Putting it together II

Finally the walls are starting to go up.  I've been storing the salvaged wall materials in my garage for over a year now and over the past few days I've sorted through all the parts and started piecing them together on the recently finished deck.  It's a bit of a jigsaw puzzle because the layout in the new trailer is quite different from the junk campers that the parts came from.  The biggest challenge is to figure out where the openings for the various appliances will go in relation to everything else.  I'm pretty much making it up as I go but also sticking pretty closely to the plan that Geriann and I developed on paper last winter.

The first picture is before any of the walls were attached.....just trying to figure out where stuff goes.  The second picture shows the stud walls for about 1/2 of the outside are now attached.

You might have noticed that the wheels and axle are not under the trailer. This is for two reasons.  First, if I left the axle under the trailer and then constructed it in my garage, I'd never be able to get it out again without knocking a hole in the wall.  In other words it would end up higher than my 8 foot garage door would allow to pass under.  Secondly, I don't know yet where the axle should go to get the desired tongue weight.  I figure I'll get it mostly built and then calculate the best location for the axle so that I end up with about 10% to 12% of the total weight on the hitch.

Deck work

Finally got time to work on the trailer this week and was able to insulate and seal up the bottom with tarp material.  This is the same technique that many of the manufacturers use. After sealing up the bottom I was able to bolt the deck to the frame using a dozen 3/8" carriage bolts. Since the deck was mostly salvaged material I had a few last minute holes to patch before rolling out the new vinyl flooring. The pictures you see are the bottom side of the deck as I was insulating and then later after the deck was bolted on.

The large square hole in the deck is where the black water tank is going to be placed.

After rolling out the new vinyl flooring I covered it with clear plastic just to protect it while the rest of the construction is going on.