Ceiling of DOOM

By far the hardest part of the build (apart from the initial electrical) was installing the ceiling.  We knew this would be a challenge and read all sorts of stories on-line about how people would soak the plywood, use heated towels or complicated jigs and clamping systems.  I didn’t think the curve was too bad so we decided to throw caution to the wind and just force the plywood in after trimming it down to size.  DUMB IDEA.  The plywood went in fine to begin with but bending it required more force then we thought it would and as soon as it got within 3” of being flush to the spars the veneer would buckle and then crack.  We tried twice with the two sheets we had… it didn’t work either time.

So instead of wasting the plywood we simply cut it into sections.  The back half had very little curve and it went up with no problem.  To attach it to the spars we used 1” furniture screws, the key being that they didn’t require pre-drilling. 

Since we were cutting the panels up, this meant that we had to add extra spars so that there would be a surface for each new panel to rest against and screw into.  More work, but hey, the more spars the stronger the frame right?  Whatever we need to tell ourselves…

The next section was where the curve was the sharpest and, pardon my French, it was a BITCH to put in.  We learned from our earlier mistake though and gave the plywood a good soaking with the garden hose before trying to install it.  Then using what little muscles I had, I forced it up into place holding it with a 1x support while Darrell screwed it into place as fast as he possible could.  We were both sweating and exhausted after, but it worked!  YAYAYAYAY! 

 

The rest of the ceiling was easy in comparison.  Darrell first finished framing out the fan and then cut the plywood to fit.  It’s not as clean as we had hoped for, but it defiantly works.  We’ve also decided to cover all of the seams and gaps with strips of galvanized steel Darrell salvaged from work.  I think this will be a cool detail and we could even use them to hang things up with magnets.  Either way it’s really starting to feel like a camper now!

 

Ceiling Success!

 

Making things warm

As mentioned in the wall framing post, we decided to insulate the trailer to try and give us some barrier to the elements and allow us to extend the camping season as long as possible.  Using the 1x2 pine boards for the framing gave us a ¾” space to insulate.  After some searching, we found ¾” thick polystyrene rigid foam insulation at Home Depot.  At R-4, it was the highest r-value we found for that thickness in any of the local stores.  It also came in 2’ x 8’ sheets so we only needed to get two sheets for the whole trailer!

Since we were also planning on insulation the roof and hatch, we decided to only insulate the areas of the walls that were going to be inside the cabin.  Cutting the insulation was super easy and the only tricky part was notching around the spars.  Both walls were finished in half a day!

After insulating the walls we were on a role so we decided to try cutting out one of the interior walls.  This was a time consuming process, but relatively easy.  We clipped a 4’x8’ sheet of ¼” birch veneer plywood to the exterior wall and simply traced the outline of the trailer and the door.  Instead of trying to notch out all of the spars, we decided to simply offset the outline of the trailer 1 ½” so that it would run flush to the underside of the spars.  This was done by taking a ruler and simply marking 1 ½” down from the outline we traced and connecting the dots.  Then we used the Jig saw to cut everything out.

The pictures only show the interior walls clamped on, but we ended up using 1” ring shank panel board nails to attach them permanently.  Conveniently they even came in beige so they don’t stand out too much.

Raising the walls

With the walls framed, we were ready to finally make the trailer look like a trailer!  Each of the walls was carefully placed on the trailer frame and held together with temporary support made out of scrap 1x2’s and clamps.

In order to get a more rigid frame, we decided to make the horizontal supports or spars out of 1x2 oak.  We had been using inexpensive pine for the rest of the trailer. Since these spars would be taking most of the stress as we drive down the road, we figured the stronger the better. On each end of the spars, we drilled 2 pocket holes – one on each face of the face of the spar at opposite sides.  This way we could screw into the side walls at two different angles which seemed like a stronger attachment.  We used 1 ¼” screws so that we could get maximum depth without poking out the other side of the Okume.  (Site note – Kreg Jig makes special screws for the pocket holes that come in all sorts of lengths.  You could probably get away with using standard screws, but we decided to play it safe and use their screws.) 

In order to determine the spacing for the spars, we laid everything out in CAD and modified as needed in the field. When we framed the walls, we simply brought the laptop down to the garage and dimensioned it out.  For the most part we tried to keep the spacing around 6”-9”.  This may have been overkill, but it turned out a very rigid structure in the end.

The only spot we had to be extra picky about the spacing was where the fan would be placed.  Most teardrops have a ventilation fan mounted in the ceiling.  We had already ordered one (a VentlineVentadome 12v Fan – it was one of the less expensive ones but also did what we wanted) so we needed to maintain the 14 ¼” x 14 ¼” rough opening.  After laying it out we did a test fit and everything worked out great!

 

Once all of the spars were installed it was time to finally bolt the sidewalls to the trailer.  First we ran a bead of gorilla glue along the wood frame, then set down the walls and lined everything up.  The trailer ended up being a little skewed and was slightly narrower at the front then at the back so we evened up the gaps with wood shims.  Finally we used 1 ½” stainless steel screws spaced 1’’-0” apart to screw directly through the face of the Okume into the wood frame.  We plan on running some sort of trim along the bottom, so having the screws visible didn’t matter.

We didn’t take an overall shot when we were done for the day, but it looked amazing!