4-Day Weekender - Toddler bed!

[Kharn]

So I cut the 2x4s for the bed support frame to length, but ran into problems when the only table saw blades I had were 72 teeth or greater. Suffice to say, those did not work very well for ripping the 60.5" boards, but I did all of the shorter ones. I hit Home Depot for a 24 tooth ripping blade, but by the time I was back, it was too dark to work in the driveway so I had to call it a night. My brother's coming over tomorrow to help with ripping the boards down, I'm not sure what else I can "Oh just one more thing!" into getting his help with.

20140322 cut wood small.jpg (121.94 KiB) Viewed 2220 times

And I swear I'm going to fix the big missed spot on the trailer rail the next time I have the tire off.

[Kharn]

So my brother helped me rip down several of the sheets of plywood, plus showed me what I was doing wrong on the table saw. A "just a quick 20 minutes" turned into two hours of help. But I paid for that because he didn't bring his plywood clamp or other specialty stuff that would have made things easier. After he left, I started putting together the sub floor.

The ratchet strap is bringing two of the 2x4s closer together because the Kreg screws for that joint blew out so they didn't have a very good hold while the glue dries, with the excess strap secured so I could roll the trailer into the garage.

Unfortunately we're going to get snow on Tuesday, so the weather's turned back towards chilly temperatures and I had to quit working for the day.

20140323 Subfloor small.jpg (135.67 KiB) Viewed 2191 times

[absolutsnwbrdr]

Woohoo!! Sawdust!!

[Kharn]

I ordered my doors, hurricane hinge, fantastic fan, seals, and a bit of T-molding to make the air conditioner's door today.
I also picked up more carriage bolts for the battery cages, I'd originally intended to lag-bolt them into place but after seeing Zach's bolt arrangement, I realized that would be a far superior way to secure them to the trailer.

I also cut out the wheel wells from the main floor with a jig saw and some creative drilling (3 small holes in a line, so I wouldn't have to make a sweeping turn with the jig saw), but didn't want to deal with repositioning everything so I could use the table saw to cut the risers for them.

[Kharn]

I might as well tell Rockler to send me one of everything at the rate I'm currently buying tools.
I figured some pipe clamps would make this easier, so the mailman (gotta love Amazon Prime) brought these today:

20140326 pipe clamps small.jpg (128.84 KiB) Viewed 2071 times

Now I'm dependent on USPS/FedEx/UPS for several items before I can really go any further with the floor, I need the taper drill/countersink and the torque washers the most. The weatherman says we have an 80% chance of rain on Friday and Saturday. Plus I need to make a rack to hold the pipe clamps.

[Kharn]

All of my stuff from Frank Bear will show up on Monday.

Still waiting for the mailman to drop off my countersink, hopefully tomorrow because I can't screw/glue the plywood to the subfloor until that arrives, and until that happens, I can't paint it.
But, I did finish my pipe clamp rack, I miscalculated on the length of the rack, so it holds 9 clamps instead of the intended 8.

20140328 pipe clamp rack small.jpg (62.42 KiB) Viewed 2122 times

I also picked up a roller stand, so I should be able to rip 2x4s alone now.

End of day progress:

20140328 night small.jpg (130.51 KiB) Viewed 2100 times

The small bits on the subfloor are the pieces for the wheel wells.
The three clamps are just a dry fit, I need to get some decent screws to connect the doubled 2x4s together.

My torque washers showed up, so tomorrow I can fit the battery cages.

[Kharn]

Well now I have wheel wells.
The rear section of the floor:

20140329 wheel wells small.jpg (118.65 KiB) Viewed 2084 times

There's a ton of glue on the joints because I had to shim one side of each well to account for the kerf, plus I'm not the best jigsaw cutter around so the cuts wandered about 1/16" in either direction and I want to make sure there's a good seal. But, in the end, it will all be under the bed and no one will be the wiser.

And my countersink showed up in the mail, I tested it on some scrap MDO and cut-off cross beams and it works great. Tomorrow the rear section gets attached to the subfloor, then I get to figure out where to cut the forward section for the storage box and battery access. Then comes figuring out the storage box. I may just reinforce the heck out of it, putting a full-height block in each vertical corner and multiple small blocks in each horizontal corner, I had originally intended to just Kreg the entire thing.

[jbyrd]

Looking good!

[Kharn]

I had a pretty successful day, the rear floor panel is now piloted/countersunk and temporarily screwed in place so I could work with the forward panel and do some planning there. I added some blocking for the forward panel to rest on where it meets the rear panel, there will be some more blocking along the exterior once the front panel is screwed down to make sure everything is square.

20140330 end of day small.jpg (167.44 KiB) Viewed 2029 times

I also drilled the subfloor for the battery cages. Complete pain in the rear because for the first 10 holes I used the 3/8" bit first, then tried to Forstner them so the bolt and the torque washers would be below the floor level. That was a complete mess, so for the other 10 holes I wised up and used the Forstner first. I have to add strips of plywood around the exterior of the battery framing, so the floor can rest on them and won't cover the carriage bolts in case I ever need to remove them. I'll use a number of screws and gasket to seal the battery door down, I expect to use it once or twice a year at the most so being difficult to open is better than a water seepage point under the mattress.

20140330 battery cages in progress small.jpg (124.92 KiB) Viewed 2029 times

The next problem is how to cut the two panels (storage and battery) from the front panel, I'm not happy how the jig saw did for the wheel wells. I guess I could plunge the circular saw, the kerf would be much larger, but the cut would be a lot straighter.

[Kharn]

All of my specialty teardrop parts showed up today.

I tried cutting the battery door out using the jigsaw with a piece of wood clamped to the table as a guide but the blade still wandered all over the place. I think I'm going to bite the bullet and plunge the circular saw, because the jigsaw cuts are just not meeting my expectations.

[Kharn]

So I finally jumped in and used the circular saw to cut out the battery and storage hatches. I wish I'd used it from the start, but I also should have had a better plan than removing the fence and free-handing it when I went back to the rear corner on this cut.

20140401 Oops small.jpg (86.24 KiB) Viewed 1963 times

Now I need to add more blocking around the battery compartment, I cut wide to make sure I could get the torque washers in/out of their recesses, and countersinking everything for the front panel. After that, it is on to the storage box.

20140401 Floor small.jpg (115.77 KiB) Viewed 1963 times

I forgot to post it yesterday, but my wife wasn't pleased with the surprise she found on the porch when she got home.

20140401 boxes of goodies small.jpg (114.83 KiB) Viewed 1963 times

[absolutsnwbrdr]

Nice progress!! Ooooh that last picture... I see hinges, and doors, and possibly a fan??

Already jealous of your parts stockpile.

[working on it]

I see you got your parts from Italy.

20140401%20boxes%20of%20goodies%20small.jpg (34.53 KiB) Viewed 1944 times

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4xanQhHw6g

[jbyrd]

I see you got your parts from Italy.

20140401%20boxes%20of%20goodies%20small.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4xanQhHw6g

[Kharn]

So today I drilled/countersunk the forward floor panel, plus added a few more screw holes to the rear panel just to be sure.
I also added some blocking around the battery boxes so the floor panel will have something to rest on and not have that ugly gap from the previous photo.

20140402 battery blocking small.jpg (125.26 KiB) Viewed 1896 times

I think I'll need to add two more runners over the frame members in the battery bay so I have something to bolt through, with the Kreg slots in the front bay I'm a little worried about getting a suitable bolt in there.