Father/Sons Project

[Bezoar]

After reading many, many posts and build journals here, as well as Tony Latham and Steve Fredrick's books, I recently realized that my oldest son is graduating high school in 3 1/2 years, so if I am going to do this with them, I'd better get started! We found an old pop-up trailer that had been converted into a utility trailer with a soggy MDF deck and lots of rust. We removed the wood and are tackling the rust now.

We have already enjoyed mulling over design options and are settling on this use for our trailer, about 11 feet long and 76 inches wide, with a queen bed that makes into a u-shaped dinette to wait out bad weather and play games without the wind blowing the pieces away! Putting twin bunk beds up front. Not sure how quickly we will progress, but I'll try to post as things change!

[Bezoar]

I've gotten the rust off, but decided to wait until it is warm enough to do the painting/rust protection outside, so I'm working on the floor.

I'm doing 1 1/2 x 1 1/2" floor framing with ply top and bottom, since it is a standee. Using poplar, except for the 11 ft side rails, which are white oak (glued up 3/4" pieces, on end), since I could get some cut-offs from another project in that length at a "too good to pass up" price!

I wanted to put half lap joints on the rails that don't have metal frame underneath them, but was puzzling with how to do it. I decided to clamp scrap on both sides of rail and then use skill saw set to correct depth of cut to mark the edges of joint, then use hand-held router with straight bit to remove rest of the wood. It worked pretty well.

Slowly but surely!

[Bezoar]

I went to the local lumberyard. Thanks to COVID, options were slim and prices were high. I ended up with 1/2" CDX for top and bottom of the floor. It has so many defects, I think I'll have to fill the cracks and knot holes with epoxy before I can lay down some kind of floor covering. I used PL premium to glue on the top and flipped it over and tonight the boys and I cut and inserted the 1 1/2" Styrofoam. Next we apply the ply for the road-side of the floor, then we get to start on the walls!

[greygoos]

Looks good so far. Keep us posted

[Shadow Catcher]

Building memories, one of the best things we can do as parents.

[TimC]

The kids will always look back fondly at your project. I'm building with my 30 something son who lives in MKE, just under four hours south. It has really been one of the joys of being a dad.

Tim

[Bezoar]

Got the road-side of floor water proofed this weekend. It was a real eye opener how heavy the floor was with the 1 1/2 inch framing and 2 skins of 1/2 inch CDX. We decided to leave the floor off and finish the rust-proofing/painting of the metal frame instead of setting it back on the frame and then having to move that heavy thing off/on again! That is goal for the week (likely the weekend).

[DaddyJeep]

Good job Dad.


My kids help on mine when requested, but not as much as yours. Mine are a little older and have their own stuff going on.

[Bezoar]

As much as I'd rather be building, I bit the bullet and applied the degreaser and then the acid etch in preparation for the POR 15 rust treatment/primer. The etch prefers at least 70 degrees, so we burned through some propane tonight! The outside temp has warmed up to 4 ABOVE - a definite improvement over the last week! I'll let the frame dry a few days before tackling the 2 coats of primer, probably this weekend.



Thank you for your kind words about working with my sons - I have struggled to get them interested in working with me in woodworking, but they are looking forward to camping, so I can convince them to come to the shop with me a few times a week for this project! It helps that they have helped with the design/planning and choosing parts, etc.

[TimC]

Thank you for your kind words about working with my sons - I have struggled to get them interested in working with me in woodworking, but they are looking forward to camping, so I can convince them to come to the shop with me a few times a week for this project! It helps that they have helped with the design/planning and choosing parts, etc.

It's tough at that age (teens) to get them engaged. My sons are in their mid thirties and I really enjoy working with them on different projects. When they were teens I felt that my projects were being forced on them. I think it was more my impatience than theirs. You are building more than a teardrop. Congrats on their interest.

Yeah, I know I already said all this. I'm just very impressed...

Tim

[Bezoar]

I got the POR-15 rustproofing done. Now it needs a coat of tractor paint and we can lay the frame back down and seal the top of the floor. That stuff smells nasty and adequate ventilation was hard with the cold weather and trying to keep the shop at 70 degrees! It leaves a shiny smooth hard finish, though, so it will be worth the $ and work if it prevents/minimizes the rust in the future. I'm glad the metal part of this project is almost done, I'll be cleaning rust dust off things in my shop for a long time - and that is after I thought I had cleaned up!

The floor assembly is standing on it's side to be out of the way of the painting, so I took the chance to mock-up the side profile and see how the boys fit - they are both taller than me, at 13 and 15! The oldest one said "It's smaller than I thought it would be!"



They should be able to stand up in the front and the back is a queen bed/dinette, and we made sure nobody would scrape their head sitting in the rearmost seat. Makes me anxious to keep the project moving - this snow can't last forever! At least it better not - the path to my shop door is getting awfully narrow!

[Bezoar]

I finished painting over the POR-15 tonight. I choose "Massey Ferguson Gray." Next comes wiring the lights and then we can put the floor assembly back on and start on the walls.

[Gold5one]

You have a great chassis to work with= many possibilities.
When I saw all that snow, I realized this camper might need some insulation! You are lucky to have that help.
I'm going to try and get my 21 yr old daughter to help me on my next build. Who knows, she might even use it in the future

[working on it]

I finished painting over the POR-15 tonight. I choose "Massey Ferguson Gray"...

* Your choice of color for your frame interests me...I chose "Massey Ferguson Gray" for my sidewalls. I love that color...I painted my bedroom that shade as a teen at home (in the same acrylic enamel tractor/implement paint I used on the trailer, 50 years later).

* My father had to cover it with ?????? coats of white, later on, as a basecoat for my mother's 1970' s earth-tone, after I moved out.

[Bezoar]

Still trying to work on the trailer a little bit almost every night. Adopting my motto when I took up the challenge to participate in a 5K run with coworkers - No matter how slow you go, you're lapping everyone on the couch.

Youngest son and I installed and wired the running lights (except a high center third brake/turn/clearance light that will have to come once we have something "high" to mount it to!) He found he loves working with wires and batteries, etc. So that was great to expose him to that.

I put the 3rd coat of epoxy on the inside of my wheel well boxes last night, so those will be going on soon. I would like to find some flooring cover - likely roll of vinyl sheet - to put down on the deck before we start going vertical. I suppose it would be a good time to bolt the floor to the frame too.