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.

Slide-in caravan build part 5

Today marks a major milestone in the build, it's white! Yes I finally finished painting it and I've also practically slathered the thing in silicone sealant so it now lives outside. Which my dad was quite pleased about since it's been in his garage for months!

I feel I should apologise for not posting for so long. I had work and then I was sick and then I had school so I didn't get much done on the caravan but rest assured, normal service shall be resumed.

All the cladding in place.

First bit of primer goes on after cleaning up the surface.

First bit of paint to get an idea of how it will look.

Fully painted and almost ready to go outside.

And here's the obligatory 'being towed' shot.

I put the skylight in and now I'm working on the doors and windows.

Slide-in caravan build part 4

Okay, so since my last update the design has changed a little bit. Not in a major or particularly noticeable way but the small change makes all the difference. I can actually stand up!

The floor is now made of 3 doors. They're quite light, strong enough to stand on and most importantly, free! They do make the whole thing sit about 3cm higher in the trailer but that doesn't really matter, plus it's nice to be able to stand up in it.

After the floor was in place, the under side cladding could go on. I made sure to use plenty of silicone because I don't want any water getting in.

Monty seems to like it :)

Some of the side panels in place. They are literally off of an old shed...

...but after a bit of cleaning up and some paint they should look good.

Slide-in caravan build part 3

The frame is finished now! It's been a while since my last update because I had some uni commitments (making a CAD model of a Formula SAE racing car if anyone want's to know) but now I can get back to the big build! So, pictured here, are the steps to putting all the frame sections together. 

The first two pieces to go together were the floor and the rear wall.

Then the left side...

Then the right side...

And finally the roof.

Just a little teaser of how it will look being towed by the car. 

I think it looks rather good.

I managed to get some fibre glass insulation for free and just today I got hold of a few internal doors with which to make...  many things.

Slide-in caravan build part 2

The caravan build is going really well. I have finished all the frame sections and it's nearly time to put them all together. It's very easy to underestimate how much timber and how many screws go into a frame like this.

I've moved the project from my shed into my dads big garage to give me enough space to put the sections together.

Even though I don't think they are necessary, I thought I ought to make some fastening points to tie it down to the trailer. I also made some steel strengtheners to help make the frame more rigid in the vulnerable areas.

After the frame is together and completely finished the next stage will be to clad the outside and make it watertight.

This is a much better picture of what it will look like, but I'm not sure whether to do the pop-up thingy or not.

Slide-in caravan build part 1

I'm building a caravan! A bit out of the blue I know, but it's something I've wanted to do for ages and the other day I managed to get hold of a lot of 1x2 timber for free. It's exactly what I needed and with a bit of scavenging around the house and a good internet connection to look on gumtree, I reckon I can make this mini home on wheels for around $100. Now that's what I call ambitious!

If you've been following this blog for a while then you might know that I'm studying engineering at university. So you'll probably be wondering how on earth I have time for this. Well after a lot of careful consideration I have decided to pull out of uni, for a while at least. I've done one semester and didn't do very well in it and I think there were several reasons for that. Although that is just one of many reasons I pulled out. Another reason is that uni is very theoretical and I'm a very practical person so I feel as though uni is wasting that side of me but trying to cultivate other skills that I don't naturally have, like academic ones. I believe this is the right decision. Plus I have loads of time on my hands now! But I do have to decide which path to take instead...

The concept of this particular caravan is rare and unusual but frankly quite simple. It's a little house that fits onto a trailer. It's just like those campers you see in the backs of utes (trucks, for our non-Australian friends), only it's made to fit a trailer rather than a vehicle. It's completely removable and the trailer needs no modification in any way so when it's not in use, you've still got a regular trailer. I really don't know why this isn't done more often.

One of the classes I did at uni involved learning how to use a proper CAD program so seeing as I know a thing or two about that, I thought I'd use it to design the whole caravan. First up, the frame. This is still a work in progress and I'm kind of building it as I design it so one of the walls is almost made and most of the rest of the structure has yet to be even thought about. Still here are the frames for the left and right sides.

They may look over-engineered and frankly they probably are, but what you have to remember is that this has to withstand hurricane force winds for long periods and will be shaken and rattled around like one of those machines that separates little rocks form bigger rocks. So when you think of it like that, it's better to have it over-engineered than done lazily and have it fall apart the first time you take it on the highway.

This is something like what it will look like. The blue thing is obviously the trailer. 

If it looks a bit weird that's because this is an orthographic projection rather than perspective.

After just a couple of days in the workshop the part production is really pushing bow waves.

I seem to be able to make parts far quicker than I can design them.

It's great to be finally able to start a project that I've wanted to do for many years. For some reason I've always had a strange urge to build a caravan. I don't know why and I don't plan to use it that much, I just wanted to make one! Now I'm as happy as a man who thought a cat had done its business on his pie, but it turned out to be an extra big blackberry!

10th scale RC Series 1 80" Land Rover build part 1

For no particular reason at all, a couple of days ago I felt the urge to make a Land Rover out of cardboard. I wanted to make a 10th scale model of a series 1 Land Rover from scratch using cardboard in place of sheet metal and hot glue as weld because, to me, a glue gun is a poor mans welder. And I don't have a welder, although it is on the bucket list.

I wanted this to be a reasonably accurate model, well as accurate as you can get in cardboard, and I also wanted it to be drivable and remote controlled because as we all know, I like a challenge.

At this point you might be asking 'why cardboard?' or 'what happens if you get it wet?'

Anyway, the first thing to make is the chassis. I got some original chassis plans drawn by Land Rover, cut out the relevant shapes, transferred them to cardboard and started cutting away. Where there would be a bend in a part, I'd make a score in the surface of the cardboard along the line which would be bent with a ruler and a not particularly sharp knife. That's not the right way to do it, I just don't have a particularly sharp knife.

I would apologise for the vast lack of photos in this post but I'm not going to because it's not my fault. It's the fault of my new phone which seems to like damaging photos taken with it's camera, rendering them useless. Trust me, I took plenty of photos, probably more than I would for a normal project but sadly they don't exist any more. They probably weren't that interesting anyway.

After all the flat nets of the parts were made it was then a simple and pretty quick matter of glue-gunning them together. It was all quite easy really. The hardest part of the chassis was trying to work out how some of the cross members were attached to the chassis rails. Lining the two chassis rails up before joining them with cross members, while fiddly and time consuming, is important and must be done as accurately as possible because if they're not right, nothing else will be.

A picture of the chassis, taken the old-fashioned way, not with a phone but with a camera!

This is probably one of the most satisfying ambitious projects I've done for a while. Honestly, having a completed chassis sitting in front of me after only two days of work makes me as happy as a Frenchman who's just invented a pair of self-removing trousers.

Planting trees, even model ones, is more tiring than you might think.

Hi guys, I thought I'd give you a bit of an update today. I started uni this year and I've been incredibly busy! So I haven't really had time to work on any ambitious projects lately. However I have done a few little things which I think are worth a post. 

The 3D printer works and has done for a while now. It's running quite well and I think I've nutted out all its little idiosyncrasies. It was a total pain to set up but now that it's running, it's so nice to have. For me it's the perfect system because I prefer designing things to actually making them so being able to design lots of things and have them made for me by a machine is fantastic. 

This is a model Tardis I made (yes with the printer) for my friend who is well into Dr Who. It is actually printed in white plastic and painted blue, although I've since bought some blue plastic to make more Tardises with. This was somewhat rare amongst my projects because I actually finished this one. It's even got a flashing light in it! 

Light off, light on.

Probably my longest term project and one which doesn't get much of a mention is my model train layout. It's a replica of a German layout called Zofeld which was originally in HO scale but I'm making it in N scale which is about half the size. But even though it's half the size, it's still damned expensive and it's impossible to find the right buildings. Whilst they exist in HO scale, the manufacturers don't seem to make the same models in the scale I'm using. So I have to make do with similar ones. However with the printer I can simply make my own buildings. So that's exactly what I've done.

This is the first building made on the printer, I've just finished painting it and I think it's come out quite well. I'm not going to print all my own buildings because the computer models for them are very fiddly and time consuming. I'll only make the ones which I can't find good replacements for. This model isn't quite finished, it still needs windows, lights and weathering but so far it's looking good. Let me know what you think.

I made this a little while ago when I did karting.