Picnic

Rest Area picnic, teardrop style.

-Amelia Sauter

The bar and the kitchen

The bar

The kitchen

-Amelia Sauter

Dog bed

Dog sleeps at my feet, on a pseudo-bed. He doesn't take up too much space, though he boofs in his sleep and twitches against the walls with his claws. Leah needs to create (and patent) some Dog Hush Walls. He creates a lot of body heat. Actually, we all do. A blanket is barely necessary. The fan, fortunately, works great.

-Amelia

We made it

Well, it didn't explode into pieces. It poured outside, and not one leak. And we loved it.

Backing up, a bit of a challenge.

-Leah

First trip

On our way to Rehoboth Beach (More accurately, Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware).

Will it explode into a million pieces on the way?

Will it rain and burst with leaks?

Will we hate it?

How do you back this thing up?

-Leah

Galley done

All the doors are installed. 8 coats of polyuerthane on everything.

Also added a hickory bumper.

We're ready to roll!

-Leah

Interior cabinets

Interior cabinets are done & battery hooked up.

-Leah

Trimmed out hatch

The trim is pretty much done.

Jack stands went in a while ago after I stepped up on the hatch on the whole trailer tipped backwards.

Yup.

-Leah

Door frame

Door trimmed out with aluminum angle. Bent pretty easily around the radius.

-Leah

Door fitting

The door fits, although it doesn't swing all the way out. I don't like that. But there's not much I can do about it now.

This is a patient job: fitting, filing, installing, uninstalling, fitting again, filing - you get the idea.

And a nagging thought pops in my head: this is supposed to be leak-proof???

Oh, boy.

Leah

Annealing

I ordered a bunch of bendable teardrop trim for the roof and doors.

The rest is aluminum angle iron that I annealed by heating up and letting cool. Now I can bend it around curves.

Cool.

Leah

It fits!!!!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!

It fits!!!!!

Time for a cocktail.

-Leah

Hatch is skinned

Aluminum has been glued on.

More hatch

Glued and nailed strips of luan to the hatch in preparation for applying the aluminum skin.

I'm hoping for very little spring-back, we shall see...

Wired up the lights & fan. Still deciding where to put the electrical panel.

Leah

Mind the hatch

Oh, the hatch, the dreaded hatch.

Building a door with a curve to match another curve exactly and fit inside within 1/2" is pretty hard.

But, I did it and it really wasn't that hard. You just have to be patient.

There are easier ways to do this. I think the hatch profile should get cut in the beginning with all the other major cuts. That would be a start.

Leah

Roof skinned

Did I mention that I'm difficult?

I didn't learn from my previous aluminum sheet wrangling experience one bit.

This sheet was 5'x12' and after a considerable battle I finally got it where I wanted it.

This is more of a 2-4 person job; you want to lift it up over the trailer and place it pretty close to where you want it.

Leah

Roof insulated

The roof is insulated. I added insulation tape on all the seams.

Leah