Barn Door for JK factory hardtops

[Matt.H]

Those lights are a great idea! The only improvement I can see is if you could find a wiring harness that was twisted like a land line phone cord so that it would expand or shrink to keep it's form without migrating all over the place.

Pick your number of wires, gauge, length, color etc and order it up:

McMaster-Carr

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[jscherb]

A night-time test of the clip-on campsite lights...

The light inside the Jeep is a small battery-operated magnetic light that a company called Wagan was giving out at Overland West, I wrote about it in this post: https://forum.expeditionportal.com/threads/barn-door-for-jk-factory-hardtops.127687/post-3107079

Those lights are a great idea! The only improvement I can see is if you could find a wiring harness that was twisted like a land line phone cord so that it would expand or shrink to keep it's form without migrating all over the place.

Some might prefer a coiled wire, but I'm happy with the wire I used. A coiled wire that's large enough gauge to handle some power (even the small amount of power these LED's draw), wouldn't coil up as small as the wire I used and wouldn't fit in the small MOLLE pouch I hung on the side of the Trail Kitchen.

Also, a coiled cord would be hard to close in the door; the wire I used closes in the doors very nicely:

Also in the above photo, the wire between the two lights is inside the rack so it's not hanging loose. On the inside, the excess wire is coiled up and kept in check with a short piece of double-sided Velcro, so there's no loose wire inside either.

I've got a camping expedition planned in mid-September so these lights will get a real test then.

 

[jscherb]

Today is the first day of the vendor expo at the Smoky Mountain Jeep Invasion. Overland Outfitters (https://www.overland-outfitters.com/) is using my JKU and my trailer to show their products.

MORryde (https://www.morryde.com/products-cat/jeep-accessories/) is in the next booth, they've got their JLU outfitted with the Trail Kitchen and the other JL items I designed for them.

The two companies are next to each other in many shows so they can both use my Jeep... I've got lots of MORryde products in my JKU (and my LJ):

Trailer company Tentrax (https://www.tentrax.com/) was also scheduled to be here on the other side of MORryde but at the last minute they dropped out. I just finished doing designs for several accessories for their trailers and was going to give them the prototypes here so the could display them in their booth. They say they may just attend the show on Saturday so at least I can turn over the designs to them, even if they aren't an exhibitor.

OO used my trailer and roof rack to bring merchandise to the show. The hotel is very close to the convention center and they have a very strict parking policy about trailers. The Jeep and trailer only had to be in the hotel lot one night, they'll spend the rest of the show in the convention center. Here's how I got around their parking rules:

There's a 10-foot dropoff to a river just behind the trailer so I padlocked the trailer to the Jeep in case pranksters decided to unhook the trailer and let it roll into the river

 

[jgaz]

Silly rules.
Adapt and overcome!

 

[jscherb]

I spent part of the weekend in Uwharrie National Forest in North Carolina at the Tentrax Owners Weekend. My role there was to do a presentation on upcoming Tentrax trailer and RTT accessories that I've designed for them; I also gave a tour of a "well outfitted vehicle for Overlanding" (my JKU), showing how I deal with storage, food/kitchen/water/cooking and the electrical/solar/dual battery system, hopefully to give the crowd some ideas on how they might outfit their vehicles or trailers.

Amazon Guide Joe Flowers gave a very interesting lecture/demonstration of bushcraft techniques - making fires, finding survival materials in the wild, etc. I enjoyed his presentation very much and learned some things.

Both sides of his business card:

He's brought dozens of machetes and knives to the presentation (some can be seen on the floor in the photo above); he's also a knife designer and enthusiast. He led us through some hands-on knife work, making useful campsite accessories with a knife from branches, and we each used (but couldn't keep) on of his Condor Terasaur knives. It was the best feeling knife I've ever held so I'm going to buy one to add to my overlanding gear: