Low Budget No Plans Trailer Build

[ardan]

Hi All,

Well My wife and I after reading hundreds of great posts on this forum have decided to build ourselves a little camper. I like so many of the ideas that I have seen and but none of the pre designed plans seem to cover just what we want so we will be going a little off and planing as go, shooting from the hip as it were.....

Goals.....
Low Budget - Not much money so I am shooting for total build cost of $3000.......
No Plans - Design as we go fix the mistakes we make and continue on...
Bathroom - Wife says it MUST have a portable toliet
Weight - Must be under 1400 pounds

What not to be cheap on was the trailer, I had this trailer build by a professional all tube steel and build to last........

[ardan]

And So it Begins

Building the floor, after much thought decided on a drop down storage box (20 by 20, 8 deep).

[ardan]

Continuing on the floor, Covered the bottom of the floor with roofing tar stuff. The edges of the plywood I coated with a mineral spirit - polyurethane mixture then covered with ZIP Tape to create absolute waterseal....ZIp tape is pretty amazing stuff, I believe I will be using it a lot in this project. Also feel that I will be going old school to keep the cost down and use the mineral spirit - polyurethane mixture for all of my waterproofing of wood, the epoxy and other sealers cost to much.



Well that's it for today, will have another update in a few days......

[IndyTom]

Looks like a great start! Looking forward to more pics of your build.

Tom

[Oldragbaggers]

Welcome to the forum!!

You're off to a great start. I think your description, "low budget, plan as I go," probably describes most of the builds on this forum. A lot of people start with a plan (Kuffel Creek, Generic Benroy, whatever) but I doubt there are too many people that stick to the exact plan from beginning to end. Many more probably start with a profile shape in mind, maybe use a plan (or 2 or 3) as a reference of how to do certain things and then draw on a variety of resources to put together what is right for them. I have 3 plans and Steve Frederick's Shop Manual, and I refer to all 3 for different reasons. But I have gotten more ideas and information from this forum than from any other single place. There are some other great build threads out there on the internet too, like the Outback Teardrop, and buchfink.com.

Have fun with it, make it yours, start a build journal and take lots of pics. Not only do we love them, we also learn from them.

[Forrest747]

I have found that sticking to a plan in absolute leads to nothing but headaches. Have a general idea and a good starting point is a must. it should be doable for that amount of cash. Welcome to the asylum.

[ardan]

Next Update,...Thanks for the nice comments...this is my first try at this and I hope that I haven't bit off more than I can chew.....

We decided to not go with a standard teardrop design but more of a square off box with a curve in the front..This will allow for my wife portie potty....(a requirement she says).....

Found some linoleum on clearance at lowes so I grabbed it...11 bucks...not to bad...



Then Trimmed out the drop down storage......



Decided to go with 2x2 for the wall studs....hope it isn't to heavy...!!!!!



sealed and primed the walls, and got ready to glue on the carpet to the walls....Yeap, we decided carpet for the walls...



Well that is all for now....hope to have another update next weekend....

Thanks for all the support....you guys are great.......All of my friends think I am CRAZY!!!!! lol

Ardan

[ardan]

Walls are Up!




To Keep in Budget homemade bead board......Lots of Table saw cuts



A Little Framing




Roof Decking with 5mm plywood



That is it for now......

[Martiangod]

Makin some good headway, should be campin before ya know it.

Looks good

[working on it]

ardan- I saw your photos of sealing endgrain with Zip tape. I'm leaning towards using "flashing" tape to cover my most vulnerable ply endgrains, in addition to polyurethane and enamel paint.The Zip tape is new to me, so I looked over the Huber (mfg.) website to see if it was recommended for use on regular plywood, not just the zip panels. The answer was no.?? Have you used it before, and is it comparable or superior to "flashing" tape. Did you prepare the surface to accept the tape? And pricing? I wasn't able to get a price for a roll on the website. By the by- I like the beadboard; I was thinking about using some that I found in my garage cleanup, but not maroon (it's proprietary to Aggies only in these parts, ha ha).

[ardan]

Hi Working on it.....

Don't blame me for the maroon, that was my wife's idea....lol.......I have found the zip tape to be amazing stuff.....I used it to "waterproof" over the edges of the plywood on the floor and it stuck and stayed there, not one part has come loose during the construction (thus Far) ....The only prep was a lite sanding to give it something to hold on to......The Tape is suppose to have a 30 year life (when used on zip Panels) but I have found it to work very well on the edges of my plywood.....I found it a Lowes, Only one of the lowes in my town had it (the rest didn't carry it) and funny enough they don't even carry the zip panels????? It cost $27 for a 90 foot roll......I am not sure how it would compare to the flashing tape....But I have been very happy with it so far.....

[txcamper]

Awesome build, those homemade bead board cuts are impressive and a great idea!

[ardan]

Continue to Make Progress, Slow But Steady.....



Starting the Cabin Area



Gluing the Roof Down





Pink Foam Pieces used for the installation.....Why Pink Foam? It was free.....I found a place that had a bunch of foam pieces they were throwing away...Figure it saves me about 100 bucks....!!! not to bad...
Same Place had a piece of Rubber Roofing they had left over,,,,,,So I got it free also....

[droid_ca]

Don't know how I missed this but glad I found it now

[ardan]

A Few More Pics....





Till Next Week