How to Build a DIY Travel Trailer - Aluminum Exterior and more (Part 2)

[Music] [Music] okay hey there guys this is gonna be part 2 of the DIY travel trailer project and today I'm going to get you caught up on everything that I've completed since finishing the basic frame in the last video and that has been beefing up the trailer tongue fabricating the wheel wells adding the floor support structure and the flooring and then filling in the walls with some infill supports as well as window frames and then the most obvious change you will notice is that I've clad the whole thing in white painted aluminum that was supplied to me by my local industrial metal supply pinch shop in their four years so it's nice to get something coming this way so anyway let me show you how I did all that and then at the end I'll talk about what is next in this project so you might remember from the part 1 video that I just had the fenders clamped into place just so I could see what it would look like with the wheels attached but I didn't really have a proper wheel well structure for them to be fully supported that's what I'm doing here i'm using my plasma cutter to cut some 16 gauge sheet steel with some tabs included that would support the outsides of the fenders the insides will be mounted to the frame but I just needed a little bit of extra support as well as something to give a backing for the eventual aluminum siding to be attached to I tact everything in a place from the outside and then followed up with longer welds on the inside seam so that I could eventually grind all of these tack welds down and keep everything smooth on the outside and right here you will see the heat marks from the longer welds on the inside next up on my list of things to do was to beef up the trailer tongue with some additional steel and to do this I switched to my multi-process Walter from MIG welding which I use most of the time to stick welding because I was going to be dealing with some thicker steel for this I used 7018 rods because I believe they produce really strong welds and the trailer tongue is a pretty big stress point [Music] this is what it's supposed to look like when the flux is peeling off on its own [Music] in addition to the trailer tongue the last bit of welding I did was to weld in all of these mounting tabs all over the walls and the roof of the trailer as well as the floor and what they are there for is to hold additional wooden supports as well as the window frames and the final bit of prep was to sand down all of my welds on the outside surface of the trailer so they could have a relatively smooth surface in which to mount the aluminum panels to [Music] after all the paint was dry advence started installing all of my floor support structure these are just two by fours that I've coated with spar urethane and they are attaching to some of those mounting tabs I mentioned earlier for the sill of the doorway I decided to use some aluminum diamond plate as the support structure underneath since it would be probably one of the areas that I think would be most subject to water draining and pooling and I figured it would also help to keep the plywood floor a little bit further away from the doors edge on all of the outsides I placed a little bit of foam in between where the plywood would rest up against the steel frame and that's just to allow a little bit of drainage of water so water doesn't get stuck between the wood and the steel and if I didn't mention it before all of the plywood has been coated with several coats of thinned down spar urethane to add as a bit of weather protection and it was all mounted to the steel frame with bolts from underneath and then locked hide it in place and the final step before the siding was to add all of my wooden support infill structure and my window frames and all of these are attached with those tabs that I showed you that I welded on earlier [Music] [Music] [Music] and the final and biggest step of this phase of the project was to attach the aluminum panels to the frame I didn't use screws or rivets but instead I used a tape called VHB or very high bond tape apparently it's been used in industrial and automotive applications for years and offers the advantage of no perforations or penetrations in the surface when installed however it did require quite a bit of prep work and planning because apparently once the tape bonds it's stuck and is very hard to get off the process of applying the tape was not very complex but it did require a fair bit of planning as both of the painted surfaces had to be very finely abraded and then a primer had to be added before the tape was applied after the panel was on all of these seams and edges needed to be rolled just to make sure everything was properly adhered [Music] [Applause] [Music] the single most difficult panel to figure out was the lower rear panel and that's because it needed to have two bins in it over the seven-foot lip I tried a couple of different ways but I finally found that just using my thumbs and a couple of pieces of steel mounted to it it bent pretty darn nicely and you'll see I just hold it in place right here I'm clamping it in place with a board and then once it's there I'm just stripping off the tape little by little so that it adheres evenly and then I just used a mallet to finish the top bit [Music] to cut out all the openings for the windows and the door and to trim all of the corners and the edges and the front radiuses I used a combination of a router with a flush trim bit and a jigsaw [Music] [Music] [Music] okay so this is probably going to be a good stopping point as far as progress for this stage of the project I was really hoping to have a bit more but you know you can only do what you can do so let me grab the camera and I will walk around maybe show some of the things I might not have shown and then talk about some of the things that I still need to do or that I will do on the next phase of this project starting at the front of the trailer the first thing you might notice is those red ratchet straps tethered to the ground that is just there because I got a bit nervous once I started putting the siding on that the winds may blow the trailer off of the jack stands not necessarily over but just enough to take it out of level and I just didn't want to have to rework that the front section underneath the window will eventually receive aluminum diamond plate and then I will also be adding this tongue Jack it's just sitting there but I will weld it on and then I will do all of the finish painting on the tongue all of the places where the walls join the roof or the back of the front will receive aluminum trim butyl tape and another waterproofing sealant tape obviously I will probably add the windows and the door to fully dry it in and then I will also be painting the fenders and then adding a little bit of trim just to cover up that little miniscule gap there over here this will be a window and then this is kind of a pipe dream I'm hoping to make it into some sort of slide out table or kitchen cooking thing but you know it may just end up being an access door if that turns out to be too back here it won't happen in the next phase but I will eventually be putting some sort of bumper there but something that I could maybe store like fishing poles in or things like that and then over on this side it will be pretty much the same thing and now I'll take you inside and then coming inside it's gonna be a little bit echoey but I will be boxing in the wheel wells adding insulation to all of the walls I will be doing all of my trailer wiring for my trailer lights and then I will probably be doing some of the 12-volt wiring before I put any of the plywood on the inside for the walls or ceilings I still have to add a fan up there on the ceiling that was just something I completely forgot to do when I was making the window frames almost forgot to mention on this side I'll be adding some sort of electrical and water hookup access so I can fill up my water tank and then potentially connect to Shore power if we ever camped in a place where we can plug in although I imagine 95% of the time we'll just be out in the forest just using the batteries that all eventually put in this well guys that's pretty much it for this part of the project it's definitely not quite as far along as I was hoping to be at this stage I was really hoping to have all of the corner trim and even some of the windows and maybe the door on at this point but I'll just go ahead and blame that on the winds that was really kind of a frustrating thing I was trying to get the frame painted and all the panels put on with the tape and the winds they really make it difficult when you're doing that but overall I'm very happy with it I was really happy with the front curve how well the aluminum bent over that I was a bit nervous that it might start creasing at each support but so far it looks good one thing I forgot to mention and I'll put a clip of it now on the horizontal scene where I have the panel's overlapping there is a little bit of a bump where I have them all overlapping but I will be adding a stripper below painted aluminum as kind of an accent point but also as a way to cover up that seam and that is one an additional thing that I'll be doing so as always I appreciate you guys watching if you like this give it a thumbs up and I don't know stay tuned for more videos I appreciate it and we'll see you next time

Channel: homesteadonomics

Views: 2,416,064

Keywords: homesteadonomics, how to, travel trailer, teardrop trailer, trailer, how to build, diy, homemade trailer, mig welding, welding, IMS metals, industrial metal supply, diy trailer, metal fabrication, plasma cutting, home built, how to make, homemade, tiny trailer, camping trailer, cargo trailer, aluminum, VHB tape

Id: deJcipGH2wU

Length: 15min 9sec (909 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 04 2018