RV There Yet? Towed Hall Build Journal

[Barefoot]

Well, it's been a while. In spite of spring chores and honey-do lists, I've managed at least an hour at least a few days a week. It's still a ball, especially using up junque I've had around, some since dirt. Until today I've preferred to spend what time I had on building, not strugging with posting pictures. If I fail at that again, please exert the effort to click on "Album."

The fender wells and multi-position bed were done last week, and this past week, the entry step and battery mount, which I then raised to match the steps, allowing me to "raise the skirts" for a more-proportional look and a bit more clearance. I've ordered windows and begun to settle on a shape, even scored a yard sale jig saw for $5.

Fans of the HF 4x8 may recognize the bumper brackets as the HF stake pockets, the step brackets as the HF fender brackets, and the battery box main rails as the HF "kick stand" rails, sans dolly wheels. The 3/4" ply at the ends is from an old flatbed box once built on a jet ski trailer. The rest is a mix of 1x2 and 2x2 and 3/16 and 1/2 ply from and a shanty boat cabin I never finished and a retired mower shed.

Knocking that apart surely proved what I've seen here, that most folx overbuild and that TiteBond is excellent glue! The top ply of most panels ripped off and when I laid one slightly arched 4x8 roof panel on the floor, took out all the screws, and literally jumped up and down on the center, one laminated 1x2 broke and everything else just held tight and smirked.

You may notice detail changes between shots of the folding bed, the result of a whole Saturday of fiddling with angles and set-backs. The odds and ends underneath are tentative "utilities" and temporary legs.

Bless this site. Not only does it answer a zillion (or so) questions as I go along, it was fun deciphering TD, TV, TTT, HF, TS, standy, sticky, TB, canned ham, and more.

[Barefoot]

Well! At last I settled on a profile and made that first scary cut, so have a template and await a router on order. I traced along a bendy piece of plastic trim, held according to co-ordinates from my rough plan, partly by hand and partly by brads. The sharp curves in the lower profile are for the bottom 2x8 side panel and don't involve any panel bends.

Note my yard-sale $1 framing square (replacing the un-square small one) and $5 jig saw. The latter is two-speed (too slow or too fast) but between both tools I'm making much neater cuts! Note also my long aluminum straight edge, trim from between two windows and the best I've ever used.

I've lived in travel trailers 17-36 feet long for extended periods quite a few times and came to prefer crank-out windows to house windows. These are flush-mount 16x24 from Atlantic Shed, www.atlanticshed.com at $35 plus about $9 shipping each from MA to FL, depending on how many. Sorry about the electronic speckles; it was darker in here than I realized.

The tire came and is the right one, and is tucked under the the bed platform. I used long carriage bolts and wing nuts so as to not need any tools besides the lug wrench you see and the car's jack, and I wasn't comfortable doing that if it were hung under the trailer.

MAYBE I have the picture thing sorted out at long, long last. I posted to another thread earlier and it worked! I had everything right but highlighting the url of the image a second time, in the message. I'll try to edit my first attempts but another time; now I'm getting fanny fatigue.

[George G.]

[kennyrayandersen]

how does the frog stay attached when she's going down the road?

[Barefoot]

Toad? He insists on riding inside Towed Hall, on the sofa if it's turned right side up (spare side down). Illegal as that is, maybe we won't get caught.

[kennyrayandersen]

as long as he doesn't blab to his toad friends you should be alright; you have to watch them toads -- they got big mouths!

[Barefoot]

WELL!! At long last I got many of the pictures to open by finding and trying Edit --and other folx had alredy gotten some of the others to open. Thank you both.

This week's photo is of the moment I decided to knock off after a long, productive day. It was about the dozenth time I'd thought, "Dammit, it was Rigt Here just a Minute ago!" Because of glue drying time, I'd wound up with stuff piled on stuff from working on the front and back wall and galley all at once,, much of it twice, as a good bit of it has been, uh, learning experiences. It is still a ball, though.

The counter top is a gogeous piece from one of those short closet doors from above the wheel well in an old trailer. I even sprung for some of my new wood on the cabinet face!

[Barefoot]

Not much progress to see this week except setting up those walls and galley, mostly having work (aww) and chores, also making up TTT shopping lists, hunting up some of it, and waiting for the rest. I decided to continue building from the inside out and to use house-style framing. We'll see how it goes. The bead board leaning there is from an old hot tub and should make decent cabinet doors. Note my use of yet another tip learned here, plugging the extension cord into the ceiling. You have to brush past it going anywhere but you don't have to get tangled up in it and jerk all your power tools and both cans full of screws onto the floor!

Clearance on the drop floor is now closer to 8". These tires are an .9" taller and I ran up on some hot rod 1" lowering / raising blocks, which will also help the limited axle travel of the HF. To regain clearance enough for the garage door, I've sloped the rear half of the roof and will roll the unit in and out with the coupler down on a tiny dolly wheel from the "kickstand" of the HF trailer.

Next week I've just got to get organized. I see a good many "hits" on my Saturday posts. Thank you; it helps to keep me moving along.

[Barefoot]

I missed my regular Saturday evening post (that sounds familiar!), but had little to see. I'd been doing things like running wires and insulating and skinning the other side of walls already seen here. I checked how the plywood would handle the tightest curve: just dandy --the long way!

This week I got the front and rear walls fastened down and polyurethaned, thinned for a first coat. You may have heard that we had some 17" of rain in five days, making the humidity in the garage about 120% (or so), so no second coat yet. Love the color already. The street side wall frame is started, dry fit here and barely visible. It is as flimsy as it looks, but I was urprised how solid they are when completed. The front window is in, if not trimmed out. Gotta' do something about that long, long crank!


Mr. Toad is admiring the gizmo I made to help lay out the walls, to save figuring and measuring all the really odd fractions for both faces of 1x2s, each with and without 5.2mm ply, just set the gauge in place and make a mark. In the background is a fine 2x4 cedar bumper with a great grain.

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[S. Heisley]

Hi, Barefoot:

About your window crank: They sell replacement cranks of all types, including a small, almost flush wheel type, at the local RV parts stores. I replaced my vent crank with a wheel type and it only cost a dollar and some small change.

Nice progress. Interesting build. I'll enjoy watching!

[Barefoot]

"Auntie," thanks for the tip on the knob to replace the long window cranks. The center screw looked easy to replace with a shorter one but I'd wondered if the "teeth" to fit the ones on the shaft would be the same for a knob or if I'd have to epoxy something. I didn't get to it anyway, but it's been a productive week, even slowed by a day of researching 120 wiring and and a day of puzzling out how to run it. Sure did drill a lot of holes I won't use. The 12 volt will be familiar.

Building from the inside out also makes progress seem slow, but suddenly the pace seems to be picking up. I got the side wall (where most of the wiring will be) skinned, finished, and mounted. Today I cut all nine remaining panels (unh) and installed a few more. I'll not have to buy more paneling and will have little waste, but that's enough schemi... thinking for one day. I like having made a pattern for the little $23 trim router if I never use it again.

If seeing the tail lights light up didn't make it seem real, stepping inside to work on something at the galley really made it seem like home, however tiny.

[Miriam C.]

Wow, that is small but looks real functional. Keep going, I love it.

[Barefoot]

While attending to other business, I'm still plugging away at making the curved part at the top of the side wall frames, while planning for wiring and for attaching the "skirts", the part below the frame that hide the frame, drop floor, and battery box. Without biscuits or, uh, biscuit cutter, I'm making two layers, each 3/4" thick, "shingling" them, and screwing the ends of each to the center of the ones below. Masons would recognize a running bond. The big curve that is done is now insulated and skinned on both sides, so no new photo this week, but I'll take one of the next.

Oddly I am not discouraged at all by the slow-down, indeed enjoy heading to the garage whenever I can. You may have noticed that I'm using "gravity clamps" that I'd been saving up, all the while under the delusion that they were cement blocks!

Oh, on bryantrv.com I found about eight or twelve different short window cranks (and two knobs), not to mention lots of hardware and enough other stuff to fill almost 800 pages of catalog --even a store less than two miles from here, a fine little candy shop.

[Barefoot]

Progress on the side walls has been slow compared to the end walls. Besides the usual insulating, skinning, and finishing, I also had to figure out how to make the curved parts of the frames, how to run the wiring, and how to lay out and brace the "skirts" below the frame. Anyhow, the photo shows all but the outer skin and skirts, now also done. Oh, the wires are mostly from a 50-foot 14/3 extension cord and need no staples as they are friction fit through the frame members. (Note the lighter duty type of "clamp".) Maybe this week the walls will go on to stay and I can start on the roof. Whee! Then comes the, then the...aargh! One day at a time, one sub-project at a time, it's easy. If I had done one of these before I could have planned in detail, had fewer backtracks (goofs), and could better answer people who want to know when it will be done, but then, this is a case of the journey being the joy.

[Barefoot]

Progress seemed to pick up this week, as I got both side walls finished and installed to stay, skirts, bracing, wires, insulation, curved framing, even the door header. It's beginning to look like a proper TTT and a cute enough hall / haul for Mr. Toad / Towed. Still no worse than 1/4" off anywhere, though there are a few of those.

I was going to do the roof next but we're having very near 100 degrees every day, 90 in the garage, so I'll leave it off for ventilation while I do some finishing and interior work.