4X8(ish) Benroy Build

[Wobbly Wheels]

Haven't updated in a while but I've been plugging away. I got the skins glued onto the side panels and spent a good chunk of Saturday glassing them. I was able to do it at work where they could sit undisturbed in a warm shop for a couple days. I checked 'em out when I went in this morning and they came out pretty well. I wasn't sure what I would find because I under-catalyzed one pot of resin. I discovered it when I finished up and still had some catalyst left over.
After checking my mix sheet, I found the mistake...but not which panel I had used it on. Just to be safe, I mixed up a hot batch and gave everything another coat of resin to pump some extra heat into the layup. It seems to have done the trick, though it probably would have been fine without it as well.







Once the excess mat is cleaned up, the panels are ready to glue to the floor and then I can lay in the spars and get going on the roof. Then I'll tow the whole trailer back to the shop and glass the roof and seams. I still haven't decided how I'm going to finish the outside, but using the pigmented resin is a 'campable' finish until I do decide - I will probably either fair it and paint it or have a buddy shoot it with gelcoat while he's doing a boat. Lots of time to decide on that later.

Before any of that though, I need to tape the seams on the bottom of the floor and undercoat the floor with black goo before I bolt it to the frame. It's too cold right now for the PL Premium I plan to glue the walls on with (have to do that outside), but it's supposed to warm up this week so I want to have everything ready to do that this weekend if I have the time.

I also started on the tongue box/battery box this weekend. The curved lid will open like a galley hatch and its radius is that same as the front radius on the roof (18") so it will serve as a test jig to make sure that the roof ply will make the bend. No pics of that yet since I've only got the floor cut out and the back wall of it framed out. Soon though...

No progress tonight after a hard day and it's a trip to the dentist tomorrow to fix a busted chomper (thanks to a rogue peppercorn) so I may lose some working time then too depending on how that goes: hopefully it's just the bill that's painful

I've got a month-long Xmas break starting in a couple weeks and I'd like to have most of the build and a shakedown trip done by the time I go back to work...tick,tock...

[Vedette]

You are going to have a very busy month if you plan to get your new TD finished.
But, Good Luck and keep us posted!
Good Roads
Brian & Sandi

[Wobbly Wheels]

Hehe, true enough, Brian.
'Campable' is more the goal than 'done'.
I'd like to get it to where I roll into camp and have a dry place to sleep....everything else is just 'finishing' work
I'm really scratching my head on the galley layout, so I want to rough out the space and use it a few times. I figure it'll be like truck camping: everything will eventually find its 'spot'...and then I'll sneak up on it and screw it down permanently.

[Vedette]

You could design your Galley the way we did?
Gathered up all of our camping gear that we wanted to carry in the TD rather than in the TV.
Got out the measuring tape and a sketch pad......and started arranging things until everything fit.
The object her is to use every usable square inch!!!
Good Roads
Brian & Sandi
PS
You don't need a sink!

[Wobbly Wheels]

I hear that !
I camp out of the truck at the moment and keep everything in totes so I think I have a handle on what that pile of stuff would look like. Like most people I think, I tend to set up camp the same way each time. I figure that, by using the trailer before making anything permanent, everything will find its spot and I'll figure out where I need an extra shelf, a hook, etc. Definitely going to have to measure out dedicated space for essentials like a cooler and water jug and stuff though. Now where did I leave that graph paper ?....
Like you said: make every inch count

And you're darn tootin' on the sink. Been using totes (for that too) for so long that a sink would be a new trick for this old dog. Plus, they nest together to save space and they keep water well away from the trailer. I read somewhere that someone made up a stand for a stainless bowl so that, when the wash water cooled off, they could move it over to the burner to warm it up. I like that idea.

[Wobbly Wheels]

Yesterday I got the underside of the floor coated according to plan. I will might slather on some more and get it onto the frame as well to seal up the cracks between the two and the fasteners holding it all together (1/4" galv carriage bolts). Black goo is a bit like explosives that way: figure out how much you're going to need, then add a bunch more.

I've kept a weather eye (aaargh, matey !) on the weather all week so I would be ready for the break in the rain forecast for today. It was nice and warm today (10 degC) so, with the glue and the panels kept inside and a t-shirt on, I glued on the walls.

Anyone familiar with camping in the rain (and experienced tarp-ologists) in general will of course know that I need to support the tarp between the spars or I'll get giant pools of water that will be looking for an excuse to dump their entire contents onto the bare wood floor and framing. In order to foil ol' Murphy, I threw a piece of doorskin over the roof spacers to keep the tarp from sagging between them. I guess it's just as well that this is a 4X8 build, eh ?

I wonder if anyone's ever come up with a way to drain a tarp full of water without that water drenching whatever the tarp was meant to protect in the first place ? Of course, there is some kind of perverse pleasure in just slitting the 'belly' and letting the water splash everywhere.....but then again, I was always the kid who found the nearest mud puddle whenever he got a new pair of sneakers.

Enough babbling: on to the pictures !!


The black goo went on about 9am yesterday and by lunchtime it was tack free, though by this morning I could still leave a fingerprint in it if I pressed hard.
I used Bakor Roof Patch, which I've used before on utility trailers. It never really 'hardens' but it goes on runny enough to soak into the wood and hardens enough that you don't really get any on you when you're handling it. That said, I'll be carrying it by the edges and the top side and in latex gloves...
In warm temps, it softens up a bit and self heals from rock chips. If I make my own wheel wells (probably), I'll use it as a liner there as well.

I haven't done this in a while and, if memory serves, I thinned the first coat down into a paint last time I used it. I was looking at the quart can and figured I'd need two. They were $9 a piece and the gallon can was $20 so that's what I came home with. Those marketing folks know their business, eh ?
My 4X8 surface used about half the gallon but it's a bit thin in a couple spots - not a big deal since it's soaked into the wood really well but I still want to get a thicker layer on it. If some is good, more is better (again with the explosives references) The label mentions a 3mm (~1/8") film thickness, which I've pretty well got in the first coat.
I used the disposable yellow plastic drywall knives and it went on well with a 3" notched and then a final smoothing with a 6" straight blade.

One thing that's been bugging me is that I didn't line up the bottom of the windows on the (port) side that has two windows. I wanted to keep the vertical window high so that it would allow light in but provide no sight line outside from pillow level. One the other hand, I wanted to be able to see out the jalousie windows while lying in bed, so they are lower. I'm not happy with the end result and may wind up re-framing and lowering the forward window to match. It really depends on how I lay out the door windows - if I can hide that transition in height, I'll leave it and live with it. If not, I'll make some sawdust.

When I get rolling on a job, I tend to go all in and sometimes can't be bothered to stop and grab a pic....which is exactly what happened today. I got the floor bolted down with 1/4-20 X 5" galv carriage bolts. I drilled through the existing holes in the frame and used those holes as pilots to counter bore the top with a 5/8" spade bit to recess the heads of the carriage bolts so the sill plates on the wall frames would sit flat down on the floor's perimeter frame.

I then marked out where the walls' sills would land, slathered it up with PL and screwed the walls' sill plates to the perimeter frame. Everything lined up as it should and hit its marks, but I'm still happy I did the dry fit on sawhorses first !!

Anyway, more pics...




I also copied the angle of the bridle so I can cut the outer edges of the tongue box floor to match. I used bevel guage I made years ago for use in boats and it paid for itself yet again.


If I get some shop time this week I can now plug away on the tongue box and hopefully get enough of it done that I can start making up my battery cables. It's supposed to dump rain all week so working on the trailer is out. I seriously envy you folks with build space in the garage !!!

[Wobbly Wheels]

Double posted

[Wobbly Wheels]

After a weekend full of other jobs to get done and a week of straight rain, the trailer has been sitting sadly under its tarp despite the great building weather. I did get the ledger glued in that will support the back edge of the countertop so with being fixed now I can use it as a datum to lay out the rest of the galley. Talk about baby steps ! Still....they're forward steps....

The tarp did come off for a while today but it was mainly for measuring and pondering the next steps so I can fly at 'er when my Xmas break starts. Following Brian's sage advice above, I took the cooler and stove out to the trailer and started figuring out the galley layout. The first thing I did was figure out how much I needed to raise the counter from the initial layout to be able to fit the cooler, drawer slides, the lino or vinyl flooring I'll use. It will be 3 1/2" higher than what I've already framed for. The counter should have a final height of between 32" and 36" from the ground depending on spring compression (curb weight) and wheel size (I'm going bigger but don't have them yet). The axle is currently on top of the springs and I'm thinking about flipping it, but not if it puts the counter too high. Right now I have allowed for the actual cooler height, 1" for drawer slides & cleats, and 1/2" clearance between the lid and the underside of the counter.

Off track a little bit here but I have to share my score - while work has been slow, we've been scrapping out an old boat. Typically, we pull out stuff that would be worth a few bucks at a yard sale or for scrap, the wood gets burned and the 'glass gets cut up and taken to the dump. Obviously we can't actually use used stuff on customers' boats so it's more of a way to keep the entire boat out of the landfill than any kind of real moneymaker. We make far more out of scrapping the aluminum and stainless than we do out of selling the parts. One of the perks is that if there's anything we can use personally, that's even better than letting it go for scrap.

With that in mind, I kinda patted myself on the back for the amount of restraint I showed in the little bit I dragged home

When I started stripping it out, I thought the handrails had kind of a cool 50's sci-fi shape to them despite the boat's 1972 build date...so I grabbed 3 of 'em.
#4 didn't survive the removal intact but the others need little more than a polish.

I figure I'll use one for the galley lift handle for sure. The other two might be curtain rods over the doors or I may use one as a matching handle for the tongue box, or...

There are also a couple of hatch pulls (always a handy thing to have) and, like the rails, have a date with the muslin wheels on the grinder and some metal polish (more indoor work for a rainy day). There's a bunch more polished 1" stainless pipe shorts that I may yet grab. I'm not sure where I'd use them but I'm sure they wouldn't go to waste...

Lastly, there's the Blue Sea 5025 fuse panel I was going to buy anyway - that will save me about $40. The fella I was working with got a bit rough with it and busted out the yellow plastic latch on the cover, but I can work with that. Given where I'm mounting it, the cover is mainly there just to attach the labels to anyway...so we'll just call it a 5030 (w/o cover) instead of a 5025

There was also a 3-burner Princess cooktop that I would have made room for, with a 6' hose and 2 stage reg...but that brings me to another decision I made today:
I have been going back and forth on whether to mount a propane bottle or use 1lb canisters but am now going to design the galley around canisters. Like most of you, camping happens on weekends for me with a longer trip once in a while. I will be using a propane lantern, down sleeping bag and 1-1/2" insulation to keep the cabin warm for winter trips so, while I do have a bulkhead-mounted propane light fixture I really wanted to use on this build, a lantern is the better choice. Mounted to the ceiling, this will make a perfect 'hook' to hang a lantern from.


I also transferred the angle of the bridle onto the underside of the tongue box floor so that, after the rain socks in again tonight, at least I can keep moving forward on the build with the battery layout.

[KCStudly]

Cool stuff.

[Wobbly Wheels]

Thx, KC.
Free makes it even cooler

In that vein, I picked up the 1/8" luan doorskins I'm going to use for the roof and noticed that the yard monkey wrote down 4 - 4X8 and 3 - 3X7 sheets when I had the opposite. Not a big deal ($3 difference) but a few minutes after I pointed it out and was tarping and strapping them into the truck, he brought out a piece of aluminum trim. It was a 12' length of brushed 1"X1/2" angle that looks like it got kicked while standing vertically in a rack. There was a bit of a kink about a foot from one end and he was on his way to the scrap bin with it when he asked if I had a use for it......there's only one answer to that question...
At the very least, it answers a couple of interior trim questions I haven't gotten to yet.

Most importantly though, I got all of the sheets I need to skin the roof. Unfortunately our typical winter weather here is warm and wet which aren't the best conditions for working with untreated wood outdoors. Being on Xmas hiatus now until mid Jan and wanted to have the trailer campable by then, I can't wait for weather. I set up a ridge pole to support a tarp that will let me keep working in the wettest (though not windiest) weather.

The black 8 mil tarp that's over the trailer in the pic is 16X20 (I think) and was more than enough to cover the whole works. I also have a new 6 mil 10X12 that will cover the trailer proper if I see any water on the floor tomorrow morning. This is similar to how we dry store boats in the marina and so far this year the tarps have survived 110 km/h winds so, with how well this spot is sheltered, I'm pretty sure I won't have to deal with a sodden mess of a floor in the morning.

That being said, I picked up some PU and some paint thinner and brewed up a batch of 'the mix' (thx GPW, ami de toujours i !!!) so it'll be ready to go once the roof skins are on. Because the frame rails on my trailer are 48" inside-to-inside, it means I will have a lot of waste material in the roof. The walls and roof will be glassed with 3/4oz mat which, once we allow for the tendency we all have to overbuild , makes whatever I use to skin the roof with almost irrelevant.
I'm planning to use 4X8 sheets with the surface grain across the width for the first lam and then 3X7 sheets running lengthwise. That will leave me with almost 1/2 sheets from the 4X8s and 10" strips from the 3X7s as scrap. With all of the drawer bottoms and cabinet floors I have to make, I'm sure none of it will go to waste.

Here's a shot of the forward roof spars. I laid out for the first sheet to go in about a foot from the bottom so the center of the 4' wide sheet would be in the center of the 18" front radius. I put a doubled spar there so the curved sheet and the filler sheet would both have a solid 3/4" bonding surface. I went with 12" OC for the roof spars in general and 6" in the radius.

In the background, you can see the galley equipment needed to lay it all out. There's a 20l water can with spigot that'll be in the upper part, 2 burner canister stove (that I may put on drawer slides) and the cooler that will also have drawer slides.

Unlike most, I have left the door framing until the (scratch-built) doors are done.

I started back framing the galley as well.

This sets the layout for the upper cabinets. The counter top height (datum for some measurements) is still in limbo a bit depending on where the ride height winds up. It's almost certain that it'll be 3-1?2 inches above where I originally intended. I am going with bigger wheels and still have the option of flipping the axle if need be, so I'm not too worried.


I'm looking for a weather window (Sunday ?) to pull off the tarps and start getting the skins on.

[Vedette]

Here is hoping you get a weather break??
You look to need one of those 10' x 20' Costco portable garages?
Could also be used to protect & Store your TD once it is finished.
Good Roads
Brian & Sandi

[Wobbly Wheels]

On of those shelters would be a good idea - I use one at work all the time. Since we're moving in the spring sometime, I'm reluctant to buy anything at the moment that I'll have to move. One of the requirements of our new place will be covered parking for two vehicles, though we haven't really started looking yet.

Today we have a wind warning of 80km/h gusts so it's not a day to be flinging around sheets of flimsy 1/8" ply
So far the tarp is flapping a bit but not enough to tear itself to pieces. Weighting it down with water jugs gives it some 'give' rather than tying it down fast.

I have an old 1hp cast iron table saw that's in need of resurrection but I'm not sure it's worth it. I've been skulking on craigslist looking for a small jobsite one because most of my cuts are on small stock. and then it gets put away till next time. Unlike the chop saw, I don't use it enough to leave it set up all the time and it winds up becoming a junk collector. I ran across a Delta on CL and picked it up this morning. The PO has put extensions on the miter sled and fence which will be going away and he's made up a low clearance throat plate for it from some MDF. I fired it up and the blade ran as true as one can expect of this grade of saw, so I handed over my shekels and dragged it home. Now I need to move the heavy old saw off the stand and mount this one. If I can get the old one serviceable again, I'd like to build it into a workstation, so it may never need to go on its stand again.
Now that I've got the trailer's width locked in, the saw's first job will be ripping the purpleheart that I'm using for the counter top nosing. But that won't be for a while yet.


Today I'm working on the galley hatch ribs and the edge blocking. I'm trying to get everything ready for the next weather window in a couple days so I can get this thing skinned. I figure that, since I'm laminating the skin from two plies of 1/8", I'll frame up the galley hatch and screw it in place. Then I'll skin the roof as if it's all one solid piece from front to back, cut the skin at the hinge line to separate the hatch and clean it up with a router. I think that will also make the springback a little less of an issue, but we'll see. That doesn't seem to be how others do it so I'm all ears to suggestions or criticisms or just things I might be overlooking. Not trying to reinvent the wheel here, but it does seem like a good way to do it....

[Wobbly Wheels]

Well, the plan for doing the edge blocking didn't quite happen...
I spent the day mucking about with the new saw and clearing some space to stow the old one till I can work on it.

I did make a little progress though:
When I picked up the 4X8 doorskins for the roof, I was pleasantly surprised that whatever mystery veneer they made it out of looked much more like a walnut (wenge, really) than the typical pseudo-mahogany look typical of tropical-climate plantation species. Given that I will have almost half a sheet of scrap from each sheet, it seemed natural to use it as....ummm, well....doorskins. The veneer was patched with the typical light pink putty so I made sure that would be in the roof where it wouldn't really matter and kept the aesthetically better piece for the door.

Not sure that this pic really does it justice, but since I was going to go with wood trim inside it seems like it might be the ticket with some PU to seal it up. There will be a tinted fixed plexi window in the upper half...but not till I decide on size and shape and have the door latches in hand.


For the headliner, I was thinking I would paint some more doorskin white or ivory and put them up with contrasting battens as is often done in boats.
Here are a couple examples of what I mean - click on the pics to see the pages I graciously stole them from


Just thinking out loud here...because of the sizes of scrap I have, I will need to run some strips cut from the offcuts of the 3X7 sheets (only the 4X8s have that dark veneer) lengthwise along the outer edges to fill because the interior width will be 49" rather than the 48" of the sheet. I figure the long strips might look good with a glossy black lacquer and a clear PU on the wood. Against an ivory-painted headliner - or maybe upholstered if my upholsterer buddy needs some work done on his boat - the dark ought to really pop without making it too gloomy inside, but that's a ways off yet.
At any rate, it's not too hard to spray some cement to glue some foam and some vinyl to a piece of ply....

[Vedette]

Your wind from yesterday, got to us about midnight last night.
But, it is Beautiful out there today for the second day of Winter???
Hope you are out there working?
Someone has to while I rest on the couch watching Football.
Good Roads
Brian & Sandi
PS
Get her done! As we are looking forward to your attendance at the Farm Gathering July 16 - 19th.

[Wobbly Wheels]

Someone has to while I rest on the couch watching Football.

Sounds like you're workin' hard at recreatin'

The wind was kinda fun but the tarp and trailer didn't look any the worse for it. The rain's been on and off today so I was reluctant to pull the tarps off and commit. I started this morning by cutting the the other three 4X8 sheets down to 53" long. I only need 52" but the overhang is so I can trim it up cleanly with the router afterwards. By early afternoon, I decided to chance it and pulled the tarp back and got the edge blocking in. Now the ends of the sheet have something more solid to land on than the top of the 1/4" walls and I've got a place to screw the edges of the headliner panels or battens to, depending on how I finish the inside.


I also framed in the drop for the front window to put the bottom of it at the same level as the other one on that side. What a bonehead move - still shaking my head as to how I missed that in the framing...As I was cutting down to the new sill height, I hit a buried screw and discovered that I was out of bimetal jigsaw blades and both my hacksaws are at work 45mins away ! I rummaged around looking for even a chunk of a hacksaw blade I could use with a pair of vise grips, but no dice. I can't get at the heads on these two to back them out, so I'll have to pick up some blades (and another hacksaw!) tomorrow when I go out. I also got the header installed over the door on the left side. Just as I was wiping up the glue squeeze out, the dark clouds rolled in again so the tarp got pulled back over and buttoned up.

I've got a bit of inside work to do still before the roof gets skinned. I need to rip down the 3X7 sheets to 27" wide and I still need to frame for the roof hatch. The biggest job though is to make up the hatch ribs so I can get them temporarily in place. Along with blades, I'll be picking up some 1X4 tomorrow to start on the (sawn) ribs. Gonna have to brush up on my geometry to figure out my cuts - I can smell the smoke already...