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Project Rhocaravan


richyb66

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Here's the right hand side and you can see that there's some sag in the structure. This will be fixed by adding an additional cross piece extending to the right from the lower joining piece. At this stage the extra joining pieces we need were still on order but we now have them ready for next week.

 

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Having a cross piece here does reduce the headroom but as this area is above the cooker and sink, it's not an issue and we will build the boxed in area in to a cupboard. Further back you can also see we've clamped a piece of tube underneath the frame to stop it sagging. Once we panel the vertical area of the roof in, it won't be able to sag but for now this gives some support. It's in this central area of the roof that we will can increased headroom and the roof windows will let more light in.

 

At the rear part of the roof we have 2 full crossmember which the front part or the roof connects to. The higher main part of the roof is Tee shaped and then a lower roof level runs down each side.

 

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Edited by richyb66
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Last bit of work this week was knocking up some slats for the central area of the bed using some 70mm x 18mm timber. We'd had the wood in the garage for a few weeks so we brought it up to Wales with us. Chamfers were added to all 4 sides of the wood before it was cut in to 460mm lengths. There's 15 here which will do the complete 2.1m length of the bed and once we've spaced them out and stapled some tape to the back of them, they will pack down small enough to go under one of the seats.

 

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Had a couple of hours in the garage tonight, not the warmest place to be but we were well wrapped up and just got stuck in. The additional corner pieces were added to the front of the roof and some lower longitudinal sections were also added. The front curved parts of the roof still need to be made and we'll do that this weekend when we've got a bit more time. We'll need to make another jig to bend the tube around and we'll also form the central piece that will run down the front panel.

 

For now this is all the structure we need in the roof, it's enough to get a good idea how we're going to skin the outside of the roof and in addition, we also need to start thinking how the inside will be finished.

 

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Edited by richyb66
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The final piece of the framework was the part I wasn't looking forward to doing - the front end. Jackie wasn't going to be much help with this so I cracked on in a freezing garage while she watched tv about hedgehogs.

 

The centre vertical part of the frame needed to be bent using the same technique as the other formed parts. The heat from the blowlamp was quite welcome and the required bend was soon made. This piece will sit 60mm forwards of the side frame so that a vee can be made in the front panel. First job was to set the vertical part in the correct position and this was carefully checked and double checked before the rest of the front was laid out.

 

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The next step was to add 3 horizontal pieces each side, one at floor level, and 2 more above and below window level. These pieces were welded to the centre part and would be bolted to the side frames using angle brackets. No pictures on this in progress - it was too cold to stop and take photos but this is the finished front frame. It's a single bolt in piece that just needs some curved tubes adding to tie it in to the roof. These will be added later.

 

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Next job was getting a frame made for the kitchen area. We'd be using parts of the original kitchen cupboards and modifying then to suit. Between the kitchen area and the benches we have some floor space that would need building up to seat cushion level so we can sleep on it. We'd thought of having pieces we could drop in place to do this but in the end we decided to make some shelves that pulled out from within the kitchen cupboards and so could be used for sleeping on, or additional raised storage shelfing.

 

These pull out pieces form a horizontal divide across two thirds of the cupboard so the first job was to make a timber frame for the lower part.Here's the start of the frame, we modified and reused some of the original pieces for the inside of the cupboard. The white panel is 3mm decorative ply clamped in rough position so we could make an allowance for the inner panelling. We will probably use some of the old panelling in these unseen areas.

 

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Here's the left hand pull out shelf in the close position:

 

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and pulled out:

 

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In the centre area between the shelves, we added a piece of timber that would allow the upper part of the kitchen area to sit higher than the shelves.

 

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Along the inboard side of the pull out pieces, a strip of timber will provide support for the central bed slats.

 

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The original cooker / sink unit was some 300mm narrower that the width of the trailer. We want it to extend the full width, firstly to give additional worktop area and secondly having a full width, bolt in cupboard will increase the rigidity of the overall structure.

 

Timber pieces were added across the front of the existing cupboard to make up the extra width. To the left of the cooker is a 100mm width that will be cupboard space and to the right is a wider area that will be made in to a chiller cupboard.

 

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The upper part of the cupboard needed some reinforment where it sits on the lower part. This was in the form of plywood pieces glued and stapled in position

 

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Finally a couple of picture with it outside, apologies for the darkness of the pictures, the light was fading fast.

 

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Edited by richyb66
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To be honest the joinery is pretty basic. I'm trying to be as economical as possible with material as I can because I want to keep the weight down. The side frame were incredibly floppy before the benches and kitchen cupboard were fitted but now the whole thing it much more rigid.

 

I'm actually thinking of putting it in for an IVA. Having read through the inspection manual there's not that much you need to comply with, it's mostly lighting positions. The inspection fee is only £90 so I thinks it's worth doing. We're not planning on selling it when it's finished but the value will be greater if it's certified.

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  • 2 weeks later...

With the Christmas festivities out of the way we've been able to get in the garage for a couple of days and do a few more jobs.

 

The first thing we did was to correct a small problem with the lower kitchen cupboard. We'd reused the 2 sliding doors but now had 3 storage compartments behind them which meant that the centre compartment was only partially accessible through either door. This was rectified by narrowing the existing doors and fitting both to the rear sliding channel, then adding a third door in the front sliding channel.

 

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Next up was to make the covers for the benches. These were made as a series of slats that hinge back against the caravan sides.This is the bench area across the back. The square bench in the corner will be one seat at the table and the narrower bench across the back will have the leisure battery stored underneath it.

 

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Here's one of the side benches and also the pull out infill section can be seen because the top kitchen cupboard isn't fitted.

 

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The central bed slats were joined together using strips of hessian stapled to the back of the wood, we still need to make the table, which will also fill in the bed area by the door so it isn't possible to position the full run of bed stats just yet but this is the bed area so far.

 

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Edited by richyb66
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