Tom & Shelly's build

[tony.latham]

Cabin Fever

I caught that and I like it. She looks 'near ready.

Tony

[Tom&Shelly]

Cabin Fever

I caught that and I like it. She looks 'near ready.

Tony

Just about. If I didn't get tied down in consulting work, I'd be able to jump on the galley and get her finished. Oh well, the consulting pay goes into the post-COVID travel fund!

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

Cabin Fever came out for a bath today. We still need to put conspicuity tape around the trailer frame and re-install the fenders, but this gives the general idea





The third shot is courtesy of living on the side of a hill! (Not a drone shot)

Here's the rig--colors match nicely



And this is pretty much everything in my world



When we hit it with water we found the lip on the hatch works fine, but the four corners do still leak despite laying some extra seal to attempt mitigation. I have a few other ideas we'll try in a day or two.

We are disappointed in the Challenger Doors: For one thing, the passenger doors leak through the door handles! Not sure what we'll do about that one. The aluminum door frames are extruded aluminum bent around. They tend to leak around where the ends join. Seems like the water ducts through whatever tiny gaps there are between the aluminum. We'll have to try sealing those.

Those passenger doors have two seals, a D ring seal on the door and an inner K ring seal on the frame. So I hit it horizontally with water, probably as bad, effectively, as the worst blowing storm, but when the water gets in the gap, on top of the D ring seal, there is no place for it to go until the door is open, when it runs down the inside of the door.

The front cargo door seems to have a gap where the D ring seal doesn't cover it completely. If necessary, I may have to replace the 5/8 X 3/8 inch D ring seal with, maybe, 1/2 x 1/2 inch seal. the existing extra eighth inch width does nothing for us, but the extra eighth inch in height might seal it a bit better. That front cargo door is going to catch the rain when we drive through storms!

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

I'm beginning our galley design!

We decided a while ago that a cooler just wouldn't fit, and so we'll take it/them in the back of the truck. That also makes it handy if we're on a driving day-trip (often our style of camping) and want a cold drink. Plus, it helps keep the bears away from the teardrop (though it puts them onto the Taco--unless there is a bear box at the camp site).

So the general idea for under the counter is four sets of heavy duty floor mount drawer slides with: pots/dishes, small Sterilite box, large Sterilite box and two 2.5 gal water jugs



The pots/dishes and small box drawers will be mounted on the lid to the battery compartment below the galley. Above those will be a cubby to hold the Coleman stove and a drawer for the utensils and silverware



We like camping with our vintage 60's aluminum pots and pans. I'd described to Shelly what I'd used in Boy Scouts back in the day and one day she found a set at a garage sale. The only thing we don't like are the aluminum frying pans, so we'll have a 9 inch cast iron pan in there next to the nested pots. The Sterilite containers will hold the dry food, and will be removable to go into the truck or bear boxes when appropriate.

On the left hand side, I need to leave a little more than two inches at the back for the electrical boxes, wires, and, most importantly, a ventilation outlet for the PD 4045, which will go in a Baltic Birch box above the counter. So the utensil drawer loses two inches. Not a big problem for most of the utensils, except for the long handled fork, tongs, and spatula (for cooking over fires). I was wondering about trying to squeeze in a 2nd narrow drawer when Shelly suggested a drawer with a pocket in back, "like an upside down New Mexico". I think she's talking about the Gadsden Purchase minus Arizona. If you're curious, a map reveals what she has in mind.

So, instead of making a straight forward drawer, I've now got to figure out how to make that!

All designed, except for the details like measurements! Still working out those. They are leading us to think our counter should be half inch ply (3/4 means we lose a valuable 1/4" under the counter!) We're now thinking of using a laminate over AC plywood, with some oak trim (a builder friend gave us) to cap the front. The trim will give us a lip which we'll coat with epoxy so liquids spilled on the counter stay there.

Trying to get the most out of available space, I had Shelly close me in the empty galley while I marked where the gussets end. I even had her close the latches to draw them in. I am hoping she'll let me out soon...



Tom

[noseoil]

Tom, how is that spare attached to the side panel? It's a fair amount of weight hanging on the panel with bumps & wind loading, so I'm curious about the fasteners you used to anchor it in place to keep it from coming adrift during a storm...

P.S. I hope Shelly let you out, or did you have to sleep there?

[Tom&Shelly]

Tom, how is that spare attached to the side panel? It's a fair amount of weight hanging on the panel with bumps & wind loading, so I'm curious about the fasteners you used to anchor it in place to keep it from coming adrift during a storm...?

Hi Tim,

When we had the trailer built, we had the spare attachment welded on



Sometimes created a challenge as we erected the teardrop walls, etc. Should protect the walls from the spare and vice versa.

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

P.S. I hope Shelly let you out, or did you have to sleep there?

It started out as an argument over air conditioning. I claim 89 degrees and muggy IS a condition...

Tom

[tony.latham]

I claim 89 degrees and muggy IS a condition...

I think that qualifies. 90º/15% here.

Tony

[Tom&Shelly]

Not sure this qualifies as part of the build, but the dirt work is started for the hanger!



It will be a 3 bay metal garage, and Cabin Fever will live in one when not on the road.

This project started last Summer, when we bought a small plot flat enough to build a garage on. (The rest of my land is one side or the other of a very steep hill*.) Then we discovered the county wouldn't let us build a garage on a lot without a house, and so we hired a surveyor and spent about three months combining this lot (legally) with the one our cabin is on. So now the place we wanted to build a garage has a house on the same lot. (Still not sure why we had to hire a surveyor for that, but it is the county's rules.)

Then we found a metal building company in our price range, and they went to the county for permits. About that time, the county shut down for some sort of pandemic, or something. Several months later, they were ready to issue the permit, but they noticed we didn't have a maintenance contract on our septic system (not a rule at the time I had the septic system put in!)

OK, so I'll admit, some time and later, we no longer had water seeping down our driveway. Somehow, I feel the county got the best of us in this whole deal!

Anyway, while waiting, I did take down the trees growing on the future driveway pad, and so we have firewood for this winter. Also, during the pandemic, the metal building company was shut down. So timelines are still unclear, but we seem to be making progress!

At the rate I'm building the teardrop, it'll be a photo finish which will be completed first!

Tom

* When I bought the land, the real estate listing said, and I'm not lying, "Gentle slope. Lot's of flat land, especially near the top."

[tony.latham]

[quote...]and I'm not lying...[/quote]

When I heard that phrase in a previous career, it was time to get the evidence tags out and start writing.

Tony

[Tom&Shelly]

and I'm not lying...

When I heard that phrase in a previous career, it was time to get the evidence tags out and start writing.

Tony

Why officer! I'd never lie! Lying is a sin! But even me sainted Irish grandmother would embellish a story: purely out of politeness and consideration to better entertain her audience.

(I sometimes started my technical briefings in the Air Force with that joke. Amazing what you can get away with after that as an opener!)

Father's side of my family was, as a matter of fact, Irish (displaced by a few generations). My grandfather was not only Irish, but played some semi-professional soccer, and so had the two qualifications necessary in the 1920's to join the Philadelphia police department. He was a beat cop for 30 some years.

My Dad had a story that, as a teenager during World War II, he got an after school job at an Army depot. Turns out his supervisor knew his dad. The guy ran numbers during the depression and hated it when he ran into Granddad, because he had to pay him off.

Of course, I don't know if that story is strictly true, but it did entertain the audience over a few campfires.

Tom

[tony.latham]

Lying is a sin!

It wouldn't have been fun if they hadn't lied.

Tony

[Tom&Shelly]

The lower galley shelves are done and ready for finishing



Particularly with the pots and pans drawer and the water, I'm afraid to pull them all out at once: the tear might tip back!



Those are 150 lb rails, so I think we are okay with the weight. The left two shelves sit on the battery compartment cover. To get to the battery, all we have to do is remove the items from the drawers, remove the drawers, remove the screws holding the cover down and lift using the convenient early American style folding lift handles



Of course, by the time we need to do that, there will be a frame around the drawers to negotiate as well. Best idea I could come up with

The battery cover is 1/2 inch AC plywood laminated to some 3/16 inch non-waterproof floor material that I'd used for router templates. Before laminating, I cut out the 3/16 inch sheet around the battery case, as it is slightly proud of the floor. I plan to coat at least the underside with epoxy, and then will seal around the battery case with the same foam seal I used on the hatch. The 3/16 inch sheet should allow it to compress just right. (I'll show more pictures later.)

The boxes are all made from quarter inch AC and Baltic birch plywood, held together with strips of poplar and Titebond III



I plan to epoxy the insides for waterproofing, and then will varnish the entire thing. The lids are made out of 1/4 inch Baltic birch, glassed and epoxied on one side. Some were left over from the door cut outs from the sides of the teardrop. Some came from a mis-guided attempt to make a side panel before gluing it to the skeleton. I still have enough of that material for the silverware drawer bottom and cubby floor for the stove. I cut out the cut-outs in the lids using Forstner bits and my trusty scroll saw



My favorite part of this was the pots & pans drawer, which was so clever (if I may say so myself), I decided it could have been invented by German engineers, so I call it das klanken gestopper.



Somewhat surprisingly, Google translate gives a correct translation of that phrase from German to English. (It's surprising because I learned all the German I know by watching Hogan's Heroes reruns.) It also does okay translating the phrase from Dutch or Afrikaners, though without the finer nuances. But I digress...

That aluminum pot contains about all of the other utensils we need



though I noticed we have no bowls. Shelly reminded me we used the aluminum bowls from our Boy Scout style mess kits for that, so we'll have to find room for them.

We bought a brand new Lodge 8 inch frying pan for the kit, since our 10 inch pan wouldn't fit. Shelly likes the fact the lid to the larger Camp Chef Dutch oven fits on the pan, but I'm not sure what will happen when we add that heavy cold piece of metal to a simmering breakfast.



The base is another piece of glassed Baltic birch over 3/4 inch AC plywood, backed by a scrap of 1/8 inch Baltic birch



I was going to use 1/4 inch BB, but realized it wouldn't quite clear the lift handle for the battery lid. Oh! almost forgot to mention: in order to keep the aluminum nested-pot-set low enough so we can store the stove above it, I had to go below the 1.5 inch tall floor mounted sliders on this drawer. I traded width for height.

I could've figured out a jig to route out the circles, but instead decided to wing it out the scroll saw. Came out okay if your don't look too closely!

Next steps are to finish these, build the frame and then the silverware drawer. Once the frame is in, I plan to build some face fronts for these.

Our plan for the counter right now is tentatively to use 1/2 inch AC (which I may make by laminating two 1/4 AC sheets--since I have an overabundance of that and no 1/2 inch on hand), and then buy some laminate to cover it. Could change our minds and go a different direction, however.

(Wow! That's a long post! Tell you what, just read the parts you are interested in!)

Tom

[tony.latham]

Seeing all of those Dutches, maybe I do wanna camp with you too...

Tony

[rjgimp]

Trying to get the most out of available space, I had Shelly close me in the empty galley while I marked where the gussets end. I even had her close the latches to draw them in. I am hoping she'll let me out soon...

Tom

Holy claustrophobia, Batman!!!