Hobbit themed Teardrop

[yayeric]

Started tinkering with some electrical work. I've been a bit anxious about this. I prefer understanding how things work before moving forward, but the learning curve for electrical work seems steep.

Started out by gathering all necessary data and drawing out basic wiring schematics

Then I finished running some wire. Saw this trick online to tie some plastic to string then use a vacuum to suck the string to whatever opening. Seemed like a fantastic hair-brained idea, but I couldn't get it to work. It kept getting stuck

I had some TIG welding rods. Made a hairpin loop at one end and it slid right through, much better with no hiccups. By the way, if you can get a hold of those old school stripping tools like the one in the photo above, it'll be well worth your money. What an amazing tool.

Did some tests on the lights. Used a 12V DC wall plug-in unit for power. Everything was working out on the first try.

Left a dozen dots on my retina. At least it's bright enough

Gave the dimmable and color changing puck lights a test too.

These Wago Wire Connectors are pretty great. They snap like mouse traps though, don't let them catch your finger. Couldn't pull the wires out without breaking the wire. Can't get pointlessly stronger than that.

Lastly, testing the USB chargers. Phone charged pretty quickly!

Wish I had ordered colors that were more..... standard. The color changing for the sconces was a bit ridiculous. Red-->Black-->Red-->White-->Black-->Yellow. Not very straight forward.

Turned out cleanly thought. Can't see the wires from the outside, and they don't cast a shadow.

The light does as intended - directly illuminates a reading area and the rear cabinets and provides indirect ambient light. It was satisfying to finally see how well those would work, couldn't be happier with it. Won't be putting any burn marks on my retina with this layout

 

[FischAutoTechGarten]

Oh my... this is a work of art! Thanks for sharing the details.

 

[Shadowcatche]

Fantastic work, one suggestion. Our refrigerator rides in the back of the Subaru and my wife gets the storage.

 

[yayeric]

Finished up all the interior electrical work. All that's left to do now is finish the battery box and hook up the battery.

Here I made a USB holder for the inside of the cabin. Figured if the USB ports were surrounded by a lip it would prevent any bending or breaking of the ports or the wires, and hide the red light from the on/off switch while I'm sleeping. Pretty simple to make, just cut out the shape, removed most of the material inside the lip with a Forstner bit, and removed the rest with a chisel. Took about 30 seconds to fine polish on a belt sander with 240 grit

This one is staring at me in utter shock

I thought the USB ports would hold it in place, but the on/off switch didn't travel deep enough. Made another a wee-bit bigger so I could attach it to the brass inserts

Too small

Juuuuust right

Installing and confirming it works. I had a wall outlet that output 12V DC to test my system with which was very handy

Made a detachable wire channel to to hide the wire-runs

I also test ran (but not fully installed) the fan. I did finish installing the galley components. Besides completing the tray cut-outs to hold cups, salt, pepper, etc...., pretty sure I'm done with the galley in its entirety. There's a local pottery person who makes coffee cups with hobbit doors I'm waiting on

 

[yayeric]

I think I'm pretty much done with the interior components. Pretty small list of tasks to do now
• Weld the final components for the chasis
• Paint the frame (going with a cold galvanization followed by rust-oleum)
• Thinly epoxy the exterior and fill any gaps in the trim
• Mount the trailer
• Add platform for upper 3rd brake light
• Make a handle for the door latch
• Apply several layers of varnish
• Add exterior trailer lights and reflectors
• Attach and seal the fan

And.... I think I can register it? Wow.

So I started adding all the last of the components for the chasis

This had to wait until now to perform this. I made this chassis 3 years and 5 months ago, jeez..... Due to the width of a round door, the tires would be very close to the door. I think I initially predicted the tires would be 3/4 down the length of the frame, not entirely ideal for weight distribution. I had to line up the chasis with the body and place the wheels as close as I could while ensuring the fenders didn't interrupt with opening/closing the door.

Ordered 2 fenders ($60 each), two wheels ($70 each), two tires ($140 each) and a trailer jack ($70). Throw is some angle iron, cutting pads, stripping pads and it ran about $700, ugh.

While waiting for the parts to arrive, I realized I was short a few square-head bolts. I didn't account for the extra 16 I would need for the windows. Here's my process

First, made a platform. Two layers of 1/2" steel welded together atop a 2x2" square tube. The square tube allows me to insert spacers to finely adjust the height of the bolts and to firmly clamp the structure to a table

In that photo, I cut off all the bolt heads and stripped them of the galvanized surface with hydrochloric acid. I could have used a wire brush but I feel like that would affect the threads. Also drilled some holes in 1/4" steel and cut them out in small squares

Then, I'd insert the bolt and a head

Weld the two together and fill in the head

While it was still red hot, hit it with a hammer. Two swings on each side followed by a little *boop* straight down with a 3lb crack sledge did the trick

The prep takes the longest, but once your got everything ready it's about 1-2 minutes per bolt. It's not too bad of a process. It's also a lot of noisy fun to shape hot metal with a hammer

 

[yayeric]

All the chassis parts arrived.

Did some talking with the other metal workers and engineers in the art studio about painting it. General consensus was to take off any mill scale from hot rolled metal because it's very flakey, whereas cold rolled (not flakey) steel mill scale just needs a bit of sanding to give the paint a surface it can grip. Cold galvanization followed by rust-oleum has held up incredibly well for some projects they've made in places like Mammoth where winter is a frozen ****. It's also gotten broad support on these forums, so it seems like a good bet to me.

Started by grinding all the paint and mill scale off. What a long and tiring process, not as meditative as sanding wood. Especially when the chassis is already welded together - this would have been significantly easier if all the steel was still raw.

Getting all the crooks and crannies

And it's done! Or so I thought, you can see three little areas I missed. Got them done the next day

Now, attaching the frame. I mounted up the chassis to these handy jacks to check axle placement.

Initially - and foolishly - I was going to just measure how far the tire was from the rear, make the two sides equidistant and weld it on. I was confident in the chassis being very square. Cut two pieces of equal sized wood and placed the axle.

I opened up Tony's book to double check his process where he states the axle-ends need to be equidistant from the coupler. Spent probably 3 hours measuring and adjusting (had to keep retaping the two plumb bobs I had).

Measured my final adjustments probably 5 times back and forth, looked like it was within 1/32" so I called it good. Compared to the initial method by measuring from the rear, there was about a 1/2" 'twist' on the axle. I guess the frame wasn't square and/or the axle attachment points aren't perfectly cut? I remeasure the frame and it was pretty close to perfect, so yeah, I don't know. I asked a friend to test drive the chassis for me while I looked on from the rear and front and it looked as straight as it'll ever get to me, so.... it would have been off if I rushed the job and went with my first method.

Clears the door with 2-3 inches of wiggle room

 

[yayeric]

Added six 4" angle iron segments for attaching the trailer. Two in front, two in the middle, and two in the galley

My welds are getting better but still lightyears away from professional craftsmanship. Very humbling

Started cutting some angle iron for a boot tray. I spent a while thinking about where my boots would go. I didn't like the idea of placing them in the trailer inside a bag or plastic box. Placing them on the ground under the trailer was out of the question. Having a 4 inch camel spider crawl out of a friend's sleeping bag and the ensuing fiasco has thoroughly disciplined me from exposing anything to critters. Another friend told me of how she put her foot into a shoe and squished a 3 inch slug. Aaaaaahh!

I initially settled on making a beer barrel that would sit atop the fender with a little cubby on the inside for storage, but someone on this forum had the idea of a sliding metal tray under the door. Brilliant, I'm copying this idea from whoever you may be.

Made the dimensions a comfortable 14x16", centered on the door. I'll make the trays later this week. Might have been a better idea to make them off center, I may cut them off and reattach them now that I think of it. Actually, it might be nice to keep them there, serves as a good footrest for untying boots.

Adding the rear bumper for damage control

Also attached the trailer jack. How TIG welders weld a round pipe in one pass is beyond me, hats off to you people. True artists.

Adding the fender attachment points. Cut an angled piece off the end, thought it would like nicer than a flat termination. Should help prevent any snagging on clothes too.

Buffing the steel with 60 grit for final paint prep

Lastly, welded the detachable coupler to the male-end 2x2", 3/16" thick steel. The protruding balls of steel are holes I welded to the tubing and filled in, ground those flush afterwards. Should be good!

It's ready to paint

 

[Tony Latham]

I opened up Tony's book to double check his process where he states the axle-ends need to be equidistant from the coupler.

What a great build!

Tony

 

[yayeric]

I mounted the trailer today on the unpainted chassis to get a sense of weight distribution

I was thinking a lot throughout the day about spare tire placement, whether it should go on the tongue or underneath. The tongue leaves me with lots of ground clearance, however I predicted the trailer would be quite tongue heavy. Most importantly though, I had no idea how much it would weight - which affects the suspension drop - nor did I know the weight distribution. For all I knew it could be galley heavy. I decided testing it out would be the smart and safe thing to do.

Had some breakage on the trim. Darn... oh well!

And it's mounted

To do the test weighing, I made some estimations for weight. 30 lbs for kitchen gear, (8.34 x 7 = ) 58lbs for water, 3/4 of the cooler filled with water = 80 lbs, threw on the battery in the correct place, and 60lbs for space tire.

Found some anvils hanging around doing nothing. Perfect

I threw the weight in all the correct spots and gathered some data.

The trailer axel was made for 1,700 lbs. If fully loaded, it should sit 0.79" bellow with the top of the chassis (according to the Dexter catalogue). It sat 1.4 inches below. Yesterday I asked 3 other people to sit on the chassis with me. We collectively weighed 810 lbs or so. Adding the chassis (guesstimating based on density of steel), 810 + 330 = 1,140 lbs, which placed the wheel centers 2.5 inches below the top of the chassis. Because the torsion axel arm is parallel to the ground, there's little change in horizontal distance between the wheel center and axle beam, meaning little change in leverage and a somewhat linear change in weight. The compression strength of the rubber in the torsion axle probably changes the more it's compressed, but I need a rough estimate so here we go. Doing some quick math, [(2.5-1.4) ÷ (2.5-0.79) x (1,700-1,140)] + 1,140 = 1,500lbs exactly on the axle. That's... kind of what I hoped for! Throw on the two tires on the axle and that's a final total weight of 1,610 lbs.

Tongue weight should be 10-15% of the trailer weight. I need a tongue weight of 161-242 lbs

I came up with three locations to place the tire; On the tongue, underneath in front of the axel, or underneath behind the axel. I placed the 55lb anvil and a gallon of glue representing the spare tire centered on those three location and measured the tongue weight centered on the hitch receiver. Here is a table with the results;

I'd love some thoughts on this data! Experience counts here.

245lbs is pretty heavy but the tongue weight is right at 15%. 245lbs is not a problem at all for my truck, but a loose goal of mine was to make this trailer Prius towable. Underneath the trailer is a nice placement but I worry about the clearance. There were some good points brought up on these forums that the placement of the tire on the rear end of the axel could lead to bottoming out after hitting a speed bump or a pothole, so I think I like in front of the axel better. I could modify the bottom of the trailer by thinning out sections of steel where the tire will rest with 1/4" thick steel to increase my clearance to an absolute maximum of 8.5", which seems pretty good. My Frontier has 8.9" at the differential, so it's pretty close. I do not plan on going on very hard roads. I could also just get a thinner spare tire, but that idea irks me but I'm trying to be open to change. I could make both options a possibility too, weld on the infrastructure to make both a possibility so I can change the placement based on the tow vehicle, which solves all my problems. Tire on the bottom = Prius towable. Tire on the tongue = Truck towable, can handle rougher roads.

If I could summarize this into one question - is 8.5" of clearance good enough for a somewhat bumpy US Forrest service road? I prefer camping on BLM land in the middle of nowhere but I have no experience towing in the boonies. I'm very interested in your past experiences. Thanks!

 

[yayeric]

Weighed the trailer with a better method, should be pretty close. My math from my previous post would have been much closer if I accounted for tongue weight as part of total weight and added the mattress weight, only 60lbs off my rough predictions =]

If I place 3 scales under trailer, one under each wheel and the third under the tongue jack, I could add the three together and that's the weight.

I hitched up the trailer to my truck. Placed some 1/2 inch boards under each wheel. Using some 1,500 kg rated straps attached to a 1,000kg crane scale, I asked a friend to use the fork lift to lift the trailer in sections. To measure the weight on each wheel, the straps were wrapped around the end of the torsion axle lever arm, the 1/2" board was removed and the trailer was lifted to 1/2". I measured the tongue weight by lifting it to the same level when it was attached to the truck.

Bit heavier than I'd like, but that's the price you pay with extra wood and large metal components. Even though my tires were set pretty far back, it was significantly less tongue heavy than I would have predicted. Most people say about 40% of the total trailer length from the rear, whereas I'm about 25-30%. I think those super extension hinges, about 1/25'th of the total trailer weight, are to account for that. Because of this, the spare must go in front. If the spare tire was in the rear the tongue weight range would be 8.7-9.2% of total trailer weight.

Ran some numbers. I'll always be heading out with a full water tank, clothes, all the kitchen gear, etc... The only thing I see significantly fluctuating is the cooler. Taking that into account to determine the range, here's what I got

Trailer Weight is everything, Chassis weight excludes the two tires, Tongue weight was determined manually, and Axle weight was Chassis - Tongue Weight.

Turned out pretty good. Trailer weight is way higher than I hoped for, but the weight on the axle is below the 1,700 lb rating. Tongue weight is spot on the mark for between 10-15%. The trailer is 30lbs heavy on the driver side, which is great because I plan to mount the spare tire on the passenger side for safety purposes. Either the weight will balance out, or it'll be 30lbs heavy on the passenger side. Regardless, it's pretty balanced. Can't get any worse.

Tomorrow I hope to paint the chassis, but I have some hopefully not too complicated welding to do first. The spare tire will be on a custom swivel joint, we'll see how that goes.

 

[yayeric]

I should know this by now but metal working always takes a bit longer than I anticipate.

Began working on the swing out spare tire holder, stated with a mockup to test dimension. Looks good

Got some components for the hinge. Steel tube with bronze washers (tight fitting and natural lubrication) and a stainless steel pin

Had to remove the galvanized layer prior to welding. Don't need any zinc poisoning! For the tube, this needed HCl due ablate the interior. I also threw in the 5 bolts for the tire attachment point. I put on splash-proof goggles because I like my eyes.

I'm still surprised they sell HCl at this concentration. I did the math some time back and for 12.1 M HCl, 1.5 cups or so of pure baking soda will neutralize 1 cup of HCl at that concentration. Did this in a bucket outside for fresh air and over concrete because concrete is a carbonate and will neutralize any spillage. Here you can see an eruption I caught on camera.

I used the CO2 laser cutter to cut out a stencil, tested it to ensure it fits, and traced the points for drilling and grinding.

And it fits

 

[yayeric]

Cut out all the sections of steel for the swing arm, scrubbed surfaces of mill scale

Ensure all the angles were correct, threw on tack welds, and confirmed the angles

To avoid significant bending in the metal, I welded the sides of the bars first, then the side with the largest angle, finishing with the tightest angle.

Welding on the screws and ran a test fit. Still fits

Cutting a groove for the hinge to fit nicely

Finished the welding and gave it a test fit.

Drilled the opening for the hinge pin and the support catch. I free handed this, resulting a hole slightly greater in diameter than the pin, resulting in a rather loose fit, with the top most portion wiggling 1.5". I cut off the steel at those sections, drilled holes through steel using the drill press, cut those to size and welded those sections on. I got a much better fit, only wiggles 1/4" of an inch. I called it good

 

[yayeric]

Prepping the chassis for painting. Ran a wire wheel to clean up all the welds.

My original plan was to galvanize the steel followed by rust-o-leum, but after thoroughly reading the instructions it turns out rust-o-leum doesn't work with galvanized steel. I swapped those cans out for the rust-o-leum primer.

Had some help with scrubbing the metal free of debris, oil, grime, etc...

A friend lifted the trailer up with a fork lift. Although a little unsafe, it was very convenient.

I shut the doors, put on my organic vapor mask, primed the trailer, let it sit for 30 minutes to dry, then opened the doors to vent. Trailer turned out okay! Touched up some spots that were scraped during the lifting process. This was not as hard as I thought it would be.

Began painting the enamel coating. Quite tedious but not too hard.

And the first coat is on.

I lathered it on pretty thick (I'm learning), so I'm letting this one sit for 48 hours. Nevada is pretty dry, especially during the winter, so it should by cured by then. Putting on 3 coats then calling it good

I was very disappointed with the quality of the powder coating of the Dexter axel. It was very drippy, and whoever did the work put the stickers on the axle while the coating was still wet. I'm no expert, but I don't think I should be able to peel off powder coat with a thin stick of wood trying to remove stickers. There were even sections that still had bare steel exposed. I gave the axle a coat of rust-o-leum as well. Had I known what I was looking for when I purchased it 2 years ago I would have returned it for something coated correctly and not rushed. Be wary of Six Roblees in Oakland California.

Now, in between painting, I'm prepping the rest of the metal and the finishing the door latches.

 

[WYWander]

Looking awesome!!