a change of pace. so once the cabinet doors went on, which was another great lesson on how to build cabinets for the first time. i made my door still too big by about a half and inch to an inch. they are tight to open but i think they look great.

while at big box store getting some alum edging for the exposed plywood on the lower wall. the plan is to attach after i laid a mongo bead of roof caulk to seal them.

well while there i got the idea to build a grey water tank out of 3" pvc. well long story short is i now plumbed the sink with a three cell black ABS. ran the line up to the sink. i did not plastic weld the pipe from teh sink to the drain line so that it can be removed easy i do no forsee it leaking of course i could be wrong. two of the cells at capped with clean outs and the third has a why off of it to drain half the water. i calculated it can hold about 4 gallons of grey water from the sink. its held in place for the moment with flexiable metal strap and i would like to find a more sturdy option. will have to see how it holds up one of these days.

[CliffinGA]

Looking good Forrester! Keep at it bud!

Cliff

[Forrest747]

Well did some ordering of supplies. I got the plywood to redo the doors and hatch today. Will pick it up tomoRrow. I also got the aeroproducts 300/11 ordered just the small batch as much as I wanted the one gallon kit. Have to save something for the next build. Also ordered snaps Zach pointed me to the place he ordered from and they had a great selection except black so did some digging and found the manufacture and it was a little cheaper per unit but I had a 50 dollar min. Came home and worked on wiring the battery. Installed the battery switch and ran the wires to the neutral bar and to the converter.

[Forrest747]

Well it was an intresting night of work. i ended up skinning the hatch with 1/4 inch plywood and then i cut out the new doors. i used the old doors as the template although i made them a 1/4 inch smaller. i will be skinning the new door with 1/4 inch ply and then a 1 inch core made out of 1/2 inch plywood. that will be hollowed out for insulation then a 1/8 inch cherry for the inside. this should make it lighter than the orginal ones i made. next time i am buying my doors premade. ran out of gorilla glue today.

[Forrest747]

Well today will be a gorilla glue day. I spent the night with the help of Jennies dogs, what is it about dogs and sawdust. Well i took my time and routed out the interior. I then took some time to look how the lock will be placed. more time tonight to look at the lock.

[S. Heisley]

That's a cool looking door frame!

I suspect that dogs like the smell of sawdust and consider it similar to a cologne. Just be glad that the dog didn't find a dead fish to roll on. That's what one of my passed dogs used to do.

[Forrest747]

Well the rear hatch went on. i spent an hour at home depot trying to find a solution to hanging it. I even went to the local trailer RV store and they had no clue what hurricane hinge was, well one guy did. I also found out that hatch has warped while it was sitting around so its got a nice bow to it. Going to try and flatten it out using steel. anyhow i also glued the first door together. i did find out that it is very important to make sure you glue the cut out on the correct side. luckly i did it on the first one and just before glue touched the second one i realized it was on the wrong side. found the center for teh porthole in the door and making a jig to cut that out. i also worked on mocking out the door latch. life is good.

[Forrest747]

Well I have a campable by day of May 18th. Its a father son campout so needs to be able to travel 400 miles and back. Well I have had a good weekend the new doors are coming together much better. I also started work on a new tongue box. 9 year old got it in her bonnet to zip tie every loose wire and hooked the battery to the inverter. She also cut the foam for the mattress and slept out in the tralier over night. Put the rear hatch on and worked some supports options a lot to do to get it campable in 2 weeks.

[Forrest747]

Like I said teh count down clock is running. So i spent a little longer in the garage than normal and I am paying for it today. Worked a little to fill in the holes for the hatch, used the router to remove as much excess in teh doors, then added the remaining edges so it looks pretty. filled it the voids with that aweful white insulation. Crawled underneath to give the exposed wires some added protection. worked more on the tongue box and then when i was not tired enough pulled the windows down from thier perch and found the opening too small. a good thing so i routed carefully the opening just a little bit bigger. need to find a longer router bit that will finish the opening. hopefully the grout will get here today and the counter top will be done. also will work on getting the cherry panel roughed out for the doors. have gremlin vacuum the mattress. that is the plan.

[Forrest747]

Well after some school drama and such. Tonight I got the grout installed not much different normal grout other than the mixing the epoxy. I ordered the terra cotta color hoping for more red. Well its not red enough more brown than I wanted but hey its now installed. It does go well with the color of the cherry paneling so I am not overly upset. After the race for the cure I am hoping the first coat of paint. And glassing the edges of the hatch. Thanks to Becky for helping me look for hatch supports. Thinking tomorrow or Sunday putting the windows in

[Forrest747]

As I lay here exhausted from the day. One of the dogs is lucky we have kids in this house that check up on them daily. One of the decided to burrow into the foam mattress while not destroyed its annoy that there is a hole. Well did the race for the cure and our crew was dead last and did the 3 miles in and hour 45 min. I felt like taking the day off but fiberglass was calling amazing somthing that scared me a month ago I am now glassing everything. Mix in sandwich bag used syringes to measure add tape and knead till saturated and then lay out and then squeeze out the rest and lather. I am sure I have those more experienced in fiberglass saying take it away and ban him from ever using again. Plumbed the faucet and bolted down the sink. Really happy with the grout. Made the opening for the windows uniform from the front to back. Trailer store run for buytl tape hatch gasket prop rod hardware and a funnel. Ham wanted a funnel no clue why. Then to hd to get a clip and got some spray foam for the windows and hole for the drain. Tongue box got most of the edges glassed and still working on the lid. The trailer power cord is stored there. Linking some prop rod to hold the lid up just enough to let the cord out but still keep out the elements. Really want to paint it tomorrow. Also one of the doors got the cherry glued to it. Need to trim all of the edges then will stain varnish and exterior paint

[Forrest747]

I have been kicked out of the garage. Gremlin and 3 of her girls are sleeping in it tonight.

[Forrest747]

Well we now know 4 preteen girls can spend half the night giggling painting toenails and talking Justin beiber in the trailer. Was so worried, taht the bieber fever was not going to make it. Anyhow spent the day painting the trailer worked on the one door and then sanded all the fiberglass I did yesterday. Failed in that some of the glass had bubbles at the joint. Well its only the tongue box. Well I got a bug and once I felt the paint had dried enough I put the large windows in. Buytl tape and used clamps to hold in place. Worried about one spot and we shall see when we do the rain test. Still will use the expanding foam to hopefully keep water out. Trimmed the tape and should of boughten the black auto glass type. The grey just doesn't go with the color scheme. I am happy with my efforts in a dry garage. WEll i ended up taping and painting the black stripe and after a trip to BK i pulled it off and it looks great. one thing about the red i have noticed is you can still see somethings like patchihng or where i filled holes in. not happy and i hope a second coat will hide more. if not i will camoflauge it with diamond plating paint. not happy about the interior of the windows and any advice would be much appreciated.

[Forrest747]

Had one of those days that I feel I didn't get much done. I used a five minute epoxy and glued the front marker lights. both batches cured quick and i definatly got some heat out of the last one that was larger than the first. Then put the cover over the water hose inlet. I put the prop rod support in at 2.5 inches from the lower edger and flush with the end. The hatch side I put it 16 inches from the far edge. Then just drilled out two holes at each end of the emt 3/4 inch conduit to make the prop rod. At five inches above the lower edge I place the hatch latches using popup latches.