Franks First Build [10/13/2012] "FRANK'S DOG HOUSE"

[crumbruiser]

HAPPY EASTER everyone! I hope everyone enjoys the blessings that the Savior has given.
Boy, what a busy week. I would like to slow down some but, working outside, I'm afraid the weather will turn bad . Any way this is what got accomplished.
I attached the front wall with help from this. This made it a lot easier.

I cut the lower side walls.

Cut and glued "bonding boards".




I evidently forgot to get a pic of the finished product, anyway, got those glued and nailed.

Attached the roof spars.


Cut and attached the mid bulkheads. I would just like to say that this thin plywood is a pain to work with, It wants bend and bow. I'm just not having much fun with it.

Cut out the windows. Give notice to my lovely assistant. She's my 10 year old.

And I just wanted to show you what the windows look like. Some one on this forum bought some of these off of e bay. I thought looked good and bought some for my build. They had 4 in a box, they are 14"x21" and were reasonably priced. They called them shed windows. They say "safety glass". I thought they were a good deal and wanted to share.

Thanks for looking. Any comments or critiques are welcome. Soon, I really need to get at least the bottom half or 2/3rds covered in foam to keep the rain off of that plywood.
Frank

[Martiangod]

Lookin good.
The red floor looks great, wish I had a garage like that to work in

[jss06]

I like the profile and rear entry. It's coming along great.

[crumbruiser]

Thanks Chris and John. The rear entry door I like a lot. I'm surprised there aren't more "Standy's or Squaty's" around.
Well, I've been working like a dog trying to get Frank's Dog Box weather proof. I'm still not there but I get closer every day. Got the window frames done.

Got the rear bulk head or back wall built. My daughter loves to help, even if all she does is sweep. For the record, I had her using the nail gun on this back wall.

I've been glueing the foam on. This is very hard this way, glueing the foam to the wall while it's on it's side has to be better than this. It is glued on and I don't think it's going to be comeing off.

I ended up making these clothes pins or clamps for the top of the wall. They worked out very well.

Foam on the sides. This profile I'm not all that fond of, I hope it looks better than this when it's finished.

And I would like to say that I cut foam with an old butcher knife, a new Ginsu 2 knife, a new 8 inch sawzall wood blade and a dry wall key hole saw. This is my preferred method. That's right, this thing worked out best for me. It was fast, cuts straight and made a really nice mess with all of the foam dust. It was very windy today so there wasn't a whole lot of clean up to do.

Also during the week, I ran the DC wireing. The wires are a 2 wire outdoor extension cord I got at Wally World.


Last suumer, the kids and I had a field trip to Woodys Salvage. We got 2 -2 light map lights out of a couple of mini vans, 2 single lights out of an old conversion van and a decent stereo out of a pick up truck. The score for all of this was a whopping $35.00.

For the lights, I started building boxes to make them more like light fixtures. I'll post pics of those when I'm satisfied with the results.
I will be working on Franks Dog House throughout the week and will try and post a couple of times a week instead of waiting for Sunday. Thank you for the interest and I thank all of the contributers for the information they have shared.
Frank

[crumbruiser]

You know, building these is a whole lot of work. I work on this thing a few hours each night and several hours each weekend day. Oh well, some progress is still progress but I think I'm burning out so I've slowed a bit. I don't want the fire to burn out completely. Anyway, here is this weeks progress report.
The roof is going on! I would like to have Franks Dog House weather proof as soon as possible. I figured out the hard way that my canopy is NOT water proof. I foresee some water proof treatment for it some time in the future.

I don't have any of those ratchet strap things that most builders have so I had to improvise. I stretched this heavy duty tarp over the camper and cinched it down tight with these ropes tied to the tongue and the rear rails.

It's kind of hard to tell but I tied a loop in the rope and fed the end of the rope through it and cinched it down really tight and tied it off, after glueing the roof foam down with the spray foam.

I did the same treatment on both sides of the roof of course.

After the foam cured all night, I hooked the camper up and we went to my place of employment, my Boss was good enough to allow me to sand and shape the foam in our big garage. I didn't want all of that foam floating and blowing all over my neighborhood. To be honest, this is not the look I was hoping for. It's not as streamlined as I had wished but it looks nicer than I was anticipating after I had the profile cut.

I cut kerfs in the outside of the roof foam therefore I had to fill the gaps with expanding foam and I had a little extra as can be expected.

During the sanding and shaping process.

After. Take notice of the floor. I did clean up my mess, Thanks Boss.

Today, 4-22-2012 I had hopes of painting and applying the frabric to my Dog House, but the sun did not shine and the foam and vinyl spackling did not want to cure. Anyway, I did foam the rain gutter on. Notice the bamboo skewers, thank you foamy builders.


And this is where I am at now. With a bit of good weather, I will give it a final sanding and maybe aven start the canvassing process.

Sometime this past week, I also stained the front part of the interior [no pics] and today I ran 2 circuits of AC electric [not pic worthy].
Thank you for your attention.
Frank

[KCStudly]

You're doing great! The tarp and ropes method of pulling your roof down may actually be a better method than the cargo straps as I am guessing that it spread the forces out very evenly, do you think?

The shape along the roof line does look better.

Keep it up and before you know it you will be camping!

[crumbruiser]

Thanks KC,
I was tempted to fold the tarp up and make 1 really wide strap but the gromets on each end did not match up. I only used the 2 edges for the holding power since that is the only place I put the adhesive. I glued the spars from the inside individually and applied pressure with 1 of those cargo spreader bar things.

Frank

[crumbruiser]

Hi Ya'all,
This past week the weather was not good. Either it was cold or rainy, when the sun did shine, it was very windy. I did manage to get the rain gutter sanded down.

I used a belt sander for this. When sanding foam with a belt sander #1-wear a mask, #2- take it easy. A belt sander will eat foam with ease.


After that, I did more spackling and sanding. Aparently I didn't take pics of that.
My Boss was good enough to let me use the big garage again on Saturday. Good thing because it rained and rained. I was able to canvass [in my case I used old sheets] the back end of the Dog House.

After reaching this point, I realized that I wasn't going to have enough Kilz primer or enough sheets to canvass the entire build. I ended up canvassing the joints in the foam and the corners and the rain gutter.

When the primer ran out, I decided to coat the rest of the foam with paintable, rubberized undercoating from the auto parts store. I was thinking that I read in the Foamy section that this was practiced by someone. Later that evening I began to think maybe they used truck bed liner instead. It was too late.

The damage was already done.

OK. This may not have been the right stuff but it sure didn't hurt the foam or any thing. I think it looks kind of good, except the color. For the record, undercoating isn't exactly thrifty. 4 cans @ $5.00 each and it wound take another 7 cans or so to finish coating it. I'm thinking about just buying another 2 gallons of Kilz latex primer and giving it about 3 or 4 coats.
Here is the end result. I would like to put the primer on it soon. Thunder storms are in the forecast tomorrow and Tuesdaybut I need to wait until payday [Friday] to make any more purchases.
I hope you all had a good week.
Frank

[crumbruiser]

Hi Friends, Payday came and went. So has a lot of partially rainy days as well as some thunderstorms . So what can a person do? Take on some of the smaller projects such as, the battery tray and box.


OK, it isn't done yet but I kind of have an idea of how to buld it. It will wlso incorperate a shelf to support the AC. I am going to build some sort of cover for it to protect it while traveling and to keep the Franks Dog House dry.


I also had a chance to skin the top. I started this project Friday after work. I primed the sides, the top and put the roof skin on [old flannel bed sheet] just before the thunder started to roll. The sky was getting awfully dark and the thunder rolled. I had to hurry up and get it hooked up to the TV and drive the 2.8 miles to work so I could put it into the big garage for the night. I made it with just a few sprinkles. It later stormed and stormed.

Saturday, I got some ugly dark grey paint on the sides. This is not the look I was going for but as we say at work, "It is what it is".

Sunday I did some more painting and built the door.

I also temporarily installed the windows and I had to try out the door.

So this is how it stands now.

Except for the ugly color and the way the color shows ALL of the flaws in my body work. I am well pleased. My wife is even starting to talk about traveling with it when I retire, how much easier traveling will be.
I thank you all for giving me you attention. Feel free to make suggestions or comments.
Frank

[KCStudly]

Hey Frank, That sure is coming along nicely.

I do have a suggestion. Think about putting a slight forward slope on your tongue box so that any rain will run toward the front (at least while standing still), rather than possibly collecting at the front wall and finding its way into your front wall covering.

You should be campable in no time.

[crumbruiser]

KC, I agree the battery box does need a foward slant. I'll re-engineer that in the future.
Thanks,
Frank

[Wobbly Wheels]

Lookin' good Frank.

I'm building similarly (but with glass instead of canvas) and completely agree on the bamboo skewers and canned foam !
Drywall screws screws works great as well.
If the handle of that saw is a bit to thick to let you get close to the foam, try a hacksaw blade: it's thin enough to bend flat to the surface to want to follow and you can bang up a thin wooden (or duct tape !) handle easily enough.

[KCStudly]

Or a modified reciprocating saw blade; "The Shive"


Used it just today installing pipe insulation on the job.

[crumbruiser]

Hello friends,
My family and I went on vacation to the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. We left on the 13th but only stayed the weekend.

We had to leave on Sunday so the kids could see the ocean. We stayed the week in Myrtle Beach South Carolina. It was a great week. We were fortunate enough to stay in a condo right on the ocean front. I had coffee on the balcony in the mornings and we all went and found real shark teeth. We all had a really good time.

Well vacation is over. Now I'll talk about what I really enjoy. I worked very hard to get my dog house weather proof before vacation because I didn't want to worry about it getting waterlogged. In working hard and fast, I made a few minor mistakes like allowing the right rear to be installed out of square. When I did that, I made the door to fit the out of square opening. So now, I pay for my mistakes. I tore the right side off and squared it up.

After looking through my gallery, I think I should of taken more pics. After squaring the right side, the door didn't fit so I squared the frame of it up [no pic]. When I squared the frame up the door knob won't latch. This saga will continue next week. Any way, I did start on the battery box and the air conditioner cover. It's a little deceiving, the top actually slopes about 1/2 inch in a 14 inch distance. I put the wood frame on so I can put a wooden door to somewhat protect the battery from undesirables.

Wobbly Wheels, thanks for the hacksaw blade with a tape handle tip. I could not find a hack saw blade in the garage except the one in the hack saw but I did find a key hole saw blade which I made a tape handle for. I like this better than the one I was using with a factory handle.

I would also like to say that I bought this thing for shaping automotive dent filler [Bondo] and it works really well for shaping the corners of the foam.


So the battery box is roughed in except for the door, next I started on an air conditioner cover to protect it during travel. This is a two piece sort of cover. The box part on top of the batt box will be seperate from the top which will hinge to expose the AC unit so it can breath.

This build is much harder and takes a lot longer than I thought it would have. I am learning very much from it and I look forward to working on it every day.
Thank you for your attention.
Frank

[crumbruiser]

OK folks. Here is the color difference. The door is still the old color that I decided I do not like, except, I think it looks good on the door. It has a nice contrast. I thought the door should be a different color than the trailer anyway.

My planning and engineering skills are failing me. When I think I have a good plan, I end up deeply disappointed. Here is the AC cover.

I had to chamfer it so I could get the door open to ventilate the AC. I knew I would have to do this but I didn't expect the sides to look like this.

And now it looks like this. The overhangs must be addressed sometime in the future.

I don't know if I should build up the center compartment to match the AC cover or tear it off and do it again. I will leave it for now. I don't have a deadline.
So anyway, I'm at least sort of happy with the door.
I hope you all have a wonderful night.
Frank