A 'learn as I go' trailer

[HMK]

This is just my opinion, but when I build out of oak, I do so because I like the look. When you stain oak, you cover that beautiful wood up. If I did anything, it would be a real light shade and then polyurethaned for protection.


Btw, your galley is sweet!

[antalog]

Appreciate all the input! I feel like Im getting closer to pulling the trigger. And don't want to waste much time.

Last night after a bout of impatiens and a few swigs of the creature I stained one panel. I chose #3 the English Chestnut. I figured Id give the most drastic stain and compare it to the unstained frame.



Its cool and really like the contrast but... ehh, Im not 100% when I picture it all in place in the galley. I hate being indecisive.

Im still mulling it over but Im getting closer. Just for the hell of it I tried some burned wood / hand textured technique.



Pretty cool, imo!

I know what you're saying HMK, the oak is beautiful in its natural state. The frame is oak and I did think I would be leaving it unstained, the panels top layer im pretty certain is maple? but I could be wrong. Im leaning towards KISS (keep it simple stupid)

[HMK]

The burned look is very interesting. Many years back, I did some staining on oak that turned it black. It was pretty cool. I don't know if I still have the recipe or not, but it had a lot of tannin in it. The tannin is what made the oak black.

I like what's you've done there!

[antalog]

Well Golden Oak won out. I didn't want to muddle over the issue any longer and liked the lighter color as a whole.

I ended up staining for 15 minutes, the longest time the can suggests. I feel like maybe I shouldn't have gone that long. As a result it came out kinda muddy


Mid-staining




Sealed with Spar Urethane - second coat. I also stained the frames but for just a minute, roughly.


Dry fitting the door with handle. Darker than I would have hoped. But still cool! Should look nice when complete.

Polyurethaned all the galley panels as well. No stain.

Nice figure on that one! Mixed with flaws haha.


Satin finish. Did 3 coats.

I've come to realize that I did more of a picture frame construction for the frame portion of the 'frame and panel door' with lined miter cuts. Since reading some woodworking articles I guess its more common to do a mortise and tennon. Live and learn

I also learned that with that picture frame style I should have glued up and sanded the frame first and then stained and sealed it. But... I said it once and I'll say it again


Here is one door gluing together in a Harbor Freight frame thing. Works pretty good. ^pretty results!

Just placed all the handles in their respective areas for this photo before I drill them all in.


Another mistake I've realized about staining and sealing the individual pieces first before gluing them is, obviously the glue isnt taking hold as well as it would on unfinished wood. Its too late to sand the surfaces so I just have to live with it.

The battery door in the galley has its own style handle and hinges different than all the other doors. I tried my hand at chiseling in the spaces to inlay those special handles.



Before I start to place all the doors in I need to update those galley walls with the bead board. I posted earlier saying that I felt like it would make a nicer finish and would give a larger rabbit edge for the galley lip to sit on.

I started to retrofit the new walls.


(plus check out the shiny new galley carcass!)

I first cut the curve of the outer wall then placed that along the galley lid and traced the inside curve to get the proper curve for the wall and galley lid.



The jigsaw was a real tough to use. Im just not good with that thing. So I took it over to my bandsaw and that seemed to work WAY better.


And here it is roughed in!


and here was the before. Much better.


Just need to sand to shape and stain and finish and glue.

Now, I don't want to curse myself but my wife and mines 8 year anniversary is on the 24th of this month (11 days). I'm really not sure 100% if it can be done, but it would blow her mind if I had the trailer finished for that day. Last she saw it I was still dealing with the mold situation, so it would be sure to rock her world to pull up in it. (plus I haven't bought her anything else ) Its ambitious as hell but Im gunna see how far I can get. Even if I dont have all the finishing touches in. Skinned and looking nice will do just fine

Also the seasons are changing and another fall in that leaky garage would really piss me off.

[pchast]

You can improve the Corner glue hold by cutting in Splines.
Make a Jig to hold the doors at a 45deg angle and cut a saw
kerf in the middle of the corner's sides. Glue in the spline.

Like
https://www.google.com/search?client=op ... 8&oe=UTF-8

[antalog]

Its all there. Just needs to be buttoned up in a few areas and then screwed into place. Including making the panel for the breaker.

[antalog]

You can improve the Corner glue hold by cutting in Splines.
Make a Jig to hold the doors at a 45deg angle and cut a saw
kerf in the middle of the corner's sides. Glue in the spline.

Like
https://www.google.com/search?client=op ... 8&oe=UTF-8

Thanks for the tip, good tip to have in the back pocket.

The more I look at my wavy-gravy lines on the galley walls, the more I get bummed out. I definitely feel like it takes away from its overall quality. I still need to router out the top most section of the wall to make room for the weather stripping, just want it to feel as straight as possible.

Any suggestions on how to work those curves close to perfect at this point? Feels really late in the game to be thinking that, but any advice is welcomed!

[antalog]

I think I may have jump the gun on myself yesterday. Not sure why I was worried about the lines on the outermost wall as I knew those needed to be routed down. Just getting too much into my own head I guess.
Got the router bit I needed today from Home Depot and jumped right in. I used the lines of the hatch as my guide as I knew they were as close to smooth as I could get them when I sanded them. Then used the rabbet bit to router down the walls to fit the weatherproofing.




After a couple passes it worked like a charm, although if you look closely you can see where the bearing slipped off the guide and i dug out some of the wall.


ok, back at it... clocks tickin'.

[antalog]

Oh, I should also ask,
Does anyone have any leads on an online distributor that can do painted aluminum sheet up to 5 feet wide?

I bought "Charcoal Metallic" from mirage inc for the sides initially, but now my design for the skin also includes doing aluminum on the top as well and the trailer is 5 feet wide. Im going to try to call around so local places here too. Hopefully I can get a sheet that matches color...

[antalog]

Sure enough.... life happens. Back at it now and finally feel like Im making bigger final decisions.

I put the 1/8" inner skin on the hatch.



I used a stain and sealer combo thing beadboard. It came out ok. Should probably add another layer of polyurethane



I made the insert for the electronics panel. Although I need to go back and add a switch for the galley light.


Heres the path of wires around the insulation.


I knew I wanted to do some kind of wood/metal combo on the outside of the trailer. Ive been battling that decision for a while. The dimensions of the trailer drove many of my decisions. Since I first bought grey sheet metal for the sides, it was hard to find grey sheet in 5 foot width for the roof. So, I ended up buying four sheets of 4'x5'. I think with some conscious placement I can stitch the smaller sheets together and have it not be an issue or weird looking.

Also, I realized that the sheet metal I bought for the sides was about 4 inches too short ( ) so it took some tinkering but I came up with a design that solves the issue nicely I feel.

I did some crude sketches while brainstorming.


And eventually landed on this idea

The front portion is wood and the rear is the sheet metal.

This finish tackles a few of my issues.
1) It leaves the back curve for metal and the front for wood, which will be easier to work with.
2) It makes up for the 4 inches of short metal on the sides
3) It will line up many of my 4' seam issues
4) It has an inner convex curve and my hope is to stain the wood to give the appearance of depth, like the wood is going deep under the metal (more of that to come soon)

First I put the masonite layer back on and am now training the front layer of 1/8" wood to curve before I glue, possibly stain, and coat with west systems.



And here you can see my pencil marks on the sidewalls to show where about the curve in the sheet metal is going to be.

I ordered my trim and am hopefully going to be ordering the west systems epoxy tonight. From what I can tell by research Im doing 105 and 207 since the bulk of what I would be covering is unstained ply. I have a bit more research to do before I purchase but Im hoping to do it tonight. Im also thinking of getting the west system 610 adhesive for the leading edge of the sheet metal curve. Im not exactly sure of the best solution for attaching the curved sheet metal. I want to avoid screwing it down, and I dont really have the means to curve aluminum bar for a makeshift trim.

[antalog]

My new approach to keeping the trailer dry and the fresh air flowing.


Makeshift canopy and a fan on at all times.

Applying the finished wood layer

A first tube of glue for the front, no photo of the second tube cause I was against the clock


And here is with the straps, the masonite to prevent stains and horizontal braces.


I say stains cause if you see in the previous post I had straps right on the outer plywood well the straps seems to leave some kind of moisture stains that havent gone away after a week. So... that was a loss.



24-hours later and a good deal on a new trim router




Gunna clean up the edges, put up the sides and apply the West System.

-promo shot-

[antalog]

This picture cracks me up!

Glued on the side veneers.

[antalog]