Arrow Kamper, a small canned ham

[TheOtherSean]

This topic is a chronicle of my ongoing efforts to build a small camper trailer in the canned ham style. I've named it the Arrow Kamper. It is built on a 5 x 8 Northern Tool bolt together trailer. The initial build took place from July 25 through September 5, 2021, a duration of 43 days. However, 8 days of that time were spent out-of-town, so it was in essence a 33 day build to initial campability. On the other hand, I assembled the trailer in 2016 for a build that I aborted at the floor building stage, and I had fabricated wooden wheel tubs for that build that I reused for this build, as well. Despite having camped in it during a September trip and again this past weekend, it remains very much a work in progress.

The plans for the build were 2D drawings done in Microsoft Visio. At some point I'll export them as images and attach them to a future post. For now, I'll start with photos from the first few days of construction.

Frame for front of bed, laid out in the basement before assembly:

Frame for front of bed, laid out in the basement before assembly

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Front floor section, upside down for priming:

Front floor section, upside down for priming

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Front floor section, upside down for spraying liner:

Front floor section, upside down for spraying liner

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[TheOtherSean]

By the end of the first week of the build the floor was primed, sprayed with two coats of bed liner on the bottom, and attached to the trailer frame with 5" stainless steel bolts. I also attached the oversized wheel wells to the floor. Those wheel wells were remnants of my second, aborted camper build, the Red Arrow.

[TheOtherSean]

I was out-of-town for the first week of August 2021, so no progress was made. When I got back, the second week passed in a blur as I fabricated frames and attached a tongue jack. I installed the middle support frame for the bed first. Next came the tongue jack.



The tongue jack didn't quite fit as the tongue girder was too short, so I superglued a couple small segments of box steel to the tongue. After spray painting them gloss black, I was able to attach the jack snuggly.



Next came the rearmost of the frames that support the bed.

[TheOtherSean]

By August 15, 2021 I had installed the frames for the bed supports and drawers. Also installed were two tall rectangular frames, one for the door and another across the trailer. Those two frames were attached to the front frame of the bed, and a pair of 2x2 spars ran between them at the top. The spars were connected together by short sections of 2x2 in order to frame out the rough opening for a roof vent.



The next seven days of work went unphotographed. I cut out the streetside and curbside walls from 1/4" plywood, and cut down some 1x for the edges. I used 1x2's for the straight edges and cut down some 1x4 and 1x6 for the curves. The front curve was 27" radius and the rear curve was 42". Except for the 1/4" plywood, the vast majority of the wood was unused or reclaimed wood from my failed first build (2009) and aborted second build (2016). Wood prices were still astronomically high when I finished design and was ready to start construction. As it stands it has a 6'6" wide by 9'6" floor. If they hadn't been so high, I probably would have gone for a design about 18" longer. Lumber prices dropped by about a third between the time I started the design and the time I completed the floor. They dropped further after I bought the wall plywood.

[TheOtherSean]

August 22nd through 25th saw a lot of activity. I got the edge 1x glued onto the 1/4" plywood curbside and streetside wall panels, and cut out holes for the windows and door.

[TheOtherSean]

So it was August 25th at this point. I was doing this camper build after work in the evenings, or on weekends. I was trying to meet a September 3rd departure date. Weather had interfered a few times. I was doing the work by myself, but there were a few times I could have briefly used my wife's help, but when I needed it she was usually doing something for her job, so I had to muddle through without it, taking a bit longer. Unexpected evening meetings for my job popped up a few times. Some social stuff dragged my wife and I away from home for a day. Tools broke and things ran out in the evening, too late to get to a store, given their current reduced hours. Trips to and from the hardware stores started eating into build time.

I started staying up late to catch up and get back on track in terms of schedule. I started running a bit short on sleep. This is where things started to go a little bit off track in terms of exercising good judgement and following the plan well. August 25th is where the first real mistake occurs. The weather forecast called for rain, but rather than cover it with a tarp, I decided to rush a quick coat of primer onto the outer skin.



Why did I do this? I knew this would interfere with resin adhesion when it came time to fiberglass. I was too tired to remember at the time, or to think of just throwing a tarp over it, right then. A few days later, after the rain had passed, I remembered the tarp idea. So you see a tarp in the photo where I'm attaching the front panel, a sheet of 1/8" plywood.



And thanks to everything going on, it was another two days before the rear curbside and streetside panels were fully cut, prepared, and installed. And in my tired state, I made mistakes, and measured from a wrong baseline. I therefore made an entire series of cuts on those panels 1-1/2" off from where they should have been. I didn't notice until after I installed them.

[TheOtherSean]

One of the other mistakes I made then was with the front spars. My plans called for 1x2 spars at a 24" interval, except for the ones at the door, which would also support the roof fan. That probably would have been fine, but at the front I compromised one and outright forgot two more. The front window frame interfered with one of them. I needed to retain partial spars there because that was at one of the panel seams, but I should have put a complete spar above the window for strength. I meant to. I was a tired mess, in a hurry, and I flat out forgot. Like I forgot the one that I should have installed 24" beyond. And the one at the bottom.



The rest of the panels and spars pretty much went in as planned. I remembered all the spars I'd planned to install back there. Alas, it is the front that is most subject to aerodynamic stress when towing at speed. More on that later.

[TheOtherSean]

So by this point it was evening on the night of August 29th, and our planned departure day (D-day) was the afternoon of September 3rd. So at D-4 the wooden shell was almost complete, less door and storage hatch.

The schedule was tightening, despite and because of cutting myself short on sleep to fit in more build time. How did it cost me time? Simple. I was so tired I was constantly forgetting where I had placed tools and supplies, what I was going to do next, etc. as well as making mistakes and errors in judgement, such as starting work on some non-essentials. Want an example? I started cutting plywood for drawers. I realized the futility of wasting time on it, but not until I'd made run to the store for a couple small sheets of plywood and spent two hours cutting it down. Sigh.

And because I'd primed so much of the exterior skin too early to protect from rain rather than simply throwing a tarp over it, I spent too much time sanding primer off the seams (poorly) before I was able to fiberglass. I ended up using polyester resin simply because I'd failed to order epoxy and didn't realize it until way late in the build process. Nevertheless, I had many of the major seams fiberglassed by September 1st.



Alas, the very first seam I fiberglassed was on a panel that wasn't on very well. It wasn't quite square, it wasn't quite flush at the seam, and I was too tired to really notice how bad it was. I also screwed up and tried to apply the resin like it was body filler, using a putty knife. I realized quickly I was being stupid, but not before the seam ended up horrible. Subsequent seams, where I brushed the resin on, were better, but I had to go back and redo the panel and seam.

[TheOtherSean]

By this point I needed a break before attacking that bottom rear panel, so I installed the side windows and a Fantastic Vent roof vent and fan. Amazingly, that all went fairly smoothly, and within about three hours that part of the build was all wrapped up. Late in the evening, I painted the camper some more. Then I cut up the wood for the door and hatch, construction of which consumed so much of the next day. And that was it for September 1st.

[TheOtherSean]

September 2nd, D-1, was mostly consumed by the door, hatch, and electric. I took off most of Wednesday the 1st and Thursday the 2nd in order to have time to try to complete the build in a timely fashion.

The door build took about eight hours that day, and more time fitting and adding flanges the next. I now know why people shell out hundreds of dollars for prebuilt camper doors. It was built to fit a vintage camper window I'd acquired. When I first went to dry fit it, I did so upside down and inside out. Oh, and there was a broken pane of glass that needed to get replaced.



It was nearly eight in evening when I had the initial door and hatch construction done, and started on the electrical.



As you might guess, with a planned departure the next day, getting it campable by then would take a miracle.

[TheOtherSean]

Alas, no miracle occurred. September 3rd was D-day, our planned day of departure. We did not depart as planned. I have no pictures from the 3rd, because I was madly fixing up the bottom rear of the camper, finishing up enough of one dinette bench to cover the electrical system, etc. I was so tired that not only did I waste hours on drawers that weren't essential to campability, I also placed the electrical systems under the dinette farther from the AC inlet and from where most of the DC runs terminated. Sleep is important. Get enough you don't make stupid mistakes.

Neverthless, by the end of the day I had the bottom rear panel back on, and the trailer lighting installed. I used the stop/turn/tail lights that came with Northern Tool trailer kit but used amber LED lights I purchased for the front side markers. As my camper was under 80 inches wide, if barely, I didn't need the other lights. Yippee. I went to sleep that Friday night disappointed we weren't departing as planned, but feeling in pretty good shape about wrapping things up the next day and heading out by evening on Saturday the 4th.

I awoke early Saturday morning hoping to wrap up. Instead, I found a flood out front of the house, and no water pressure inside. Part of the water supply had exploded like a geyser at the house across the street, just a few minutes before I woke up. The waterworks were putting up cones and caution tape just as I stepped outside to see what was going on.



This did not speed up the camper build. I needed to make runs to the hardware store, and had extended delays getting past the work crews. I also had no water for cleaning, and I had both paint and some fiberglass work to do. At least my camper was looking closer to done as the day dawned.



I replaced the broken pane of glass on the door's vintage window, and added an exterior flange for better seal.



Everything took longer than I wanted, and not having water until late in the afternoon did not help. My wife ran my laundry to the laundromat in the afternoon, because I'd forgotten to do it the day before, and we couldn't wash them without water. And of course the work crews were in the way and held her up a bit, too. That night, I almost completed the electrical system well enough for the trip, but not quite. At least the light and the fan ran. And so it was that departure was delayed yet another day.

[TheOtherSean]

One other thing I accomplished on September 4 was finishing off fiberglassing the seams.



On September 5, D+2, two days after planned departure, I finally wrapped things up and got the camper campable. Paint went on to the seams I'd fibgerglassed on the 4th.



I installed the battery, a hundred amp hour LiFePo4 unit, and got the DC electrical system tucked into and secured to the dinette bench.



I installed the door and hatch.



Next I installed the bed slats, which have cross-pieces so they're actually attached as four sections, rather than each slat being individually attached.



After I finished with the bed slats, I installed the rear stabilizer jacks, salvaged from my failed first build of 2009.



Then I turned the trailer around and rolled it over to where I was going to hitch up.



There was one last thing to do before hitching up, though. The mattress needed to go in. I had ordered it online, and it came tightly rolled up. My wife helped me carry it into the camper. I got it up onto the bed slats and opened it up. And that was when I discovered that in messing with all the available options when ordering online, I had inadvertently switched the size from RV queen to regular queen. It sort of fit, but was not ideal.



So at that point I thought we'd finally be leaving, even if it was late at night. I just needed to attach the license plate, hitch up, throw our stuff in the camper, and head out.

[TheOtherSean]

The first clue that it wasn't going to be that easy came soon enough. My old car was sitting between the camper and the tow vehicle, and when I went to move it out of the way it wouldn't start up right. The battery was at full charge but the car hadn't moved for a year, and when I tried to start it, the engine made struggling sounds, the oil warning light popped on, and the engine sputtered. I shut it off, and checked to see if I had the right kind of oil on hand. I didn't, of course. I thought I'd make a quick run to the gas station for a quart of oil. Alas, the first gas station I stopped at was closed due to staffing shortages. The second gas station was a charm, though, and after topping off the oil it started up OK. I drove it out of the way and parked it on the street.

Finally, I was able to back the tow vehicle up to the camper. Now to put the license plate on and hitch up. Of course I then found myself spending an hour searching for the license plate. I made a mess of my office in the process, but I eventually found it. Then I had to search the basement for nuts and bolts that would work for mounting it to the license plate holder. After I installed the license plate, I stared at the camper with a sense of satisfaction.

I went to hitch up, and that's when I discovered the hitch pin was nowhere to be found, and thanks to reduced hours due to current circumstances, not a single place that sold them was open until 6 AM the next morning. So I spent an hour cleaning up the backyard, making sure everything was ready for hitching up, etc. then took a quick shower and slept for a couple hours. One thing I noted was that the trailer electric cable was too short. I brought back from my 6 AM trip to WalMart a variety of hitching and electrical stuff, and by 7 AM my camper was hitched up and I was testing the trailer lights. We were (sort of) ready to go.

[TheOtherSean]

So by seven on the morning of September 6th, D+3, two and half days after we were planning to depart, we were almost ready to depart. I hadn't had much sleep, but even in my sleep deprived state I realized the trailer tires needed more air. After airing them up, I stowed my stuff in the camper and the van we were towing with, and I woke my wife and let her know she just needed to load her stuff up and we'd be ready to go. By that point it was about 8:30 AM on Labor Day. We finally left sometime after ten. We forgot a lot. She'd been sleeping more than I had, but neither of us had been getting much sleep.

So I accidentally took the slow route to the highway. After an hour of driving, I was seeing weird things from the front of the camper in my rear view mirror, but we were driving through a construction zone with lane closures, so I decided to once we were through the construction zone. Just as we exited the construction zone, I started hearing something weird from the trailer. I didn't worry too much, since I was already starting to exit, I just slowed down a bit faster than I'd planned and continued the left exit I was making. I was down to about 30 MPH and onto the exit ramp when the streetside wheel wobbled off and the hub started dragging. A mobile mechanic was eventually able to get things repaired, and snugged up all the bolts for me, but it took a while because this was Labor Day and trying to find parts was a bear.

What had happened? From the discussion I had with the mechanic, we're guessing the lug nuts on the wheel were loose. I'd been too tired to remember to check all the bolts and make sure they were snug, and none received the Loctite blue I'd planned to use on some - it is still sitting down in my basement. Sigh. Sleep. Get enough of it. It is important. Thankfully, other than needing the wheel and hub replaced, there wasn't much damage beside a break or tear in the plywood near the wheel well, running up about eight inches.



Anyhow, several hours later and with my wallet several hundred dollars lighter, we were back on the road.

[TheOtherSean]

We didn't go too far down the road. We stopped at Lowe's to make a few temporary fixes. I put some duct tape over the damage to the wall panel. Also, when evaluating the damage from the wheel incident, I realized that the weirdness I was seeing in my mirrors was the upper front skin flexing in and out, and it had finally snapped, with a tear running down part of it.



Looking at it from the inside is when I realized I'd left a spar out from the top front. I added one. I also put some duct tape over the tears, to reduce the chance of water getting inside in event of rain, or of damaging the wood. Then after we stopped for the night and I was staring at my handiwork, I realized I was also missing a spar immediately above the window. So I added one there.



The extra spars were't the best, and didn't necessarily go in as neatly and cleanly as I'd liked, but I was no longer seeing flexing taking place as we headed down the highway. I figured they'd do well enough until I got home.