VermonTear 4x8 "Moby" Build ~ Dec 11 -- ?

[KCStudly]

Looking good!

[VermonTear]

Looking good!

Thanks, KC.

[aggie79]

Very nice Ken!

I don't check in for a few days and you have your teardrop almost finished. No fair getting help on the sidewalls! (I wish I would have taken my wife's offers to help more frequently than I did.)

Take care,
Tom

[S. Heisley]

...Impressive!
I'm glad you included the pic of the wrong fenders...well worth a chuckle! (Although, you might not have thought so at the time.)

[VermonTear]

Thanks Tom and Sharon...

Yeah Tom, I couldn't have wrestled those walls on by myself. Great to have friends! I'm sure I'll need 'em again -- maybe as soon as trying to bend that 1/8" Cherry ply headliner into place.

And yes, Sharon. The fenders were worth a good laugh -- a few days later. I was sweating for an hour or so though when I thought I'd screwed up and ordered the wrong number part from Lil Bear!

My Apr 1 target for being on the road with Moby has moved to June 1 -- or maybe July 4???

Ken

[VermonTear]

Okay...

I've been making some progress
I put together Maple frames for the cabin cabinets:


Routed out the back side and put in 1/4 " Cherry, and clamped it up:


Then test-fit them, before building the rest:


I had to route out the electrical outlets and switches:




Then I poly'ed the doors by hand, poly sprayed the interior 3 coats, installed the hardware and


I was pretty pleased!




Now for the Headliner:

I cut the 4x8 in half and seamed it together so that the grain would run across the cabin instead of lengthwise:


Then 3 coats of Poly before test fitting it:


And glued the first 3" where the bend was sharpest:

[KCStudly]

That's looking marvelous!!! Nice tight ship you're building there. Love the cherry/maple combination.

[BillZ]

Looking great!

Did you just glue your cabinet frames or are did you use any other means of joining/attatching? I am in the process of making some right now and figured that glue alone would work but wonder if it's bad form. I'm not ready to tackle mortise and tenon joints and my oak tends to splinter when I drill pocket holes.

[KCStudly]

Biscuit joins, maybe?

[VermonTear]

Looking great!

Did you just glue your cabinet frames or are did you use any other means of joining/attatching?

KC's got the answer. Biscuit joints. Mini-biscuits -- smallest ones you can get. My frames were only 1 1/2" so the small ones worked just right.

Ken

[LDK]

A fine looking build and you're moving along very quickly too.

[bdosborn]

I just found your build. NICE!
Subscribed!

Bruce

[Martiangod]

Love the cherry/maple combination.

Have to agree, looking awesome,
The cab hardware your using gives a nice vint look

[VermonTear]

Larry, Bruce, and Chris...

Thanks for taking a look, and for your comments.

Bruce.. I'll be posting a revised wiring diagram for this little "Moby" here in my build in the next few days and would especially welcome your comments (you can't run from your reputation!).

best...

Ken

[VermonTear]

Wow! I've been really bad about keeping my build up to date. My "to do" list every day was so long I could never get to it. But, I've been making good progress, so let me bring you up to date.

After installing the headliner, I put in the struts and blocking to support the roof.

Here's the view from the galley:


Then it's time to start on the wiring:


LED lights from Sailer Sam:


Big battery and big inverter. Going to take up more galley space than I'd wanted them to:


Electric stuff going in one of the cabin cabinets. This is the smallest AC breaker box I could find:


Both AC & DC outlets in cabin:


Neat side marker lights, huh. Found 'em on ebay, if I remember correctly.


Figuring out the wiring, scratching my head a lot, making mistakes, correcting them, consulting people on tnttt -- Wiring was not my favorite part of all this:


I'll post my wiring diagram here later, after I make a few corrections that I made as I went along.

What a mess! I straightened all this out and neatened it up before the insulation went in:


Yikes! And look at this! Worse than a teen-agers bedroom. But, it worked! The lights went on, the outlets worked, no fuses blew, and Vermont's power grid didn't melt!


So I covered it all with two layers of 1" insulation -- quick!




Then with 1/4 of ply:


Next, I had to tackle building the hatch.

Here is the hatch framework, built in place, secured by scraps of ply so that it can be moved to a workbench to be skinned:


First skin the interior with Maple ply:


Then insulate, wire for taillights and galley lights, and skin the exterior with ply:


I'll move on to the next phase in another post.... coming right up!