Super Size Weekender....

[beevel]

Back in town and back to work on the trailer. I didn't get a whole lot accomplished today. I managed to finish my roof spars, I had to create the slightly angled ones, thats done. I started roughing in the beds today, I figured this would be easier to do now with the roof open than later with the entire trailer enclosed.


This first photo is of the kids bunk layout, the picture has been taken from the back of the trailer as if you were laying on the queen bed. I realize the beds look wobbly, but they are only temporarily mounted at this point. The unsupported corner of the upper bunk will be hung from the ceiling with eyebolts and a chain, I actually used a 2 X 4 as a roof spar there to hold the weight of the bed.

To the right of the upper bunk will be a very small storage cubicle, and the lower bunk will probably (haven't decided yet) hinge up so that we can store our camping boxes there. The beds will only be screwed to the walls, no glue. We figure that the kids are only going to want to sleep with mom and dad in the trailer for a year or 2 tops, once they're out I am going to convert the front part of the trailer to a small counter, storage area.... and small porta pottie closet(room) so I needed to be able to remove the beds without making a mess of the inside of the trailer.

Hope this gives people some idea of what we are planning.

[Jeeper92]

what are the domensions of your trailer?
How many are you going to sleep?
What are you going to have in there?

nevermind i went back and read the thread

get to work would ya

[beevel]

I have been doing some work mainly painting the interior and laying vinyl flooring before I put the roof and ceiling on. Hoping to have the interior sorted and the roof installed by mid week. Then hoping to epoxy the trailer the following weekend.

Like I said there is not intention of having much more than limited storage and the beds in the trailer for now, when we camp we camp, cook outside, spend all our time outside (under a big tarp but still outside). Once the kids want to start sleeping in a tent I will add cabinetry and such to the front of the trailer.

I also have to figure out a way to mount the tarp to the trailer, probably will end up doing something similar to steve's puffin and the hooks and electrical conduit.

I'll try to get some picks up at the end of the weekend of a hopefully completed or somewhat completed interior.

[Jeeper92]

I look forward to seeing them. how talli s your trailer from the wheel base to the top?
My garage has a curved top so im gonna run into some problems trying to get that thing in htere

[beevel]

The trailer is about 79 to 80 inches high at its highest point, thats from the ground. I have a low garage door opening 81 inches, and I can just squeeze the trailer in.

The only height problem that I have is roof vent location. I don't know if I really need one, if I do put one in I'll have to put it on the rear most part of the roof which would allow me to still put the trailer in the garage, anywhere else on the trailer would make it too tall to fit into the garage.


One thing that I did was upgrade the trailer to 12 inch wheels, you could gain back quite a bit of room by keeping putting 8 inch tires on the trailer. I know it is pain but you could even have both sets of wheels and change them for storage, or use the small wheels for short trips and change to the bigger wheels for longer higher speed trips.

[Jeeper92]

The trailer that i have has normal car sized tire on it (shasta) but the chasis of the trailer is sooooo low. I will know what i am going to do today or tom. when i finish ripping it appart

[beevel]

How many people are you going to sleep in your trailer?

I remember seeing in another post, something about a bathroom... are you still planning on putting that in as well.


oh and one more thing,,, just for your info... my trailer is just over 60 inches interior height at its heighest point. Might be helpful for you to figure out your height if you know my interior number. I'm 6'2" and can stoop and hobble around in that height without to much difficulty.

[Jeeper92]

Im 6'5 so I may jsut have to build a tt at about 74 inches, im thinking about a shower and a bathroom but i wnat to get this thing ready to camp by the second week of august. Ill be gettign better measurements tom when i finally get teh thing to my house. I have been workign on it at the persons house that i bought it from. Soooooooo we will see, im buildign this week i know that much, i have a general idea of what i want so ill get the floor on take some measurements then im gonna make some saw dust

[beevel]

[Jeeper92]

Id really like to see how you are gonna set the beds up, cause my wife and two kdis are going to be in ours so we are doing the same thing. i was thinking a bigger bed in the back and two BUNKs up front where its a little taller. Mine is gonna be a little taller at 64 inches soooo ill be able to fit a little more in there, did you epxy the inside? I was alos wondering if you could tell me hte exact expoxy you are using on the inside and outside. thanks, trailer looks great

[beevel]

I just got one bed mounted, I plan on finishing the other 2 tomorrow. I'll post some pics when I do.

This inside of the trailer isn't epoxied, I just primed and painted it with 3 coats of interior/exterior latex. I am going to epoxy the outside, i don't know what brand yet, I'm probably going to be going to a marine store on Monday to get my epoxy. My intention is to get the beds mounted and the ceiling/roof done this weekend.

Then I'm going to make a door and fit my windows next week, remove the windows and epoxy and paint the trailer the following weekend.

I'll see if I can draw my layout on one of my pics tonight. Otherwise like I said I should have the beds mounted tomorrow mid afternoon.

You know I'm not a woodworker and I'm not doing this trailer for fun but I am rather enjoying working on it. The only thing that I hate is that building a trailer is a real learning process and as I go I keep telling myself darn I should have done it this way.

[beevel]

Okay, here goes please forgive the crudity of these pics, an artist I'm not. But I think they should give you some idea.

This first pic is from the front of the trailer looking towards the back. The blue and black hash marks represent a queen size bed.

- The black part will be solidly mounted while the blue hatch marks will be hinged to allow the bed to flip back on itself.

This will do 3 things;

one make access to the under the bed area, we are going to store our tarps, camp chairs, ax.. small compact flat things like that and possibly our clothes bags.

The area that is freed up by flipping the bed will be for storing our cooler and camp boxes, which will be directly above or infront of the axle, this is going to help prevent sway since I should have moved my axle back before I started.

The third benefit will be that we can flip the bed up to make a makeshift bench should we want to sit in the the trailer during a rain storm.

The red area above the bed will be our oldest childs bed. I will be supported by either a leg attached to the wall or a chain suspended from the ceiling, the front support will be shown in the next pic. The suspended bed is 72" long and 30" wide.




Okay this second pic is brutal but it should give you an idea.

In this view you are sitting on the main bed, you can see the suspended bed, it will be supported by a bulk head/storage bin at the head of the trailer, this bin will be 16 inches deep and however high. This Bin will be a permanent part of the trailer as plans are in the future to remove the kids beds (once they want to sleep in a tent anyway, mom and dad aren't doing tents anymore). The green hatch marks is the bed area for my youngest, she only gets a bed 62" long, but that will work for her.

That leaves us about 3 feet of floor area, which will be used for porta potty storage (maybe if the kids are lucky) and a sleeping area for our dog (unless she sleeps on my daughters bed with her).

Hope these pics help a bit.



The scale is off on these pics, but even though tight, my wife and Imocked up the beds before construction and the trailer will be quite comfy. The only change that i am contemplating is to hinge the upper bed, but I'll see tomorrow.

[Jeeper92]

Why not bunk the kids beds , make the top one foldable and use the bottom one as a another bench and storage underneat, you also gain a little head room in there. I like the weekender design, the liens are really "aggressive looking. Im not too keen on the rounded edges on most tears. When you epoxy could you please save all teh info that you et, like how you did it, brand, time, and all that jazz????? thanks

I need mine to be light so Im leaning towards exteriror luan on the outside, braced on the inside and no insulation

[beevel]

Our original reasoning for building this trailer was to have something lighter and narrower than the old holidaire 17 footer that we had. That trailer was heavy (3500 lbs) and much much wider and taller than my jimmy, it was like pulling sail ( I don't know how people pull those big 24ft trailers with astro vans, jimmys, and explorers). I found that the wind resistance was harder on the jimmy than the weight was.

When I saw the weekender plans ( the large version) we decided perfect, basically a tent on wheels. We were going to bunk the kids along the front of the trailer, but doing so and keeping the width to what we wanted would have meant that our oldest would be to tall to sleep in the trailer next year(not saying that he would want to anymore, but we wanted the option) hence the front to back bunk. As you can see in the pics it actually does work, the upper bunk will be hinged so we can get it most of the way out of the way, for playing a game or such on rainy days. using the lower bed and our bed as benches. Future plans again are to remove the kids bunks, create cabinetry and some small dinette seating, we will also convert our bed into a convertibe sofa or couch...

If you want light you won't want to build my way, i don't think it is overly heavy but definetly heavier than it could have been.

1/2 inch ply outside, 1" framing, insulation, 1/4 ply inside ( we were going to use patterned luan/panelling but the misses couldn't decide what she wanted so I gave her white painted ply). I'm going to take the trailer to a scale when done, but I'm guessing 1200 lbs.

[Miriam C.]

That is so cool!

I see some comfortable kids and a mom and dad that don't have to worry. When your son gets older you can always extend the bed over the bottom of yours.