A folding wooden camper

[Paintsalot]

Test fit today of benches and knock-down table, which becomes mattress support.
Still a little cold out for gluing.
Floor needs stain soon.

I put the camper back in the garage because I’m going to ship the lifting arms back soon.

 

[Pmullen503]

Hope you get the lifting arms sorted out. It's a sweet build.

 

[Paintsalot]

Hope you get the lifting arms sorted out. It's a sweet build.

Thankyou. I shipped them yesterday. They should get them tomorrow. Pricey to ship them back and change the springs, but they are a key component, so hopefully will work better soon.
I have a backup plan with poles and pulleys, but I want to see if I can get the spring arms to work.

 

[Paintsalot]

Looking good! Looking forward to pics/videos of the finished product featuring proud Papa Paintsalot and his creation.

Thanks- welcome to the site…

 

[yayeric]

Glad the roof is okay! Making moving bits work is the hardest thing I've found.

Did some thinking about these crashes you've been having and staring at your photos. I might be missing something without a video of the crash or photos of the crash, but here's my best guess.

When your lifting the roof, one wall goes up first, which is your front wall judging by your photo on Nov 11. Then you lift the rear wall. Not sure if order matters, but I'm guessing it's falling away from you? I feel like you would have mentioned if it fell on you.

I don't think those lifting arms are pushing only upward, I think their also pushing outward. It doesn't seem like the roof would crash when only one wall is lifted, so it must be happening when the second wall is lifted right?

Just to lay out what's required for the roof to collapse,
1) Elbow has to buckle
2) Rotation at the shoulders

The top shoulder needs to swivel to allow the roof to lift so the second wall can be placed, so that narrows down preventing the elbow buckling and the bottom shoulder from rotating

Those 2 things need to be immovable on the springs used to setup the first wall after they are extended. Otherwise, I imagine it would be similar to balancing a cane on an open hand when the first wall is placed up.

Here's my ideas;

1) You've mentioned the push pins to lock the elbow. I'd imagine that's probably fine, I sit on cheap plastic table tops and they support my 180lbs just fine. You've also added the brackets to stop the shoulder from rotating outwards, but that's only one direction of shoulder movement. I think it might be good to also stop the inward rotation too, which could be as simple as adding a removable pin to the bracket.

2) Just a gut feeling, but I feel like the straight up and down brackets might be the problem. Something about perfect balance, a little flick at the elbow and it will come crashing. Perhaps by placing the bottom shoulder of your spring arms inwards juuuust slightly, maybe even just a single inch, would increase stability via gravity. I don't know if gravity would help keep the elbow locked, I feel like it would but I have my doubts. The spring pin may come in handy, or maybe the springs in the elbow are enough to keep it locked. But the new angle of spring arm pushes the roof slightly into the first wall. This creates a triangle, with force slightly pushing the roof towards the first wall. This seems more stable in my mind, I can't envision the elbow buckling with the wall supporting that part of the roof, and since it's angled the shoulder is kind-of pressed into a final position with gravity and the wall. I would guess the spring arms for the second wall should still be straight up/down so they don't counter-act the first spring arms

I don't know, just some rambling ideas. I hope it works out, it really is amazing how well it collapses.

Next time you test it, record it with a clear side-view shot. Best of luck

 

[Paintsalot]

Glad the roof is okay! Making moving bits work is the hardest thing I've found.

Did some thinking about these crashes you've been having and staring at your photos. I might be missing something without a video of the crash or photos of the crash, but here's my best guess.

When your lifting the roof, one wall goes up first, which is your front wall judging by your photo on Nov 11. Then you lift the rear wall. Not sure if order matters, but I'm guessing it's falling away from you? I feel like you would have mentioned if it fell on you.

I don't think those lifting arms are pushing only upward, I think their also pushing outward. It doesn't seem like the roof would crash when only one wall is lifted, so it must be happening when the second wall is lifted right?

Just to lay out what's required for the roof to collapse,
1) Elbow has to buckle
2) Rotation at the shoulders

The top shoulder needs to swivel to allow the roof to lift so the second wall can be placed, so that narrows down preventing the elbow buckling and the bottom shoulder from rotating

Those 2 things need to be immovable on the springs used to setup the first wall after they are extended. Otherwise, I imagine it would be similar to balancing a cane on an open hand when the first wall is placed up.

Here's my ideas;

1) You've mentioned the push pins to lock the elbow. I'd imagine that's probably fine, I sit on cheap plastic table tops and they support my 180lbs just fine. You've also added the brackets to stop the shoulder from rotating outwards, but that's only one direction of shoulder movement. I think it might be good to also stop the inward rotation too, which could be as simple as adding a removable pin to the bracket.

2) Just a gut feeling, but I feel like the straight up and down brackets might be the problem. Something about perfect balance, a little flick at the elbow and it will come crashing. Perhaps by placing the bottom shoulder of your spring arms inwards juuuust slightly, maybe even just a single inch, would increase stability via gravity. I don't know if gravity would help keep the elbow locked, I feel like it would but I have my doubts. The spring pin may come in handy, or maybe the springs in the elbow are enough to keep it locked. But the new angle of spring arm pushes the roof slightly into the first wall. This creates a triangle, with force slightly pushing the roof towards the first wall. This seems more stable in my mind, I can't envision the elbow buckling with the wall supporting that part of the roof, and since it's angled the shoulder is kind-of pressed into a final position with gravity and the wall. I would guess the spring arms for the second wall should still be straight up/down so they don't counter-act the first spring arms

I don't know, just some rambling ideas. I hope it works out, it really is amazing how well it collapses.

Next time you test it, record it with a clear side-view shot. Best of luck

Hi Yayeric,
I appreciate your thoughts on this.
I’m glad the roof is OK too.!!

Based on your description- I think there’s a little misunderstanding. The end walls don’t support the roof. The lifting arms are able to hold up the roof by themselves. I lift the roof independently of the walls.

I don’t remember if I’ve posted this photo before, here you can see the arms holding the roof up by themselves. I get the roof in this position before I tilt the walls up.

Once I have the roof up and arms locked in place, I tilt the walls up starting with the end walls. The side walls come up and just barely touched the structure of the roof. The end walls don’t quite reach the 2x2 structure.

The photo you saw from November 11 was when I was lifting the roof with pulleys from the garage ceiling rafters. I was trying to get the roof up so I could put the arms on. I had it supported by the side walls, and then I added about an 1/8th inch spacer before I put the arms on.

Click on this TikTok video link if you can. It will help you understand how the arms work. They don’t seem to have the hinge pins that I do, though. See photograph later below.

The first time the roof fell over, was because I had pinned the arms at one end of the camper, but not the other. And I was tilting the camper, and that allowed one end to fold over backwards.

If you zoom into this picture below, you can see a J shaped bracket which the lift arms rests against once they are vertical. And there is a pinhole on one side that allows you to completely lock the base of the arms in place.
This picture also shows the hardware with some metal plates that extend just at one end of the camper to create a temporary hinge with a lock pin.

Basically, once you have the arms up and you pin them in place at the bottom brackets, the roof can’t go anywhere, because the elbows bend in opposite directions. But if one end is not pinned, the other end can still fold outward at the elbow (past end of trailer) and that’s how the roof has fallen. It doesn’t have anything to do with the walls. If the walls are all up, there’s no way for the roof to fall.
It does have to do with the strength of the springs, which in this case are not very strong. A stronger spring would prevent the elbow from bending so easily.

So now when I put the roof up, I start at one end, and once I have arms extended, I lock the elbows. Then when I put up the other end of the camper roof, there’s no chance that it will over-travel causing the roof to fall. Now that I’ve been using that method there have not been any more falls.

I shipped the arms back because the springs were not helping me with the lifting very much, and it’s 120 pounds.

Hope that helps explain a little.
Thanks for your interest. It’s complex to try to explain verbally. It’s not as complex in person. But there has still been a pretty steep learning curve.!!

I’ve just gotten the benches screwed in this week. And here you can see the center supports that go into carry the mattress. One becomes the table top.

Whenever I get the arms back and get things working again, I can do a video for you guys and show how the whole process works. Currently the roof is bearing on the side walls.

 

[yayeric]

Hi Yayeric,
I appreciate your thoughts on this.
I’m glad the roof is OK too.!!

Based on your description- I think there’s a little misunderstanding. The end walls don’t support the roof. The lifting arms are able to hold up the roof by themselves. I lift the roof independently of the walls.

I don’t remember if I’ve posted this photo before, here you can see the arms holding the roof up by themselves. I get the roof in this position before I tilt the walls up.
View attachment 2405855
Once I have the roof up and arms locked in place, I tilt the walls up starting with the end walls. The side walls come up and just barely touched the structure of the roof. The end walls don’t quite reach the 2x2 structure.

The photo you saw from November 11 was when I was lifting the roof with pulleys from the garage ceiling rafters. I was trying to get the roof up so I could put the arms on. I had it supported by the side walls, and then I added about an 1/8th inch spacer before I put the arms on.

Click on this TikTok video link if you can. It will help you understand how the arms work. They don’t seem to have the hinge pins that I do, though. See photograph later below.

The first time the roof fell over, was because I had pinned the arms at one end of the camper, but not the other. And I was tilting the camper, and that allowed one end to fold over backwards.

If you zoom into this picture below, you can see a J shaped bracket which the lift arms rests against once they are vertical. And there is a pinhole on one side that allows you to completely lock the base of the arms in place.
This picture also shows the hardware with some metal plates that extend just at one end of the camper to create a temporary hinge with a lock pin.

View attachment 2405861


Basically, once you have the arms up and you pin them in place at the bottom brackets, the roof can’t go anywhere, because the elbows bend in opposite directions. But if one end is not pinned, the other end can still fold outward at the elbow (past end of trailer) and that’s how the roof has fallen. It doesn’t have anything to do with the walls. If the walls are all up, there’s no way for the roof to fall.
It does have to do with the strength of the springs, which in this case are not very strong. A stronger spring would prevent the elbow from bending so easily.

So now when I put the roof up, I start at one end, and once I have arms extended, I lock the elbows. Then when I put up the other end of the camper roof, there’s no chance that it will over-travel causing the roof to fall. Now that I’ve been using that method there have not been any more falls.

I shipped the arms back because the springs were not helping me with the lifting very much, and it’s 120 pounds.

Hope that helps explain a little.
Thanks for your interest. It’s complex to try to explain verbally. It’s not as complex in person. But there has still been a pretty steep learning curve.!!

I’ve just gotten the benches screwed in this week. And here you can see the center supports that go into carry the mattress. One becomes the table top.
View attachment 2405864

Whenever I get the arms back and get things working again, I can do a video for you guys and show how the whole process works. Currently the roof is bearing on the side walls.

Yeah, I see can the TikTok video. Thankfully I didn't have to make an account!

Something I did notice they had, is a guard rail to prevent the swing arm from rotating outwards. Seems like a nice thing to have

I see the pin holes now, and the bracket also placed as high as it can go for maximum leverage. And the elbows lock. Cool

Well, glad there haven't been any more fall-downs! I guess a strict adherence to that methodology would do it. The stronger springs would be nice too. Out of curiosity, when the roof collapsed and the first arms were locked in place, did the latter half of the roof that went up fold and collapse into the trailer?

 

[Elseanno]

That hinge is a pretty elegant solution!

Thank you for documenting all of this! I have been absorbing everything I can. I really like your trailer in both form & function. I hope the project ready in time for you to use it as intended this year.

Keep up the good work, we're all pulling for you!

 

[Paintsalot]

o. Out of curiosity, when the roof collapsed and the first arms were locked in place, did the latter half of the roof that went up fold and collapse into the trailer?

When the roof fell, the arms folded outward, and the roof hit the folded arms. I don’t remember exactly how it all looked. I was frantically trying to get it back up.

 

[Paintsalot]

That hinge is a pretty elegant solution!

Thank you for documenting all of this! I have been absorbing everything I can. I really like your trailer in both form & function. I hope the project ready in time for you to use it as intended this year.

Keep up the good work, we're all pulling for you!

Thank you! Hopefully I will get the spring arm replacements towards the end of this week. I’m trying to get exterior cedar trim put on, but the temperatures are so low that I can’t do any gluing with normal wood glue. Thursday will get up to 50° so I think I can use titebond III.

 

[Paintsalot]

I’m debating how to attach the fenders. There is a metal support that comes up to support the fender that’s provided with the trailer, but I’m concerned that the fender could vibrate and make a little bit of a rattling noise against the wall. But if I bolt the fender to the wall, and I bump into a tree trunk, it could tear up the wall. I read some earlier posts where some used plastic bolts so they can shear. I think for now I’m just going to use the existing support and not go through the wall. One less potential leak.

 

[S. Heisley]

It looks like you have plenty of room between the wheel and the wall, so hopefully you'll be okay with what the metal support that was provided. The best way to know might be to try it!

 

[Paintsalot]

It looks like you have plenty of room between the wheel and the wall, so hopefully you'll be okay with what the metal support that was provided. The best way to know might be to try it!

Good idea. Yes there’s a lot of room by the tire.
I just talked to The lift arm manufacturer and they will ship the arms back tomorrow.
Tomorrow will warm up some and I hope to get some more trim put on.
We have a big snow coming in this weekend and freezing temperatures all of next week. Camper will have to wait.