Black Trailer Restoration

Here are the pictures of a black trailer that I restored.

These are the drum brake backing plates, with one of them restored.

I made all new brake lines.

Afterwards I sold it for a bit of a profit. 

Slide-in caravan build part 8

This post is all about windows. Not Linux or OS, but windows!

I've made all the windows for the caravan. They're not quite finished completely yet, but they're basically done. I still need to design and make some sort of mechanism to hold them open at various different openness's. But I think that is something that can come later, for now I'm just going to call them done.

This is the parts of one of the two "bedroom" windows. It's all made from reclaimed materials.

And this is it all put together. The protective film is still on the sheet of perspex.

And this is it in place before the hole was cut in the side of the caravan.

This is the one window in place with its top whether shield.

And here's both of the "bedroom" windows in place.

This is the kitchen window and frame. Again still with most of the protective film in place.

The opening for the kitchen window, with the top whether shield above it.

And the kitchen window in place, with most of the protective film still on the perspex. Unfortunately the protective film has been very difficult to remove, it must've been on there for a long time and it won't peel off easily.

This is one of the latches on the kitchen window. All the window latches are designed and 3D printed by me. And I have to say, they work rather well.

This is the view of the front window cover from the inside. It needed some way of clipping it down for driving. So I made this 'R' clip (or as my partner calls it, a roller-coaster clip) and a couple of aluminium brackets to hold it down. 

Here's the latch for the front window. It's designed in the same style as the others but it works in it's own unique way.

And here's a different angle of the same latch but in the open position. 

I hope you enjoyed this little post on the windows of my caravan, hopefully I'll be back with another update soon. 

Slide-in caravan build part 7

This update on my caravan build is coming a bit late. I'm very sorry but sometimes I'm just bad at getting round to things. But, better late than never right!

I'm afraid this project has sort of stalled. I'd really like to get back into it and I think about it a lot but I just don't seem to be able to find the time. That said I have occasionally managed to do a few things. And here they are.

Despite my best efforts the front window was leaking a lot, so I made this cover out of sheet metal and then screwed and siliconed a piece of flexible rubber over the top edge. Where did I get the rubber from? Oh just a piece of old bicycle inner tubing.

The two black things are a jacking point. There's one jacking point on each side and one on the rear.

Here is one of the jacks I made out of salvaged steel materials.

It bolts onto the black things I mentioned earlier.

Then I use a ratchet strap to lift the caravan up so the trailer can slide underneath.

Another thing I did that I guess is actually a pretty big and important thing was running the wires. It's all 12 volt wiring, I'm not going to use any 240 volt wiring. That's just for safety. There will be 240v power however, but that will be achieved with regular power boards and extension cables and such. Mostly the power that will be used in the caravan will be 12v. This will be the lighting and several 12v power outlets for things like charging phones and batteries and other 12v accessories. There'll also be an inverter running off the battery for when there's no mains power available so that there will still be 240v power, however it will be fairly low wattage, so it won't be as powerful as mains power.

That's it for now. Hopefully the next update will be out soon.

Home Made Bath Bombs

I made some bath bombs! I made them for my girlfriend because she really loves bath bombs and I've always been rather curious as to how they're made. As it turns out it's really simple and easy!

These are some of the ones I made.

I put them in paper bags to make them seem more professional.

This is the beautiful colour my bath turned when I tried out a blue and green one. 

If you're wondering how to make them yourself, here's a really good video! It's what I used myself to learn how to make them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W4gGz51d3A&t=51s

Home Made Jam

During the last spring my friend gave me a big bag of apricots that came from his little orchard. So I decided to take the opportunity to make some jam, something I haven't done for years. It was fairly simple really, I found a recipe online and basically followed that. I also gave it some extra touches. I added two squares of chocolate, a teaspoon of marmalade, a teaspoon of honey and I swapped half of the caster sugar for brown sugar. The result was absolutely delicious and I'd encourage anyone to try adding their own touches if they make jam. It was rather fun and I'd say everyone, at some point, should make their own jam. It's so much more satisfying when you have it on toast or something, it tastes so much better that shop bought jam, simply because you made it. I love making my own things.

Home Made Bike Rack

About 6 weeks ago, for no particular reason, I decided to start making something. I guess I just wanted something to do. I felt like doing some metalwork, and one thing which was on my bucket list of things to make was a bike rack. So I went into my shed and began to cut and grind and weld and paint and a few weeks of occasional work later, I ended up with a fully functional bike rack that was exactly how I wanted. Unusually for me, I didn't start with any plans or even a rough sketch. I had an idea in my mind of what I wanted it to be like and just started making it and hoping for the best. "Winging it" in other words, and I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with the result.

Now, I should stress that I haven't done much metalwork, I've had no formal training so it is a bit rough in some places and some of you, I'm sure, will be screaming at the screen saying "why did you do it that way!". Well this is just a small project for me to try and learn a bit on. It's something with which to gain a bit of experience. So if it's not perfect, that's why.

Unfortunately I don't have any more photos from during the build.

And here is the finished piece all done up nicely in black.

Unlike most bike racks mine attaches to where the tor bar would be. I didn't want one that bolted on to the tow bar, simply because I don't like the look of them.

Slide-in caravan build part 6

Hi guys! Yes I know, it's been ages since the last post but trust me, you haven't missed much. I seem to say this in pretty much every post but progress is actually very slow. The main things that have happened are that it's been put outside and had doors put on it.

I think the reason for the current lack of progress is mainly my Tafe work. It's getting towards the end of the year and I'm trying to hurry to get everything done.

Here's the main door, it's made out of the frame and aluminium panels of an old fly-screen door with a piece of ply on the inside. Sandwiched between the inner and outer skins is a thin piece of woollen batting for a bit of insulation. 

The door splits so that you can climb in and out while the tailgate is still up. There's also a "cargo hatch" which gives access to under the main bed.

Something I wanted right from the start was a sliding front window. I made this one entirely out of second hand parts and it cost nothing, although it did take rather a long time to make. It's going to have a cover or "flap" over it preventing weather getting to it.

If there's one thing that building this caravan has taught me so far, it's that you can't have everything. I started out with the intention of finishing it within about 6 months, spending less than $100 on it and having a quality piece of work. So I wanted it to be fast, cheap and good. I quickly realised that this goal is unrealistic and it lead me to think about this principal in other projects. I came up with a simple model for making anything or doing any project.

Fast, cheap, good: Pick two.

If you want something to be quick and cheap it will probably be rubbish. If you want something to be good and quick then you'll have to fork out a bit for it. If you want what I've now resigned to; cheap and high quality then it's going to take a while.

I did some research and apparently this is already a thing.  Here's a boring Wikipedia article on project management > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management_triangle

Or you could just look at this:

Sadly I have blown the budget, it's been almost a year (with still a long way to go) and it's not quite as good as I'd hoped it would be. Oh well. I'm still carrying on regardless.

You can't have the best of all worlds. 

You can't have your cake and eat it AND expect to get it for free.