"The Simple" 5 Wide

[mcwbyu82]

Hey everybody. Well after first joining this forum back in 2008 and having to put off starting a build do to school, apartment living, the birth of two boys and life in general I am finally underway. We just moved to Colorado this summer and with our oldest boy almost three we are excited to start doing a bunch of family camping. Of course my mind went right back to the tear again. I have spent the last few weeks refamilarizing myself and coming up with my plans.

I finally settled on a 5x8 layout built on a Harbor Freight trailer (mainly because I already have one).

I will try my best to keep up with this build journal but actually building will always take priority as I already anticipate a lenghtly build due to my work schedule and family responsibilities.

Want to say thanks in advance to all the great members here whose thousands of ideas I already have and plan on stealing. Too many to point out individually at this time but for the major design cues, youll know who you are based on pics hopefully.

Anyway, on to what really matters . . .Pics.



My first Home Depot run. Thats 2 sheets 3/4 sanded ply, 2 3/4" OSB, 12 premium grade 2x4's and the bag has a couple bottles of Titebond II and a nice new carbide blade for my circular saw. Oh and not pictured is a gallon of Asphalt emulsion goop.



That is my HF trailer. I bought and built this summer 2009 and used mainly for hauling my scooter and then motorcycle. Just a simple 3/4 plywood deck on there. i have since purchased an old beater truck as a second vehicle and found I rarley used/needed the trailer anymore, hence the reason I am ok giving up for the tear.



And finally last nights progress. Got the trailer stripped down and ready to build up the floor. Took much longer than I had hoped. I used way too much Locktite My plan is to build above the tires not wheel wells, hence the 2x4's.

Hopefully attack the floor tonight

[mcwbyu82]

EDIT: Pics fixed

Sorry about the pics. Forgot about the size limitations and dont have time right now at work to deal with it. Will fix later tonight. Not very exciting anyway.

[mcwbyu82]

I made sawdust! I work for athletic teams and we are in season so my nights and weekends have been pretty full. But I finally had a few free hours today so I made some cuts. I got the floor and frame made. For the floor I cut two 4x5 pieces of 3/4 osb. The frame is made from 2x4's ripped down to 2 3/4" which will give my floor the same vertical clearance that the stock trailer fenders had. Since I am using the HF trailer I decided that instead of putting in filler strips along the crossmembers I just notched the 2x4's instead. This made it neccessary to rip the frame pieces that run the length of the trailer to be ripped down to 2 1/2" but that was easy enough and it turned out great.

Thats as far as I got today. Next time will be screwing the floor to frame work and applying the "goo" to the underside.
Feels so good to be underway.

[Junkboy999]

mcwbyu82

About your “L” bunk idea you posted on someone else thread.
Having two kids sleeping in a small space is always a challenge.

If you have the room to make a 6 to 5.5’ foot wide tear. A “L” shaped bunk sounds like it might work.

My favorite 6’ wide with a slide out back kitchen has to be this one.

The
http://theblondecoyote.com/

Her bed is sideways in the TD and over the kitchen. Maybe a bunk can be set up in an L ione the side without
a door. Scroll down in her blog to see the TD and one Interior shot. More pictures are on the blog but you
need to search on the blog page to “ teardrop “

[mcwbyu82]

Junkboy
Thansk for the link. That is a nice Tear she has there. Are you sure it is 6' wide though? Couldnt find a list of specs but in one of the old blog posts saw it say 5 wide.
I am gonna stick with my 5' wide for this first build. Were treating it as a more comfortable/weatherproof tent than a tiny RV so being a bit crowded and sacrificing cabinets and full size galley is no big deal. My latest plan (which I am pretty set on) is gonna have the profile of The Simple with no interior cabinets and a slide out galley in the back that is about 20" deep and 18" high. This will allow for a main sleeping area the size of a full bed and a bunk at the back end. I am gonna put in a permanent bunk that goes from the back wall and is 30" wide. So only 10" hanging over the main sleeping area. As our youngest grows and can bunk up there with his brother I plan on making a 14-16" removable extension to the bunk . This would give the boys a 46" by 5' bunk to share and still only hang over our legs by just over 2'.
Hope that made sense.

[mcwbyu82]

Got my first real work done on the trailer since September! I now have a glued and screwed floor assembly. I was hoping to get the underside coated in tar as well this morning but drilling, counter sinking and then driving all those screws was time consuming. I also got the bottom of my floor frame marked in 12 locations for drilling holes to put bolts to tie it to the trailer frame. That's 4 bolts down each side and 2 on each end. Sound about right?
I also ripped down a 2x4 and made the cleats for my walls. I am going with 3/4" ply for the walls and using the simple cleat method as the vertical space is more crucial than the width for me . Allows for that much more headroom in the bunk.

[mcwbyu82]

Ok here is my latest sketch of my build plan as described above.Sorry about the dark background. It is white when I save it, not sure whats up. Hopefully you can still get the gist.

The blue obviously represents the floor/walls. Orange represent mattress. Red is doors, windows, vent, and galley "hatch". I drew the galley hatch both closed and open to give an idea of how it would work. In the galley area I would have a galley slide out on heavy duty full extension drawer slides. Something similar to this one but simpler. http://youtu.be/XJCqR8DKneQ

Window sizes/shape are flexible. Will depend mostly on what I scavenge/salvage over the next few months.

Would love feedback, ideas concerns etc.

[KCStudly]

Looks like you have thought it out pretty well.

You must be planning on storing all of your clothing and personal items in your TV(?). Maybe a small cabinet or hanging mesh storage bag at the top front, or on the side walls between the doors and bunk?

With 4 of you in there you are going to want some place to put your outer clothing, or maybe something extra to put on before getting out on a chilly morning. At least a coat hook or something.

You'll need at least a small corner shelf, key catcher or something. Just saying, I think you should at least consider adding some form of storage inside.

[mcwbyu82]

Yeah probably do most clothes storage in the TV. I do plan on doing a shelf of some sort up top across the front. With the angle front of my design I am just sort of waiting to see how high and deep I want it.

I also have been toying with the idea of a custom tongue box that has two levels. The top level would be accessible from the outside and hold battery etc. The bottom level would be open to the inside and act as a small clothes cabinet. Make sense?

[Junkboy999]

yup makes perfect sense. There are a few tongue boxes that are accessible from inside the tear. I know
I seen one where the T box was just an extension of the tear inside usable area.

[KCStudly]

I have sort of been planning a through wall front cabinet that steals some space from the back of the tongue box, but from the outside just looks like a larger tongue box attached to the front wall. The thing that has me concerned, and will likely push me to divorce the two is that there is some flex in my frame. My concern is that once the cabin is attached to the main part of the frame that portion will stiffen up significantly, but the tongue may still have some flex. At first I thought that I could just use rubber biscuit flex mounts to attach the floor of the tongue box to the tongue, but since I am building a foamie I am still concerned about any relative motion that might tend to try and break the cabinet joint through the wall.

My current plan is to keep assessing the situation as the build progresses and decide later which course to take: (a) abandon the idea of cutting a big hole in the front of my cabin and just run with a std. style separate tongue box; (b) divorce the cabinet and box and just make the lines match up with a small gap so the cabinet sticking through the front of the cabin doesn’t look too out of place (I want it to be flush on the inside but it needs to be thicker than the wall to stow what I have in mind for that location); or (c) stick with the original plan.

[mcwbyu82]

I have had similar concerns about the flex and ripping. Not sure. Maybe someone who has done it can chime in here.

[mcwbyu82]

Working on my cleats to hold up my walls. I am going with a simple square cleat made from a ripped down 2x4. Obviously I will screw down through the top of the cleat and into the floor. But how about for attaching the wall to the cleat?
My first instinct is to screw from outside of wall and through to the cleat. But if you look at the picture in the thread on wall attachment options it shows the opposite. If going from the inside out is strong enough it would eliminate a lot of holes to be filled on the outside.

thoughts???

[KCStudly]

I would trust the outside in method more. Just seems to me that there would be more holding power under the head of the screw and with the option of having more of the full diameter of the screw in a cleat that is thicker than the wall (as opposed to just the tapered tip of the screw in the thinner wall ply).

Are you setting the wall on the floor next to the cleat, or does the wall fit next to the floor?

[mcwbyu82]

I would trust the outside in method more. Just seems to me that there would be more holding power under the head of the screw and with the option of having more of the full diameter of the screw in a cleat that is thicker than the wall (as opposed to just the tapered tip of the screw in the thinner wall ply).

Are you setting the wall on the floor next to the cleat, or does the wall fit next to the floor?

I agree totally and that's why that was my first instinct.

my walls will sit on the floor next to the cleat. I am opting for every inch of height as opposed to width.