Fiberglass M416/M100 Military-style Trailer Tub Kit

[jscherb]

Another small detail...

If anyone's following along and thinking of making their own covered wagon using conduit parts, here's a detail I'd strongly recommend. Electrical conduit parts are designed to be part of fixed structures, like houses - I don't think it's a good idea to trust that the screws in the sockets won't loosen in a mobile application, which could cause the bows to come loose and perhaps even fly off the trailer at speed. So I've added a little protection - I drilled holes through the bow sockets and bows for clevis pins.

No worries now about the bows coming loose, and the clevis pins are quick and easy to remove when I want to take the covered wagon top off for storage.

 

[jscherb]

Other than painting the frame olive drab, the frame and bow structure for the covered wagon top is finished. Today I did the removable tailgate opening. It's held in with two wing nuts, and has an upper jamb for the tailgate to seal against. It's also where the snaps for the bottom of the canvas will go.

 

[jscherb]

I plan to make the two sides and the rear of the covered wagon canvas roll up. I'll probably make the front panel fixed. In this concept drawing I've got the driver side and rear rolled up, and the braces on the driver side are stowed in the up position to allow access to the cargo from the side.

The covered wagon canvas isn't too much different in construction details than a boat bimini top, and I'll be sewing my canvas in much the same way. Here's an excellent video on designing and sewing biminis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2-rywqZrjY&list=PLDC98758A38C938AB A bimini is a little more complex than the covered wagon top in that it's got compound curves vs. the covered wagon's simple curves, so I won't have to do patterns as shown in the video, but other than that, the construction details are pretty much the same.

 

[jscherb]

Getting ready to order the materials, I need to make a preliminary pattern for the sewing. Some basic dimensions:

The next step I do is to make a layout drawing showing all the parts on the fabric. The parts aren't drawn with seam allowances, this is just to give a rough idea of how much fabric is required. The fabric I'm looking at is 60" wide, so the parts as I've designed them will take about 7 yards. I'll order a few more yards in case I cut something wrong or want to make up some accessories in the same material, perhaps some cargo storage bags or something.

The plan above also lists the other materials I'll need - zippers, snaps, etc. I've already placed the order for all of those, but I'm still deciding on the exact fabric I'll use so I haven't ordered that yet.

 

[100acrehuphalump]

Wow, you do amazing work! I'm definitely interested in a light weight and strong lid. I have a steel lid my friend fabricated for me but it weighs a ton. Would your lid design support racks for kayaks? Thanks!

 

[jscherb]

Wow, you do amazing work! I'm definitely interested in a light weight and strong lid. I have a steel lid my friend fabricated for me but it weighs a ton. Would your lid design support racks for kayaks? Thanks!

Thanks!

I designed the fiberglass lid to be strong enough to support loads such as roof-top tents, so kayaks wouldn't be any trouble at all.

 

[100acrehuphalump]

So how much would you charge for a lockable lid for my M416?
BTW, your link to your Jeep projects keeps directing me to Time Warner Cable...

 

[jscherb]

So how much would you charge for a lockable lid for my M416?

A while back a company was considering bringing the fiberglass cover/tent platform to market, but nothing's come of that. Maybe there isn't enough demand for fiberglass covers for military trailers to make it worthwhile to bring to market.

I still have the molds, but I'm very busy with other projects at the moment, so I don't really have time to mold stuff for sale, sorry.

BTW, your link to your Jeep projects keeps directing me to Time Warner Cable...

For years I hosted that site on the web hosting that Time Warner Cable provided for free with my cable account, but some months ago they decided to drop that service without any notice. I need to find a new place to host it, just haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

[jscherb]

I'm working on finding just the right fabric for the covered wagon project. My criteria include: a camo pattern/color that looks good on the trailer, mostly synthetic (polyester/nylon/acrylic), heavy military "canvas" look and feel, and coated fabric for waterproofing. I want to use something fairly heavy because I'm designing this to be well behaved at freeway speeds and I think heavier fabrics will fare better at speed.

Two camo patterns are very common in fabrics that meet these criteria - something called "Woodland" camo (at right below, similar to military BDU camo), and ACU ("Army Combat Uniform") camo, below left are some samples from a fabric supplier's web site:

A larger view of a typical Woodland camo pattern:

The color isn't very accurate on the web site, here's an actual sample of the ACU camo photographed against the trailer:

I'm leaning towards something like the ACU camo because the colors look good with the color of the trailer, even though it isn't "period correct" for a military trailer like this and the pattern is kind of small. The Woodland pattern just doesn't seem military enough to me, I don't think the military ever used a pattern like that. On the other hand, I don't think the ACU pattern is used on real military vehicles, but I could be wrong about that. Input welcome!

I've got a little time to decide which fabric to use, between other projects I'm working on that have actual deadlines, some mold-making I'm doing for my JK Safari cab project, and a road trip to Utah for Easter Jeep Safari, I won't be able to start sewing for a bit.

 

[screwball48]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodland_camo


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[100acrehuphalump]

Multi Cam!

 

[jscherb]

Multi Cam!

I like the multicam pattern. So far I've only found one source for it with the specs I'm looking for, and it's about twice as expensive at that source than either Woodland or ACU patterns I've found in my specs. Also it's a more directional pattern (horizontal) than something like ACU, so I'd probably need a bit more yardage to lay out all of the parts in the right orientation. I'll keep looking for other sources, it would look nice.

 

[screwball48]

Multi cam was independently developed and is a licensed product which explains the increased cost. That being said it is my favorite pattern. ACU may be the shortest lived of the patterns due to each branch of service having different color patterns of it. If you decide to use an ACU variation then you may want to order extra yardage due to the fact it is a directional pattern. When used in large areas this is more apparent than in smaller samples.


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[Maxcustody]

You Sir have tremendous talent.....thank you for sharing these projects!

Sent from my Roof Top Tent

 

[jscherb]

Multi cam was independently developed and is a licensed product which explains the increased cost. That being said it is my favorite pattern. ACU may be the shortest lived of the patterns due to each branch of service having different color patterns of it. If you decide to use an ACU variation then you may want to order extra yardage due to the fact it is a directional pattern. When used in large areas this is more apparent than in smaller samples.

Thanks for the input. Yesterday I did a test with images of both Multicam and ACU to see how directional they are.

ACU:

Multicam:

They're both directional, but the ACU is less noticeable than the Multicam when different directions are butted up against one another.