Expedition Teardrop Trailer Build- Mable The Trailer

[smdsprs]

Kitchen Time! So now that the basic shape of everything was pretty well settled, it was time to get going on the kitchen part of the build. I wanted space for a cooler, water jug, stove, and most of the cooking supplies I would carry. I made a counter top and a top shelf to help hold all of this and I used cable to hold the plates, mugs, percolator, etc. The kitchen build is mostly made of cabinet grade .5 inch plywood and some 2x2 for support.

 

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Once the kitchen was made, I needed to get the hatch built to cover it. I left a 1.5 inch section along the edges of my wall panels with the intention of filling it with the hatch and giving myself a 3 surface seal on the edges to help keep dust and water out. The hatch is made of a grid of spars and connectors. The spars are made of 2 pieces of .5 inch plywood glued and screwed together (the 5 curved pieces). The connectors are just square 2x2 that is acrewed into the ends and Kreg jigged where I felt like it needed it. The top and bottom are a little heavier than the rest to give me some good area to screw hinges and latches into. Overall it's really light and strong. I skinned it with 1/4 inch plywoood.

 

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I do not have pictures of this part of the process, but next was to wire the trailer. I have a tongue mounted toolbox and I put a 124 Amp-Hour battery in the tool box. I wanted the toolbox to be removable so I connected it to the trailer using a heavy extension cord and plug that I can plug into my 12V stystem on the trailer. To do this, I re-purposed a few items meant for 120V service to work with my 12V setup. So the result is that I have a 120V weather sealed male plug that only uses 2 legs to transmit my 12V power to a 120V weather sealed female receptacle. The result works well and made for a clean install. In the trailer I have a Blue Sea fuse panel that distributes the power to the fan, lights, and 12V cigarette lighter plugs in the cab.

 

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Once all of the wiring was done, I cut my hard foam insulation to fit the framing in the ceiling and glued it in. Once that was done, it was time to skin the trailer! To skin it, I started at the front and screwed the 1/4 inch plywood into the corners of the trailer to square it up. Once that was done, I screwed and glued the whole sheet one spar at a time. The glue was meant to seal the exterior joint and hold the center of the sheet since all of my screws were going to be on the edges of the plywood so they could be hidden behind the trim pieces. I used a bag of road salt as a weight and some bars and clamps to help keep pressure on the glue until it locked up.

 

[smdsprs]

Once all of the trailer was skinned, we went to work varnishing it with spar varnish. The reason I chose spar varnish is that it does not haze and crack like a poly will in the sun. It gets softer as it gets hit with the sun and its oil base makes water bead like a waxed car. It is also fairly low maintenance. To get a new coat on, you just get some fine sand paper and scuff the top coat and then you're able to just give it another thin coat. Once the varnish was dry, it was time to start attaching everything. Outlets went in the front two wiring holes- one for 12V, one for shore power. The Fantastic Vent went in the ceiling, the door went in on the driver's side, the window went in on the passenger side, and aluminum trim was bent and installed. The back hurricane hinge also went on to hold the hatch. I used trim that overhangs about 3/8 inch on the sides of the trailer and 3/4 over the top edge. It has a hoel for a screw every 6 inches and a track for a black plastic trim to go into. It bent by hand with no heat around the 2 foot radius without creasing or getting the white strain marks.

 

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Once the trim pieces were all on, the fenders and other miscellaneous parts all got installed and it was ready for its first trip. The first time out was up to Yellowstone through the Tetons and Jackson Hole.