Nick's Toys
Doing stuff since 1978

This weekend I wasn’t sure how much I would get done with it being Easter, but I managed to get some work done. I cut the holes for the water fill hatch and the outside shower. Then I located and drilled the two holes for the furnace. Since the furnace vents are a slip fit from the outside, I went ahead and screwed the furnace into it’s final position. The hatches are just sitting there for now; they will be installed properly after the exterior skin is in place. After that I installed the two battery trays. The trays are a bit longer than my current batteries, but I want the ability to upgrade to group 27 sized batteries in the future. The straps hold the batteries securely in position despite the size difference. After that, there was still a good bit of daylight, so I wired the two batteries into the junction box via 50 A circuit breakers. Then I wired the junction box to the fuse panel via a switch, and I got the first interior circuit run. I wired the linear actuator relay circuit to the fuse panel, and then ran a wire around the inside of the cabinetry to the kitchen cabinet and hooked up the actuators. There’s still circuits to run for lighting, power sockets, water pumps, and the furnace, but those will be easy. The winch, however, will take some doing since it’s pre-wired and bound together, it’ll take some finagling to get it to cooperate and hook into the junction box. Not sure if that will be next weekend or not, but stay tuned to find out.

This weekend, I finished the cabinet frames, then framed in the drawer openings, installed all the cabinets, and put the paneling on them. I had previously believed that with a variety of rotary tools, die grinders, and 1/4″ routers that I had no need for a rotozip, and boy was I wrong. I picked up a rotozip yesterday and it kicks serious butt doing paneling work. The work would have been slow and painful with a rotary tool, and the router would have been too big & bulky to get into the tight spaces; the rotozip had plenty of power and speed, but it’s small enough to fit in the palm of your hand for the tight spaces.

With all the cabinets installed, I drilled and cut the various holes I need for wiring and plumbing. I also cut the hole in the exterior wall for the water heater and built the platform that it will be installed on. Next on the project list is to finally run all the wiring! There’s also a few more holes to make in the exterior for the water fill compartment, the exterior shower, and two small holes for the furnace intake & exhaust.

This weekend I cut and installed the blocking for the bench seating, started installing the electrical, test fit the water tank, adjusted the linear actuators, and installed the bench seating. I also figured out where the batteries and the junction box will be installed.

Next on the list is building and installing the battery compartment, then installing the rest of the cabinets. With the cabinets installed, it will be time to start cutting into the walls and floor for appliances, wiring, plumbing, etc.

Between all the rain this weekend making it impractical to setup my table & power tools on the driveway, and Jenn hurting her ankle rather badly, not much got done this weekend. However, two important bits did get done and can be checked off the list. The rack for the dual propane tanks, cover, and automatic switch-over showed up, so I got all those installed. I also figured out a good way to get the electric winch elevated above the channel and installed with a pulley to get the cable running exactly where it needs to go. Once I get the roof built (that won’t be for a while), I’ll give the winch it’s final adjustments.

Next on the list is building a small platform over the winch that the battery box will sit on. I also still need to adjust the linear actuators. Pulling those off to adjust them is best done with the table on the driveway, so perhaps next weekend will be sunny again.

We made some good progress on the trailer this weekend. On Saturday, the interior paneling was installed, and the spacers for the bed rails were glued & screwed into place. Then on Sunday, I sanded the top edge of the walls, installed the bed rails, screwed the lifters to the floor, and started work on the first cabinet. Eventually, there will be two drawers in that cabinet, and the slot for the furnace is there already.

Next weekend, I’ll probably need to start on the cabinet that will hold the sink, & stove since the spacing needs to be somewhat precise. After that cabinet is done, the other two on that wall will simply fill the remaining space.

I’m currently working on rebuilding our 1970 Starcraft trailer. Most of these pics have been posted to Facebook already, but since we have wordpress setup for this sort of thing, it seemed like a good idea to use it.