Here's Humphrey..Now a trolly top..Finished!!

[3nero]

Thanks. I'm rushing it a bit because i need to get the top on before the rain comes back. It's been 18 days without rain. We are officially in a drought now
It rains here 80% of the year. We go a couple of weeks with no rain and they start banning hose pipes I can't build when it's raining and i know it will be coming back soon. I can always go back later and smooth out the rough edges

[3nero]

Bit more done today.
Made the rest of the spars for around the front box..



Managed to stick on the one on the right crocked and by the time i noticed the glue had set so i just left it

Then i made the spars for the trolley top bit.





I also got another 4 layers of PVA on so i'm up to 10 layers now.

[Ron Dickey]

Very Very Very nice job Love it.

You are moving right along. can you put your pictures in the Tolley top Questions site
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=56057
I think it would be a swell addition.

The fogging the glass idea is terrific.

Looking forward to watch more of your build.
Ron

[3nero]

Very Very Very nice job Love it.

You are moving right along. can you put your pictures in the Tolley top Questions site
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=56057
I think it would be a swell addition.

The fogging the glass idea is terrific.

Looking forward to watch more of your build.
Ron

Cheers
I'll stick some pics there when i get the top on.
The windows aren't fogged they are masked with the factory applied plastic. after it's peeled off they will be clear but i have been informed they will be painted in different (stained glass) colours

Well the drought is over, we had almost one month with no rain and it made up for it in the last few days with 2 months worth of rain in 3 days.
But i still managed a few bits between the showers.

First was the remaining piece of the interior roof. this bit was more trouble than i taught it would be. I cut it to the right width but it was to tight to get in so i cut it abt smaller and it was still to tight. After it was cut for the third time it went in ok but cracked right across the grain when i went to bend it in place.




So i put the damaged end where it will be hidden by the vent later on...Also you might notice the slight miscalculation in the placement of the tolley side windows
I'm not changing them now. just another design quirk

Next i cut all the little blocks for the blocking and spent a few hours glueing them all in..





Then it was time for the biggest experimental part of the build. I have a large roll of tshirt type material left over from an old job i did a few years ago. This type of material works great for fibre glassing weird shapes so i taught it might work to cover the trailer but instead of resin i'm trying it with a 50/50 mix of water an pva glue.




Hopefully it will stick and also tighten up when the glue dries. I'm putting the sides on now so the roof will over lap them later.

[3nero]

Lot's done today. My helpers came back from holiday so things are speeding up at last.

we got the insulation in the roof done and then turned the trailer around so the sun would help dry the multipal layers of glue we would be painting on the cloth covering.



then i assembled the 3 bits of the roof upside down so i could seal the underside of the join with the same cloth and glue mix.



then we threw covers over everything and waited for the rain to go away





and the final bit for the day was to skin the roof...





feels more like a teardrop now

[rebapuck]

Looks like one too. Keep us posted on how the covering works.

[doug hodder]

3nero...that really looks great! What a hassle trying to work around the weather. You'll forget about the trolley windows once it's all said and done, however, having done a couple of trolley tops, a builder really needs to think about the main roof thickness and the trolley top thickness when positioning them. Doug

[3nero]

Doug, there where two errors made while making the trolley sides. The first was i corrected the wobbles that didn't need correcting and the second was i made the spars thicker than they where originally designed to be to allow for the over thick insulation but never adjusted the sides in height to allow for the extra thickness. It's my first teardrop so mistakes are plentyfull

In the last few days the rain has decided to stay so not much building got done but i did manage to get some bits done.

The first was to fill the joins in the roof to make sure no water could find it's way in





also filled tons of screw holes and spent many hours sanding.

while i was doing all the sanding i got the other two to start undercoating the inside.



I found an old tin of mint green emulsion in the shed.. yucky colour but good as an undercoat. Here it is after 2 coats...



good thing i left those windows masked

Seeing as i couldn't get much done on the trailer out doors i decided to tackle the hatch indoors.







Then i ran out of the right screws so had to stop

[3nero]

Well it's been a while since i last updated here but work has been going on. I put my camera away somewhere safe during on of the many rain storms and had a total brainfart. I finally found it yesterday when i opened the underfloor box

So there are a few steps missing in the pics

The main bulk of the work in the last 2 weeks went into the hatch.

here it is getting skinned.







Then i hit a slight problem which caused a slight design change.
The problem was i didn't have a large enough sheet of wood to cover the whole outside of the hatch. and some warping was caused because i had no way to attach the loose end..



So i added another layer that copies the same swage line that's on the front..





Then there was hours upon hours of filling and sanding while the camera was on vacation

Meanwhile the fabric went on the lower roof and the upper roof got attached along with the first coats of undercoating on the sides...







So the main shell is finally done. just got to water proof it all now with buckets of paint and then attach the hatch.

[stonykill]

looking really good!

[3nero]

Thanks StonyKill
Lot's of bit's done since i last posted.

Finally got the fabric on the roof and all coated in 8 layers of PVA.





Then got it all coated in 4 layers of an oil based undercoat.





Next job done was the roof vent. So glad to finally get this hole filled in..





Then the inside of the hatch got painted and the outside started...



And while all the painting was going on i made a start on the galley..







I was able to reuse a ;ot of the bits from the folding tent galley but there's still lot's more to do. But it's starting to look like the end is in sight

[stonykill]

nice progress. I'm liking the look!

[rebapuck]

I didn't know Humphrey was a standie.

[3nero]

Ha Ha!! Yeah it's an under 8's standie, all others must kneel

Well i got a few other bits done since the last update but not as much as i had hoped.

We where using 2 sticks to temporarily hold the hatch open and the wind caught the hatch a few days ago. both sticks shattered and the hatch came crashing down. Luckily none of the kids where near it when it went, mainly because i had banned them all from the the area while the hatch was open. The hatch itself suffered some slight damage but i'm sure it's not a hard fix. Due to the mishap the building of the cupboards was instantly put on hold and building of the hatch supports became the number one priority.

several designs where taught up and some where made...

This was one of the rejected designs.


finally after 3 days of playing around with them the supports where given the seal of approval.
Here's what we settled on...





the hinges will be replaced later for some more attractive looking ones and the bases of the uprights will have locks that will attach them to the side walls to stop any lifting caused by the wind. but for now they are doing the job of keeping the hatch up.

I was such a relieve to get have the hatch save that we kind of had a "safe hatch" party slash picnic type of deal



and then it was back to building cupboards..

[Johnysteam]

That design is great! Its amazing what people can make in their living rooms.
Thanks for posting those pictures