Now the fun starts

[MickinOz]

Been thinking.
I suppose, since the roof is double skinned with the spars in between, I could lay them on their sides. That'd give a little more height than I have in Ol #1, and surely two layers of 6.5mm / 1/4" structural ply separated by 19mm timber is going to be strong?

[edgeau]

Did you build with the walls sitting on top of the floor?

Yes I did. 5 foot wide base so I had room to run a board on the inside to attach both floor and wall but still fit a queen mattress.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[rjgimp]

Been thinking.
I suppose, since the roof is double skinned with the spars in between, I could lay them on their sides. That'd give a little more height than I have in Ol #1, and surely two layers of 6.5mm / 1/4" structural ply separated by 19mm timber is going to be strong?

She'll be right, mate... and you don't need to call me Shirley!

[MickinOz]

A colleague from the IT department used to get the computers and the network out of his head by doing woodwork.
He ended up scoring a very well paying job in New York developing networking systems, so he sold up and set sail for the Big Apple.
This necessitated a garage sale.
I bought his compound mitre saw for not a lot of money, and a few other things.
That Makita has been absolutely invaluable in my TD builds.
The other thing he had was a couple of work tables.
I didn't want them, nowhere to put them, etc.
Just before he left, he called up and said he'd have to throw them down the dump, would I just come and get them?
A little later, I found one of them had a new makita circular saw bolted underneath to make a saw bench.
I use that little saw quite a bit, and yesterday I re-installed it so I could rip some of my 42 x 19 timber down to 30 x 19.
Worked really well, but I only did the one piece.
I looked at it and decided it wouldn't be strong enough. I went back and looked at my other build journal and realised that the roof spars were 30 x 30, not 30 x 19.
So bugger it, back to 42 x 19 with wide face vertical.
Will end up with a floor to ceiling height of 42 inches, which is 1 1/2 inches more than the published dimension for the Kuffel Creek reproduction Benroy Plans, and same as the Generic Benroy.

[rjgimp]

A little later, I found one of them had a new makita circular saw bolted underneath to make a saw bench.
I use that little saw quite a bit, and yesterday I re-installed it so I could rip some of my 42 x 19 timber down to 30 x 19.
Worked really well, but I only did the one piece.
I looked at it and decided it wouldn't be strong enough. I went back and looked at my other build journal and realised that the roof spars were 30 x 30, not 30 x 19.
So bugger it, back to 42 x 19 with wide face vertical.
Will end up with a floor to ceiling height of 42 inches, which is 1 1/2 inches more than the published dimension for the Kuffel Creek reproduction Benroy Plans, and same as the Generic Benroy.

So... I'm not always the sharpest spoon in the drawer but a thought has entered my cranium.

What you ripped from the 42 x 19 piece, minus the sawdust created in the process, is a 30 x 11 piece right? I realize you'll lose a bit of strength but couldn't you glue the pieces together in the other direction? Last I checked 11mm plus 19mm comes to... <checks calculator> 30mm, right? So you would end up with a roughly 30 x 30 piece with a seam in it. Would that do the trick?

[MickinOz]

No mate, cut 42mm a 19 down to 30 x 19, so ended up with a 30 x 19 and about a 19 x 9 mm off-cut.
But you are onto something.
I'm going to shut my yap for now. My posts on the subject are really showing people what a dithering indecisive fule I can be.
I enlisted the missus and # 3 son for a bit of a brainstorm yesterday, and we have come up with a reasonably elegant solution that will result in slightly more head room than Ol #1, but instead of announcing it here then changing my mind yet again, I'm planning to test the execution first.

Went to Melrose last night, a town making a name for itself with its mountain biking trails and annual MB competition.
I was meeting up with a bunch of South African born engineers.
The thing about Saffers is they like instant results.
I had a bit of trouble convincing them that building your own trailer is in anyway a sensible thing to do.

Those mountain bikers! The park over there offers powered sites for $40 a night or unpowered sites for $15.
Since I don't need any power I naturally voted for the unpowered site which saw me directed across the creek to the unpowered camping area, which is where all the tent dwelling mountain bikers camp.
This morning I climbed out at 6.30 to put the coffee on. I looked up to see a bloke come out of the showers and stand in the morning sun drying himself off.

I'm like dood, put it away. He proceeded to ride his bike back to his campsite wearing nothing but his pink bath towel.

So, I'm thinking just my luck it wasn't a babe.
So I start heading over the creek, and lo and behold there's a sweet young thing standing alongside her tent getting dressed.
They is definitely special, them cycle-ists.

[rjgimp]

No mate...
But you are onto something.

Well, like I said, not the sharpest spoon. We also have the f***ing co-vid in our house so my brain isn't firing on all cylinders lately.

[MickinOz]

Covid? Bummer. Hope it's relatively mild.

I cannot believe how lucky we have been. And it is only luck of the draw.
918 cases in the whole state of South Australia since the pandemic began.
4 deaths, which is a downer, but only 918 cases in 1.8 million people. 0.05% infection rate.
None detected in my hometown.
None.
So f-ing lucky.

I have manned up, overcome all nagging doubts and had the shots. ( A spectacularly unpleasant experience.)
I have surrendered my rights to privacy and sign in at all venues. (I do it because the operator of the venue is expected to police it and gets in a shit-load of trouble if I am found not signing in and masking up.)
I wear the f-ing mask.

That is about the sum total of the current impact of Corona on my life-style. Was a few more serious inconveniences last year.
Oh, and I'm keen to head back to New Zealand, that'll have to wait a while.

[twisted lines]

circular saw bolted underneath to make a saw bench.
I use that little saw quite a bit

Still trying to finnish mine
TL

[MickinOz]

circular saw bolted underneath to make a saw bench.
I use that little saw quite a bit

Still trying to finnish mine
TL

While you are rigging it, see if you can rig some sort of guard.
This thing is just a spinning blade poking up out of the table surface.
One slip and bye bye hand.
I followed all the U-Bend vids and got myself a notched stick to push with, but its still a worry.

There is no real "fence" to run the wood against, I clamped a piece of aluminium extrusion down.

But it works, I got a pretty precise cut.

[twisted lines]

That's how we cut drift boats
I got the fence done and used with a router,
my little saw is cordless so you cant let go;
and I am having second, third thoughts about reaching under
with it spinning to stop it

[swoody126]

for cutting boat panels from plywood i set up a knee high pair of saw horses w/ a short stack of pywood on them

just enuff plywood to keep the surface flat n level

on top ot the plywood i lay a 3/4" thick sheet of open cell insuation foam

lay the plywood flat on the foam and set the bade depth on your circular saw/skill saw to just go thru the plywood by one saw tooth's depth

set that shallow you can cut curves easier than with a jig saw and end up with a much fairer shape with a lot less fretting and sweating

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the height allows you to kneel on the wood to hold it and your fingers aren't exposed to the whirring blade

just another way to skin a cat

sw

[MickinOz]

That's how we cut drift boats
I got the fence done and used with a router,
my little saw is cordless so you cant let go;
and I am having second, third thoughts about reaching under
with it spinning to stop it

The Makita saw I'm using is mains powered. I have locked the trigger with a cable tie, I just turn it off/on at the wall.
Apart from the lack of safety guard, it's a pretty functional setup. It works pretty well for ripping long sticks.

for cutting boat panels from plywood i set up a knee high pair of saw horses w/ a short stack of pywood on them

just enuff plywood to keep the surface flat n level

on top ot the plywood i lay a 3/4" thick sheet of open cell insuation foam

lay the plywood flat on the foam and set the bade depth on your circular saw/skill saw to just go thru the plywood by one saw tooth's depth

set that shallow you can cut curves easier than with a jig saw
sw

Full sized plywood panels are not much problem for me.
Straight cuts I just do with the circular saw. As you say, set the blade so it only just goes through the full thickness. Much easier to steer, and far less splintering of the top veneer of the plywood.

I reckon I have the curves nailed. I have made up a compass that attaches to the router.
The pivot point is screwed to the main panel. On this build I managed to locate the screw holes so they are covered by the joinery inside the cabin.
I mark the curve with a pencil or nail, rough cut just outside the line with the jigsaw, then come back and machine it with the router attached to the compass.
Works very well. Only have to do each curve once. Subsequent pieces are cut using the first as a template.
Even worked on the Generic Benroy rear curve which is two radii.

Routered curve.JPG (37.67 KiB) Viewed 875 times

On the subject of jigsaws, I worked out why the blade sometimes cuts at an angle.
Its because I try to steer it like a car, If you wander off the line, it's a bit of a natural reaction to try to push sideways to get the blade back on the line. You eventually do, but in the mean time the blade has been flexed at an angle.
I realise now, the proper thing to do is steer the jigsaw like a forklift truck.
i.e. if you want to go left, don't try to push the front of the saw to the left, swing the back end of the saw out to the right, which steers the blade left without trying to actually push across to the left.

[MickinOz]

Progress this day:

Got the polyurethane out and saturated the edge face and the bottom inch or so of the sidewalls.
The sidewalls are to hang down 3/4 inch below the floor frame to conceal all the spacers I had to use to get the floor to sit flat on the trailer frame which seems to have come from the factory with a 1 inch twist in it.

Received my door latches from the the good 'ol US of A.
The vagaries of global commerce mean I bought door latches made in China from the US that were delivered by Australia Post.


Happy with them. Installation looks very simple, after all I have installed a very similar item on the door of my motorcycle shed.
(Every Aussie country boy has a toy shed.)

door latch.JPG (58.08 KiB) Viewed 850 times

Last but not least I cut about 22 inches off the drawbar of the trailer.
It had a kink in it. I didn't see it when I bought it, as it was hidden by the winch post.
I suspect that the trailer was jackknifed while reversing.

So I cut off the bent bit, relocated the jockey wheel and drilled some new holes to bolt the hitch back on.
This leaves me with 55 inches or 1400mm from the front wall of the TD to the centre of the towball.
So slightly more than half the length of the body of the TD. Should be OK.
Would need to be at 90 degrees to the truck for anything to hit.

I think it still looks OK.

Shortened trailer.JPG (167.89 KiB) Viewed 850 times

[swoody126]

make sure that tongue jack is mounted far enuff back so you can open the tailgate of your pick up without them making violent love w/ each other

no need to ask why i share this ;-)

sw