The Poet Creek Express - Foamie Hybrid

[KCStudly]

No shop time tonight, but i did just finish up redrawing the wiring diagram (very crude, stick figure shop sketch) that more closely resembles the arrangement, now that I have an idea how the wires need to be routed.

I also looked up all of the current draws for my fixtures, etc., and can look up the ampacities to determine wire size required. Even tho the LED lights for the trailer side (DOT) hardly draw anything, I suppose I need to use 14 ga there to meet the reg's.

Tomorrow, Karl and I are going to a tractor swap meet in the morning. I am mostly going for entertainment, but will keep my eyes open for Coleman stuff; flag style female blade connectors for the hatch rocker switch, and anything else that I decide that I can't live without.

Then it will be back to the shop and I will continue sizing and laying in wire channels.

[Wolffarmer]

KC, have fun at the tractor swap meet. I might get my 1940 International M running this summer. Of course I been saying that for a few years now. Valves probably stuck on it again.

We don't need no stinkin regs. I just used wire that looked right and put a fuse in it. I replaced my regulare trailer lights with LEDs. The wire in the kit was heavier than the wire in the TV. And they are Harbor freight lights.

Randy

[KCStudly]

I know the reg's can be silly sometimes (the marker lights only draw 40 mA a pop. 20 ga would be plenty. I just don't know how foolish the state inspection is going to be for the "Home Built" trailer. I don't want the hassle of having to redo anything, nor having to haul across state to go get inspected again if I fail on something.

Short turn around right now, so pics later, but I did get some goodies at the swap. They had a few Coleman items here and there, but I guess I am not fully addicted as none of it followed me home. There was a 3 burner stove that was decent (good size dent in the bottom), looked like a runner. There was one of the smaller 2 burners that was super rough/rusty, guy almost begged me to take it for just a couple of dollars. A newer 413G (IIRC?) that was in good shape $12, but I have one similar (413E). Two 220 lanterns that were horribly rusty. A newer 220 and dual fuel stove that were in good shape. Couple of propane stoves, and a propane catalytic heater. I didn't buy any of it.

There was even a seller with a home made standy made from 1965 Popular Mechanics plans, so they said.

Lots of hit and miss engines being displayed, restored tractors, lawn tractor parts and pieces, a bunch of doodle bug tractors (home made contraptions with character).

Gotta run, but will post again later (or tomorrow) with pic's of the bounty I did get (spent $12 total on three items!).

[Wolffarmer]

I would like to get a hit and miss motor some day. Of course my M tractor sounds a bit like a hit and miss when I get a stuck valve. My dad has a JD hit and miss motor. Maybe I will inherit it.

Randy

[Bogo]

Wire nuts on a boat are against USCG reg's, IIRC.

Due to the vibration from the road it would also be crazy to use them on a vehicle. Crimps are the way to go where there are vibrations.

[KCStudly]

That's what I was thinking, Bogo.

Randy,
Inheriting stuff is something we all have to deal with at some time. It is best to keep a positive note and rely on your friends when you need to. Even though we have never met in person, I consider you to be a friend, and can only consider that you feel the same, at least I hope that you do.

Same goes for all of the great people that I have had the pleasure to have interacted with that contribute to this forum.

And now to the bounty. I was on the lookout for a 15/16 inch combination wrench that I could cut in half (making 2 shorty wrenches) and keep in the trailer to spin the self-locking nut for the swivel coupling pin. There were lots of tools at the swap meet and I eventually found a decent Armstrong “Armorloy” made in USA wrench for $4. There were a lot of hand planes for sale. The Miller’s Falls No. 8 sort of jumped out at me as a good intermediate size, of good quality, in not too bad of shape, for only $8 (talked down from $15). There were a couple of vendors that had boxes of computer case fans. The first one I came across wanted $4 each (I passed). Tucked back in the woods, towards the end of our trek I found another box of large 12v fans and the guy only wanted $0.50 each. I tendered a dollar and he said he had no change, so I should just go ahead and take it for free! I suppose I should have given him the dollar, but he was trying to explain the issue to his incredulous young tot, so I felt obliged to comply so that the kid could learn a lesson in generosity.


The coils of mostly 18 ga automotive grade wire I just sort of picked up along the way. The purple wire with white trace is unmarked, probably 20 ga, so I will only use that for single runs to single LED lamps.

The plane was a little rusty on the exposed nonworking surfaces, and had splattered dots of yellow paint all over it.


Here it is after I could not resist spending a good part of the afternoon shaving the rust off with the razor knife, scrapping yellow paint dots, sanding and scrubbing the rust off with a synthetic abrasive pad, and sharpening the blade to remove a minor/medium knick out of the left side of the blade.



I spent a little more time on it Sunday getting rid of some more of the yellow paint dots, oiling it, etc., but the blade still needs some tuning (kind of cutting a rough chip). I am having trouble getting the chip breaker/support plate (I have no idea what the proper designations are) to fit right, and the clamp (clap?) iron had a slightly uneven leading edge with a slight rough texture, but I was able to tune this all up pretty well. The only difficulty I had was getting the chip breaker piece adjusted so that the blade could be adjusted to a fine cut without the chip breaker piece being too close to the edge of the blade so as not to block the cut. It seems like there is no adjustment margin. If I put the chip breaker up on the bevel of the blade, I cannot adjust the depth of cut small enough. If I put the chip breaker down on the bevel of the blade, when I clamp it down with the clamp dog it takes away the little bit of clearance and leaves not enough of the blade exposed under the chip breaker. There is a ton of adjustment left in the threaded nut to where I could feed way more than 1/8 inch of blade below the shoe, so I suspect that I just do not know what I am doing enough to figure out what is wrong (except the rough cut can probably be improved by honing the blade down past the 320 grit dry paper that I used). It was sharp enough to scrap a few hairs off of the back of my hand, but I would not call it a clean shave.

I took a look at a battery box that I had picked up years ago with the plan of moving the battery in the chopped truck out of the engine compartment and back under the bed (for better weight transfer… old hot rod trick).


The battery box is pretty big, much larger than the battery that I have, and would take up a lot of extra room in the tongue box. It is also not sealed, so I will probably not use it. Included in the relocation kit was also a battery tie down bracket with J-hooks and hardware that I probably will use. I took the base of the tongue box and the battery box out to the trailer and considered for a minute putting the battery box in front of the tongue box, but it was pretty tight between the jack and tongue box (no pic).

Next I got the street side wall back out and duplicated the wire chase for the rear side marker light.


Then I cut another piece of the Wiremold track to length, laid out, and drilled the wire and mounting screw holes (shown here turned over to display the holes lining up).


The pen lines represent the bulkhead skins and frame.

To allow the rear marker lights to sit above and a little forward of the hatch draw latches (away from the draw latch lock and so the wire chase does not land where the floor to wall, or galley drawer slide screws might go) I repurposed the router jig for the hatch actuator lower mount blocks.


I trimmed down the drop piece that I had cut out to make this jig, and just dropped it back in the hole to fill it back in some, so that the resulting recess for the marker light blocks would only be about 1x2 nominal x 3-1/2 long.


Here it is routed out with the block fit and ready to be glued in.


Gluing blocks in is getting very, very old.


During all this, I had shuffled the walls and didn’t stuff the street side wall back in behind the rest of the parts. I just left it leaning against the plastic drape wall. I kind of knew better, but every time I handle any part I risk damaging something just by banging them into something.

Here is the scene of the mini disaster; almost a catastrophe.


Note the plastic drape wall on the left and the shop vac sort of tucked under the work table/floor on the right. Imagine the camper wall leaning against that plastic sheeting. Now imagine a big gust of wind blowing up thru the eaves of the roof over that crawl space and the plastic sheeting billowing out into the room. The wall tipped in and if it had only landed flat on the floor it would have been no big deal. I have flopped the walls onto the table plenty of times and what usually happens is that they are so light that the cushion of air that they displace slows the fall down enough that they just sort of decelerate as they land, and they fall nice and flat with no harm done.

Unfortunately, in this case, the galley wall edging landed on the caster of the shop vac which held it up off of the floor. The forward part of the wall continued to the floor and snapped a crack on the foam about 4 to 6 inches down the wall just ahead of the front of the wall edging. Poop. Double poop. Cuss words. Frustration. Crooked wall.



It’s not the end of the world. In fact, I could probably just continue on skinning it as planned and not have any trouble at all, but I will probably try to flex the crack open a bit (like I did for the pic of the crack), trowel some GG down in there, lay it flat with some weights and see if I can get it to stick back together. Poop.

I spent a little time cutting some blanks for the light switch mounting blocks out of the little bit of Red Grandis I had left over, mostly just to check and see if I would be able to get what I needed out of what was left, or if I would have to source some more. I might be able to squeeze it out of that cracked piece the guy thru in way back when; but that is getting distracted by the finishing details. I can go camping with a flashlight and add the wiring later. For now I just need to plan the details and get the wire chases in, making sure that they are adequate to get all of the wires thru later.

Today (Monday) I stayed after work and figured out the information I needed from the computer model so that I can lay the wire channels into the bulkhead for the hatch actuators, red light, and computer case fan ventilator. I also looked for an appropriate sized drill bit for the light switches. Made a few minor detail changes to the wiring diagram and added the routing for the optional computer case fan ventilator.

Mostly progress, with only a minor setback.

[Wolffarmer]

That Miller Falls looks like it could make a fine plane. Miller Falls has a good reputation. About the same size as a Stanley #3 or 4. Usually called a smoother. Now you need to flatten the sole. Then flatten the back of the blade and then get it up to "Scary Sharp" Ok. I hang out with lumber jocks a bit to much.

Nice progress on the trailer.

Randy

[KCStudly]

Randy, PM sent.

[KCStudly]

More progress on wire chases.

Monday I stayed after work and confirmed a few things in the model that would help me decide where to route the wire chases in the rear face of the bulkhead. I haven’t actually modeled the wire chases, but I needed to confirm the lower mounting bracket hole locations for the hatch actuators, decide where the small vent fan will be mounted, and confirm how I want the wire to route to the red night light.

Tonight, Wednesday, I started by fairing up the curb side rear marker light block.


Next I laid out where the bullet connectors will stick out of the back of the side marker light fixtures. The ground path can either be through contact between the bar at the mounting screw hole and the mounting screw, or through the offset center hole in the chrome bezel (where the bar is riveted into the bezel, where the bullet connector type socket in the underside of the light is. The positive wire connects to the bullet socket in the underside of the light in the open area of the bezel, and the light snaps into the bezel. The straight bullet connectors and wire require a recess behind the bezel as they stick straight out of the back of the bezel.

If you look close you can see the ink outline under the bezel.

Here’s a better look at the layout.


And here I have freehand plunge routed out the space, and drilled the thru hole to the inside.


And here is the opposite side of the thru hole (inside curb side) where I just notched a bit more of the foam with the razor knife.


I made the same sort of recess in the wall sill at the front of the street side wall for that marker light and drilled thru to where the Wiremold chase will be. Here is the inside of the street side hole with the Wiremold hole drilled out to match.


On to the bulkhead. This is the back face of the bulkhead with the bottom to the lower left. The wires leave the Wiremold at the base of the wall in the cabin; travel thru the routed channel in the wall around the bottom screw location that holds the bulkhead to the side wall; then make a U-turn and enter this chase in the back of the bulkhead up to the bottoms of the hatch actuators.


The clamped on guides were used to guide the router, but I just free handed the curved section. Karl helped by manning the shop vac for dust collection during the cut.

Next up I started laying out the route for the bulkhead fan, but I will show that with the next installment.

[Bogo]

Here is the scene of the mini disaster; almost a catastrophe.


Note the plastic drape wall on the left and the shop vac sort of tucked under the work table/floor on the right. Imagine the camper wall leaning against that plastic sheeting. Now imagine a big gust of wind blowing up thru the eaves of the roof over that crawl space and the plastic sheeting billowing out into the room. The wall tipped in and if it had only landed flat on the floor it would have been no big deal. I have flopped the walls onto the table plenty of times and what usually happens is that they are so light that the cushion of air that they displace slows the fall down enough that they just sort of decelerate as they land, and they fall nice and flat with no harm done.

Unfortunately, in this case, the galley wall edging landed on the caster of the shop vac which held it up off of the floor. The forward part of the wall continued to the floor and snapped a crack on the foam about 4 to 6 inches down the wall just ahead of the front of the wall edging. Poop. Double poop. Cuss words. Frustration. Crooked wall.



It’s not the end of the world. In fact, I could probably just continue on skinning it as planned and not have any trouble at all, but I will probably try to flex the crack open a bit (like I did for the pic of the crack), trowel some GG down in there, lay it flat with some weights and see if I can get it to stick back together. Poop.

Yeah, not the end of the world.

I'm assuming it is only foam and foam/wood interface that has cracked. If you take a long 1/2" straight router bit and route out the crack. Then you can fill it with expanding foam or a piece of foam cut to shape, and GG in place. The rounded end of the wider routed out section will act as a stress reliever for future flexing. The wider router bit path will allow easier filling for a complete repair.

[KCStudly]

Thanks for the advice, Bogo.

I'm still contemplating whether there is any need to fix it at all, but arresting the crack is reason enough to get me leaning toward your suggestion. I had thought about plowing it out and just filling with GS or GG, or fitting a dutchman, but I was also trying not to over think it. I was leaning towards just trying to glue it up. Since it is not a straight line a patch piece means that the cut would have to be a little bigger or it would be a more complicated fit.

The crack doesn't go all the way thru.

It can "sit on the back burner" for a day or two while I contemplate and study the "problem". Don't be surprised if I take some form of your advice!

[Bogo]

I end up grinding out and patching cracks like that quite often. I don't like to have to repair something again and again.

[KCStudly]

Busy and weary day at work today. Ran a couple of errands after work, by which time I felt like a shower and a nap (not necessarily in that order). But I forced myself to go to Mecca, if even for just a bit to get something done. Ended up staying nearly until 8pm and got plenty done.

When I left last night I had finished up by marking a wire path to the bulkhead vent fan. The idea is to use the large 12v computer case fan to draw cool air from under the shade of the cabin thru the galley floor and into the cabin just below the cabinet over our feet. This should provide a nice exchange of air, promote cross flow through the open roof vent or door windows, while not being as loud or aggressive as the roof fan. Since I tend to run hot and the wife tends to run cold (watch it!) I decided to locate the bulkhead fan register up under the galley counter in the center bay, but offset to the street side (my side) to the left side of the center galley bay. I can add a cut out in the floor up against the bulkhead and the lefthand divider (for the cooler bay) and either box the vent chase in, or just let it draw from the galley cavity with the fan flat against the back of the bulkhead.

The first (upper) wire chase layout was just based on having the fan tucked up to the counter rail and cooler stile in the bulkhead and judging where the fan wire wanted to be, but after sleeping on it and deciding that, say it with me, “I needed to add another block”, (this is getting to be somewhat of a joke between Karl and me), and figuring that the red foot light wire chase needed to continue on to the center of the cabin from this same path; I decided to lower the wire path a bit and ended up with this layout.


Here is a close up of the bulkhead fan block location with the wire chase below passing on to the center of the cross member where the wire for the red light can pass thru under the cabinet on the cabin side of the bulkhead.


Here is a close up of the same wire chase in the back side of the bulkhead ahead of the cooler bay.

The lower is the final, the upper was superseded.

All of the specific dimensions for this and the actuator wire chases shown previously were also annotated on the plans.

In an effort to speed things along, I just free handed the whole thing with the router while Karl graciously helped out by doing dust collection duties with the shop vac (such a good friend!).


Here I have used the router template that I made for the hatch actuator blocking to router out the recess for the bulkhead fan register. Because the foam here is only 3/4 thk and I didn’t want to risk putting temporary screws thru the front face of the wall, I just used the double backed carpet tape to locate the template multiple times to cover the larger 5-3/8 square block size (rather than make a new, larger template).

As before, a big chunk of foam broke free after routing the perimeter of the recess, weakening my confidence in the 30NF adhesive. Can’t decide if it was the product, the application thereof, or just inadequate pressure/fairness during pressing stage (I think my skills in fitting and fairing the foam fill have improved a bunch since I built the bulkhead, so that may have been a factor… that or the drying time issues we had during the hot humid days of last summer).

After dry fitting the fan block (don’t seem to have a picture of that) we went to the mill to hole saw out the duct passage. Karl jumped in here, so I was able to take more photos. Here is the 1x6 square nominal (3/4 x 5 and a bit shrunk 3/8 to 7/16 actual) block in the milling machine with a 4-1/2 inch hole saw touching off.



Switched over to power feed and switched air compressor on to clear chips/sawdust.


Karl at the helm.

Mamma didn’t raise no fool, and I try not to look a gift horse in the mouth, so, “Run, Karl, run!”

The power feed was so even and gentle, and the mill cut so true that the plug just sort of broke free and the splintering out the back was negligible.


I will repeat; it is not a good idea to do wood work on your machine tools. The saw dust gets into the close running tolerances of the bed ways, absorbs cutting and way oil, swells, and clogs up the works. I warned Karl, again, but he did not seem too concerned.

A dry test fit to the fan.

Karl and I attempted to test this and another smaller fan last night using his battery charger, but it must have had smart circuitry, because it would not run either fan. When we jumped the fans off of his truck battery they both worked fine, but the larger fan was quieter.

After tuning up the recess with the tiny sanding block a bit, the block was dry fit well.


I will be able to punch thru this hole from the cabin side and use the big hole as a flush cutting guide to router out the inside skin of the bulkhead, and then again for the galley side. A stainless steel grill vent will be screwed into this block from the cabin side, and the fan will be screwed in from the back (or the fan can be placed lower in the duct to improve laminar flow).

I added another smaller opening in the margin of the larger rectangular router template in order to increase the size of the pockets behind the marker lights (seem to have lost the pic). I wanted to make sure that I would have enough of a pocket to coil a bit of wire under the lights so that after I caulk the wire into the hole I would still have enough slack to pull the fixture away from the wall for service.

Hmm, seem to have lost the street side rear pic, but here is the street side front marker light wire pocket after opening it up with the template.

(The free hand work I did before was a bit outside the lines.)

Here is the street side rear marker light wire hole on the inside of the wall (boring ).


Contemplating a Dutchman repair to the crack at the top rear of the street side wall, I laid out the extents with a Sharpie (shown from the top looking down).



Karl decided that we needed to do a test of an alternate repair method, and broke a scrap piece of foam. Then he used the Surform plane to bevel the top edges of the crack (to simulate having beveled out the crack with a Dremel tool… about 1/4 wide x 3/4 deep). He taped the bottom and sides of the test piece with 2 inch blue tape. Then I set up and poured a couple of beads of GG down the groove. Stuck the faux credit card down in the groove and swiped up and down both sides; covered with freezer paper and weights.

When I got home the cooler tray slides had arrived. Wife greeted me with a glass of Merlot.
These things are beefy/heavy. No problem bouncing a heavy cooler on down the road on these. “Beat on my drum all day…”




In the second pic I aligned the back of the slide with the back of the box underneath it on the left. In the third pic you can see the inner rail extended out past the nose of the stair behind it on the right.

[GPW]

Just like to mention a tool that we’ve used for quick and secure foam repairs many times on our foamie planes ... a Hot Glue Gun !! Works a treat , dries Quick ...

[KCStudly]

GPW, How does the hot glue sand compared to the foam?

So yesterday I failed to mention that Ben had been by to get some of his wood working tools. He has a new job doing site carpentry work and needed a few of his things. It has been a godsend having the use of his miter saw. It’s gone now.


The table and fence remain, and Karl’s DeWalt miter saw will fit it with a little shimming, or I could just use it on its own portable folding stand.


Ben also took his quick clamps which I have been using regularly (but not the bar clamps). They are indispensable and I only own one smaller less capable one like those, so I stopped at Ho-De-Po on the way to Mecca this evening and got a few. The large one on the right is missing one of the rubber pads (didn’t notice until I had pulled the tag off), so it will go back. I would have bought two of those, but it was the last one they had in that size. The flat blade screwdriver is to replace the beater that I keep in my tool bag at work (which went missing sometime after I got back from the chunk last year). The 6 in 1 tool is to replace the worn one I have at work, and I will bring that one to keep up stairs at the shop (Karl has a ton of screwdrivers, but I don’t like keeping tools out of his box upstairs and it is a hassle to run up and down for the basic things). The 3/8 wide chisel is because I could have used it several times and I didn’t find a suitable one at the swap meet.


The big heavy box of assorted sheet rock screws is gone now, too.

Karl and I have known that Ben also has lots of accessories for his tools, but they were kind of packed away and we didn’t know what most of it was or how to set it up. Ben was kind enough to dig some of it out and show Karl how it worked.

The miter saw fence has a Kreg extruded aluminum rail on top that accepts this nice adjustable stop.



There’s a nice wide miter guide for the table saw, and anti-kickback one way rollers that are a modern version of my feather boards (they mount to the extruded aluminum piece atop the saw fence and have numerous adjustment options).


I’m told there is also a tapering jig.

Back to work.
Removed the weights and started to clean up the bulkhead fan block.

Put the small chisel straight to work getting in tight to the radius to remove the excess GG.

Got it all faired down, mostly using the little itty-bitty hobby plane.


Here are a couple of pic’s of the improved (larger) marker light recesses in the curb side wall after opening up the smaller ones shown previously.



Still forgot to take a picture of the router template.

Then I updated the Wiremold chases to include the new marker light wire holes. I also opened up the pilot holes that I had drilled previously so that they will take the SS truss head screws (I don’t trust the adhesive backing that comes on the Wiremold); and I cut and drilled the curb side rear piece.





Karl’s test piece for the back gouged GG’d crack repair did pretty good, except there was a small gummy area that didn’t seem to cure all of the way. I had seen this once before on one of my other glue ups.

And that was a wrap for the evening.

Once I figure out the hatch actuator switch mounting, and decide on the crack Dutchman, I am keeping my fingers crossed that I am done putting blocks in.