Dusty Mark's 5 x 10 Build

[ELM]

Awesome wood working your doing there.
I like your idea of using the vent to pull the hot air from the AC.

[Dusty Mark]

Thanks! I love challenging projects like this teardrop. The best part is that you get exactly the product you want at the end.

Stuffing the dog kennel, cooler, and oven into the galley/bulkhead area forced me to go high with the air conditioning. I couldn't figure out a way to fit it all and still vent the a/c out the floor. I browsed a lot of other ideas and came up with this one myself. I'm anxious to see how the heat exposure will affect the motor and the control circuit board of the fan. Only one way to find out...learn by doing! If I would have moved the frontmost cabin bulkhead forward three inches, I could have kept a continuous bulkhead at the back of the galley cabinets, but I opted to notch it to leave more room in the cabin. That means a day of tinkering with the galley bulkhead behind the air conditioner...not too bad if done before permanently installing the ceiling.

[Dusty Mark]

Our upper galley cabinets are constructed. There is storage on top of the cabinets and under the ceiling. A 1 1/2" lip at the front edge will keep items in place while towing. I've sanded to 120 grit and dry fitted and they turned out nice. I sanded through the top veneer layer in some inconspicuous spots inside the cabinets...oh well.



There are spots for 12 volt and 110 volt outlets to the far left.



My first scarf joint looks pretty bad, even from a distance.



Thankfully, most of it is covered by a removable panel.



The cabinets are assembled using a combination of pocket hole screws and cleats.

[Dusty Mark]

I made good progress building up the bases for the exhaust fan that will pull hot air off of the back of the air conditioner and also baffles to separate the hot exhaust air from the fresh air intake. This step in the build above else has given me fits. I'm pretty sure that I've come up with a solution.



Here is the way I built up the fan mount to match the curve of the roof and the ceiling. I built up both pieces starting from a 1/4" plywood frame.



This view shows the extension I had to build to make room for the back of the fan above the air conditioning compartment and extending into the galley.



View of the extension from the galley.



Close-up of the extension.



This is a sample of the saddle piece that makes the base of the extension area.



Baffle on the passenger side that separates hot exhaust and fresh air.



Baffle on the driver's side.



View from the fresh air intake window. I still need to add threaded inserts to each of the baffles to receive a piece that will close off the top of the air conditioner. I'll attach this piece with star knobs so that I can reach into the exhaust area to operate the manual controls for the fan if the remote ever fails. After this piece is fitted, I can take the ceiling off for varnish and then final assembly!

[Mushin]

Really great woodwork!

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[Dusty Mark]

Thanks, I feel like I'm in the home stretch at this point.

[Dusty Mark]

A good friend helped me install the ceiling and roof spars today. Once again, I'm glad I was using polyurethane construction adhesive since it gave more time to complete this major assembly.



Here's a view of the supports I used to adhere the ceiling to the roof spars.



I used one in the kennel area as well. I filled any gaps between the ceiling and the roof spars with thickened epoxy.



The prep work in the air conditioning compartment paid off. It came together nicely.

I'll start wiring tomorrow, continue varnishing the cabinet doors, put a coat of CPES in the air conditioning compartment and make some aluminum stops to work with the door latches I just received today.

[ELM]

Your moving right along and it's looking great.

[Dusty Mark]

Thanks! I sealed the top of the ceiling with CPES last night...the garage really stinks of it today. I'm planning to complete the wiring and hang the cabinet doors over the weekend. Hopefully, I'll make it to gluing the insulation down in the ceiling by Monday.

[Dusty Mark]

I'm steadily knocking out the smaller projects. Tonight I made door stops from aluminum angle and mounted the hinges, stops, and latches to the upper galley cabinets. I then installed the cabinet assembly in the galley.



The assembly was tighter than I expected, laterally, after I installed the roof spars and ceiling. I've got some varnish touch-up to do on the galley walls from forcing the cabinet in place.



Closer view of the hardware.



Here is the door stop I cut from aluminum angle stock. I'll replace the little door bumper with a piece of foam to help keep the door tight against the latch and eliminate rattling while in tow.

No, I didn't bother sanding out every burn mark from the inside curves...

[ELM]

Looking great and your moving right along.

[Dusty Mark]

I hung the cabin's cabinet doors today. I also put light-gauge, galvanized fencing material on the dog kennel. It should be plenty strong to convince Copper that he's secured.



Copper didn't seem to keen on being closed in the new kennel.



He's got plenty of height inside.



He settled in pretty quick. I may have to put a latch on the bottom if he starts pushing on the door. I'm starting out with the least hardware for now.

[KCStudly]

Very nice work. All of your door gaps look nice and straight and even. Neatly done!

[Dusty Mark]

Thanks! The way to get even door gaps is to mark the hinge holes with an awl before you cut the corners out to remove the plywood that becomes the door from the face frame. I forgot to do this on one door and I had to "cheat" by using round washer head screws to get the gaps even.

I made good progress on the wiring this weekend and should complete it tomorrow...

[Dusty Mark]

I spent most of the weekend wiring the teardrop and made good progress. All that remains is to run the 8 gauge wire to the car, wire the hatch after I build it, and wire the running lights under the trailer.



PD 4045, a 12-volt outlet, and a 110-volt GFCI outlet are located under the dog kennel. I ran an extension of this 110 circuit to the storage area under the air conditioner. This is where I'll plug in the A/C.



The battery is stored behind the door. I'll tidy this up when I remove shore power and the PD 4045 to install the aluminum skin. The grounding bus is in view. I also wired in a 30-amp fuse between the PD 4045 and the battery.



A 110-volt GFCI outlet and a 12-volt outlet service the galley. The wires run up the left side wall into the ceiling.



We're quite pleased with this marine LED dome light with touch control.



The dome light also switches between white and red. We're installing one of these in the galley lid. Supposedly bugs are less attracted to red light.



The LED reading lights cast just the right amount of light and are cool to the touch. This picture also shows my mistake on the walls. I didn't smooth the curve prior to routing the ledge. This created small gaps where the ceiling meets the wall. I'm going to experiment with a narrow, colored caulk bead throughout the camper to mask imperfections and seal things up better.



View from galley. I ran a ground line to each circuit. The two porch lamps share a circuit and the reading lamps/cabin dome light also share a circuit. Junctions are soldered, secured with a wire nut, and taped. Splices are soldered, heat shrinked, and taped.

I ops checked the exhaust fan and discovered the remote doesn't work to increase the fan speed. That' a non-starter since the manual controls are located above and behind the air conditioner and almost impossible to reach. We'll see how timely warranty support is with these Max Fans...



Porch light junction.



Cabin dome light junction. I pocket screwed a piece of 1/2" plywood to support the light on this flat span.

I had this wired last night and realized that I had no slack for future light repair/replacement. I removed the wiring and fixture, cut a bigger access hole, rewired, and coiled the extra slack in the larger hole. Now I can make any future repairs without having to remove the roof!



View of reading light junction.



Wired with repair slack.



Slack tucked into fixture. Notice how I reinforced the area for mounting the light. I cut two layers of 1/8" plywood, applied polyurethane glue from a caulk tube, and held things in place over night with clamps set on the edge of the roof spar. It worked well.