Grumman 2ish build

[earl84]

Just introduced myself in the Newbie forum, and have enjoyed and learned so much from reading other build journals that I thought it might be a great idea to start a build journal. I hope I can keep it going, because they are invaluable for the pics and the advice that many so freely give.
My girlfriend, Mandy, and I are getting started on a large Grumman 2ish build. I say Grumman 2ish, because like many, we will make some changes to it. The current plan is to have it be 5 tall, and whatever the length turns out to be, by about 5 wide. Going to have both 12V and 120V, sink in the galley, and built in stove, wooden sides, and aluminum top. Probably a store bought tongue box as well to house the battery and propane as well as other items.

We started out with an old pop up camper that we got for free. We found it locally at a towing place that had pulled an abandoned camper out of a National Forest and had it sitting around. We did have to pay the driver for his help winching it out of its final resting place and towing it to my house, but got many usable items off of it. We chose to not recycle the 10 pounds of mouse poop, but did get a sink, stove, electrical panel, propane tank, water tank, and lots of miscellaneous hardware.
Some pics of the "Decommissioning" as Mandy called it.
Here's the frame all cut down, painted, and new wheels and tires installed, as well as a new tongue jack. Final dimensions on the frame deck are 4'-7" wide X 10'-10" long. Trying to decide if I should shorten it slightly or take advantage of the extra room. I want to have a full length queen bed (80"), since I am about 6'-2", plus the extra room in the galley might be nice. I will have a 13 gallon water tank in the galley area, but the propane tank and battery will be on the tongue. I think if I keep it this way, like the donor pop up was, my balance and tongue weight should end up being pretty good.
I am currently out of town, but the timing is good, because we got a lot of snow and I probably wouldn't be able to get much done. That's the tongue jack barely poking out of a 4' snow bank.
We had to order a new axle, because the one that was on the trailer had been overloaded severely and both spindles were bent out of alignment, the right one very badly. Could get it aligned for just over $200, but a brand new Dexter #9 torsion axle was $212.47 plus tax, so it was a no brainer. Also, it was manufactured in 1986 so I don't really know the condition of the rubber. Plus, I was able to get it just slightly wider hub face to hub face, so I can gain an extra couple inches in width. That should be there when I get back into town.

Anyway, more to follow.

[earl84]

Found a cool aluminum foot locker at a large antique mall to use as a tongue box for the propane tank and battery.

Floor framing and insulation. Using 1/8" ply on bottom, 1/4" on top, 1x4 framing, and 3/4" foil-faced insulation. All held together with PL premium.

Floor completed.

Laying out the profile with a garden hose, bent piece of molding, and started with measurements from Andrew Gibbons Grumman 2 as a start point. Ours is going to be 5' tall, and turned out to be about 10'-8" long.

[earl84]

I've done some reading on posting pics, and thought I've done everything correctly, but don't know how to post the pics so they are large enough to see without a magnifying glass. I used a pic resized website, copied into my gallery direct from my iPad photo library then inserted into my posts, but they all come out tiny. Any easy way to do this? Especially without having to do 5 steps?

[KCStudly]

There are at least two ways to post pics from your forum gallery.

If you use the album brackets with the Image BBCode you get this, a small clickable thumbnail:


If you use the Img button (or typed code) and Image-URL like this you get the full size (reduced to allowable limit) image:


If you hit "reply" to this post you will be able to see the difference in the codes (no need to actually post the reply).

Open the individual image from your gallery and you will see both versions listed underneath the image.

[KCStudly]

p.s. If you edit the images, or look at the confirmation screen when loading images, there are radio buttons that you can select to turn the image right side up. Despite how the image looks in your computer's viewer, when it is imported to the forum gallery it always seems to default back to the native orientation, so it pays to preview in the entry screen and correct it there.