RV Trailer 10

Second coat of white is done and the first coat of yellow has been added.

© Peter Mitchell

 Some more painting inside of the storage area that will be under the bed platform. Walls are being finished with varathane.

© Peter Mitchell

 Second coat of yellow is done and the masking tape removed.

© Peter Mitchell

Ceiling has been primed and one coat of paint done. One more coat to do on the ceiling.

© Peter Mitchell

RV Trailer 9

Adding fibreglass to the outside.

© Peter Mitchell

 Fibreglassing finished.

© Peter Mitchell

Starting the first coat of primer.

© Peter Mitchell

 First coat of primer done.

© Peter Mitchell

 Second coat of primer done.

© Peter Mitchell

 First finish coat done on the front, an off white. At the back you can see a line and the primer where we will be painting a bright yellow. (After we finish two coats of the off white.)

© Peter Mitchell

RV Trailer 8

© Peter Mitchell

 Started the wiring.

© Peter Mitchell

© Peter Mitchell

Part of the bed platform put into place.

© Peter Mitchell

And the outside sheathing is all in place now.

© Peter Mitchell

© Peter Mitchell

Savary Island

© Peter Mitchell

Took a break from the trailer work today and went to Savary Island. Beautiful day out on the beach, nice for swimming, and we were there early enough to get this driftwood shelter to use for shade.

RV Trailer 7

© Peter Mitchell

Started adding the rigid foam insulation on the roof, two layers of 1/2", with wood added along the edge between the cross pieces. The photo below shows the edge piece with some temporary cross pieces screwed on to hold the rigid foam in place on the curve until we get the outside sheathing on.

© Peter Mitchell

 From the front with just one layer of foam insulation and not held down yet.

© Peter Mitchell

 Also started preparing the inside back storage area for priming and painting. The bed platform is pulled out of the way to make this step easier.

© Peter Mitchell

RV Trailer 6

© Peter Mitchell

The inner layer for the roof installed with cross pieces to provide support. Plan to use two layers of 1/2" rigid foam which should bend nicely to follow the curve of the roof.

© Peter Mitchell

Used these scraps to push up on the 1/8" plywood under each cross piece while the glue dried. Actually glued the first couple but then changed to use epoxy.

© Peter Mitchell

We have build out the front. This shows the inner layer of 1/8" plywood tacked down.

© Peter Mitchell

This is the inside of the front.

© Peter Mitchell

This is the back passenger side storage compartment where we will put the cooler style fridge, showing the tray on sliders.

RV Trailer 5

It has been a while since posting so here are some photos bringing this up to date.

© Peter Mitchell

© Peter Mitchell

© Peter Mitchell

© Peter Mitchell

RV Trailer 4

Lower part of front wall temporarily set in place.

© Peter Mitchell

Made a cardboard template for the curve of the roof.

© Peter Mitchell

Working on side walls.

© Peter Mitchell

© Peter Mitchell

The side walls temporarily set in place.

© Peter Mitchell

RV Trailer 3

Put down some canopy tape to cushion between the fibreglass on the deck bottom and the aluminum frame.

© Peter Mitchell

Then bolted the deck onto the frame and started with one wall and the centre support/dividing wall under the bed platform. The walls are structured panels with 1" rigid foam insulation sandwiched between 1/8" plywood. First wall is under a pile of bags filled with gravel to weight it down while the glue dries.

© Peter Mitchell

© Peter Mitchell

RV Trailer 2

The next step was to add 1" wood strips around the edges with 1" rigid foam and then add another piece of 3/8" plywood. Only the front 2/3 or so has the insulation in the floor. At the back the insulation will be in the bed platform and the back storage compartments will not be insulated.

As you will see in the photos, I filled some garbage bags with sand and gravel to weight the panels down while the glue dried.

Then the whole thing was flipped over and fibreglassed.

This shot shows the sandbags on the deck to weight it down after glueing the shim strips to the bottom of the deck. I did this by making some tape 'loops' to hold the shims in place, added construction adhesive, and then laid the plywood pieces on top.

© Peter Mitchell

This shot shows more sandbags, but it was taken after adding all the edge strips and rigid foam and then a top piece of plywood.

© Peter Mitchell

And this shot shows a bit of the foam panels that hasn't been covered yet.

© Peter Mitchell

And then lifted the whole thing off, flipped it, and fibreglassed.

© Peter Mitchell

Filling cracks and filleting the corners so the fibreglass cloth can flow over the shims.

© Peter Mitchell

First layer of epoxy directly on the wood.

© Peter Mitchell

Fibreglass cloth laid out.

© Peter Mitchell

And after the epoxy was added to the cloth.

© Peter Mitchell

That brings it up to date. Following posts will come as I continue with the build.

RV Trailer 1

It turned out that the trailer frame has a slight bow to it, it curves up at the ends, so to build off of a flat deck I have added some shims that will be glued to the bottom of the deck. These shots show the first bit of work to make the deck.

© Peter Mitchell

The plan is to make most of the deck as a structured panel using 3/8" plywood with rigid foam insulation glued in between. Here is the first layer of plywood.

© Peter Mitchell

As you can see the deck does not just sit between the wheels, I am building up and over the wheel wells.

© Peter Mitchell

RV Trailer Build

I have started building an RV trailer based on ideas from teardrop trailers I've seen. Buying a teardrop is expensive and we didn't like the idea of getting right in on the bed. Larger trailers are even more expensive and weight wise is more than what we wanted to be pulling.

So the idea is to build something that gives us the features we want, as we can imagine them at this point, and hopefully remains light weight.

I will post pictures of the build as it progresses.

We couldn't find a used trailer frame that gave us what we wanted so to start we had an aluminum trailer frame built. It has a bed 10' long by 5' 4" wide and is pictured below. It is heavier duty than is needed for a light weight RV but that is what we got when getting it custom built.

© Peter Mitchell