The Double Nickel Project - 1955 Flying Cloud

[Camper Crazy]

Nice job MattB. Looking forward to seeing how she finishes.
CC

[MattB]

Time to do a bit of catching up on the thread and trailer progress. COVIDs, school, Scouts, moving parents tend to make it tough to get much done during the summer, but we keep plugging away.

I started with the face frame of the bed, starting with 4/4 2-side smooth cherry, and adjusting to make the drawers a bit smaller than originally planned. Then using 5/4 poplar for the supports for a little extra strength and because it was cheaper than 4/4 for some reason. The bed frame itself is too big to fit into place all in one piece, so I have a front and a back. I could get it through the door, but not into position as one piece.





But it also made it easier to fit the diamond plate for the bottom of the trunk storage and the storage compartment sides. You can also see the water heater, needed to double check positioning of crossmembers.






A lot of fitting and checking, as this needs to be square for the rest of the trailer, and as most know, there is simply nothing square in these trailers.

I did some hand application of shellac to the face frame and am learning how to use it more effectively. It goes on well, and seems super forgiving. I have already fixed a couple little marks.

[MattB]

Hindsight will indicate that this is the easiest part of the interior but it did come out nicely so far. First, I had the first of my endeavors to make true quarter round corners for the furniture. Keeping with the streamlined design them, most parts will have radiused corners. In this case, 1.5” in radius. I didn’t see radiused plywood with the proper dimensions but it wouldn’t have been worth it in any case. This technique works pretty well, and isn’t expensive. It is a little tedious, but I have time.

I glued two slightly over dimension ¾” pieces together then and clamped the dickens out of them. Then using the table saw and bench sander techniques I figured out earlier, I made it round.







Then build the face frame, back frame and the exposed side panel from ¼” cherry ply. Not much is showing, but that part looks good.







It was during this that I discovered that I could spray shellac with excellent results, and I went to town. Massive timesaver. The bed frame and first coats on the frame of this thing by hand were SLOW. Now I can focus my detailed time in sanding and hand rubbing to a smooth finish. Those initial coats that get absorbed into the wood don’t hold me up. And I missed fewer areas.





I have periodically had second thoughts about the drawer slide design, but I am sticking with the soft close side models, rather than the vintage center wood with the notched drawer sides in the original and my ’58. I know it is more work and expense but hopefully SWMBO is happier and it has a more premium feel.

[Bubba L]

Matt, glad to see you’re back at it and all is well. I think the woodworking is phase way up on the ‘fun to do’ scale. I really like your radius corners. Looking good. Take care

[MattB]

Thanks Bubba for the sentiment. I actually don't enjoy the woodworking as much as the riveting and metal work, but I have a vision for this and have been planning it for several years. I think it part it is because I don't have all the right tools yet. My old table saw is just not really up to what I need to do, and I can now see the utility of a proper cabinet saw. Getting my jointer, planer and drum sander has helped tremendously, and things are coming together.

Having worked on another Casita trailer, and not needed to do cabinets, layout design, electrical and plumbing system design, etc., it seems to take several orders of magnitude more effort to do a fresh design and build from ones own imagination. It will show more when I write up the fridge cabinet.

On to the rest of the bed...

It took some time, but fitting the top pieces for the bed helped to align the bed frame and clean up the look. The template device was helpful, and then the jigsaw and bench sander helped to make it precise.



Then finished with shellac to the top frame cover pieces. I will later come back and finish it with a piano hinge and door shock for the center portion to allow it to open it.





Then with the aid of measuring templates I was able to ensure the head and footboard were even despite being different sizes. The top of both will have hinge as well to allow some storage space with power outlets inside.



I also took one weekend to make some birdhouses for the yard. I like to encourage them to eat bugs around my house.

[MattB]

One of the big problems to solve that I have devoted a lot of time to figuring out is how to make radiused corners, particularly the larger 3” radius ones for bulkhead walls and the dinette seats. I solved it partially on some cabinets by reducing it to 1.5” radius, but a 3” radius cannot be made from solid wood without being expensive, cumbersome, heavy and a problem to deal with on the bulkheads themselves.

I looked though hundreds of trailer pictures, and learned a little from looking at the galleries in Hollywood Trailer (which are stunning). Hit up some local cabinetmakers for advice, and a couple members of the KC woodworkers guild. All seemed to focus on ¾ thickness, or wanted to try to turn a 6” diameter piece of cherry rod and cut it into quarters. That price was truly frightening. I even hit up a local outfit that manufactures solid wood moldings and offered more elaborate shapes in the same size, but after taking my information refused to give me pricing. Frustrating. I have seen a couple of true artists here on the forums capable of working with the flexible plywood, but my experiments with it were not successful.

Enter the curved plywood. There are 2-3 vendors out there that sell it. If you would like to know who I recommend, PM me. But the reality seems to be that they all sell from the same two vendors, and they informed me that one was going out of business. I very much wanted ¾” thickness, and no one had it, or knew when they would. I liked the lighter weight of the 5/8” that they did have available, but it was not going to be easy to connect it to ¼” cherry ply that would make up the wall itself, or really to anything easily. There is ¾” thick MDF 3” radius molding of the right shape available from online molding vendors, but MDF is very heavy and much more sensitive to water. But curved plywood or MDF would require veneering, since the plywood is primarily poplar according to the vendors.

So, ordered veneer as well. But I am not investing in a proper vacuum system unless I need to, just too much and the improvised systems look like a Rube Goldberg contraption. Spoke with the veneer vendors and figured a way to make it work. Initial experiments went well with the super powered contact cement they sent. I could stick an elephant to the bottom of the rafters with this stuff. First a comparison before trimming with and without the veneer.



Then trimmed. Note it must be on both sides, inside and out, to prevent stretch cracking and separation.



Then onto the big corners. The scissors are really the best tool for this. If you are a bit OCD, you will want to sand the outer layer of poplar on the plywood, especially when you are in the groove of sanding everything. Don't, it needs the texture in order to adhere properly.

[MattB]

Joining the bulkhead walls to the corners took a little imagination. I had previously made templates of the walls. I copied them in the cherry plywood, and then refined a bit on the bench sander.



Note that determining the leading edge required a lot of measuring, squaring, checking for level and straightness, and trimming to make sure everything was even and proper. A lot of test fitting is required. Note also that you cannot truly test fit until you have the F-channel in place. And the F-channel was truly a problem. When bending to fit the curve of the trailer, it naturally wants to warp with the trailing edge not bending even with the channel edge. Keeping it straight and flat is nearly impossible. I ended up removing part of the sharpest bend in order to avoid some of that. On the lavatory, it will never be noticeable except from the inside as it will be covered by the overhead cabinet in that portion. I would need to find a better solution for the remaining walls.

Then I glued a 3/4” strip of wood to the leading edge.



One of the things I did to assist the fit was add a kerf width rabbet onto the end of the piece to allow a gap for the F-channel. Worked like a champ.



Then, I used a 1” wide and ¾’ thick strip of cherry, drilled and countersunk to attach onto the long edges of the radius plywood corners. This would give me more material to attach it to the wall section, and less chance of damage to the curved plywood since I could run the screws in perpendicular to the edge surface. Then lined it up, drilled, glued and screwed it together. Holds together very well. You can see a cross section that depicts the corner. I had to leave it a little long.







Then with the fine tooth blade on the miter saw, I slowly trimmed and sanded the top end of the radius corner piece to match the interior curvature of the trailer when up against the wall section. Once I had it how I wanted it, I clamped it all together, lined everything up and ran nicer decorative 2” cabinet screws from the inside edge of the strip on the wall section into the corner 1” pieces. Although I didn’t get a good picture of that. And they fit nicely.

[truckasaurus]

Very impressive. I'm totally smitten with the radius corner aesthetic.

[MattB]

It also took me a long time to figure out how to integrate a cabinet into the lavatory that would be big enough for a sink, but small enough to leave room for the commode and to stand. Thanks to a square-ish sink from Ikea, I think I have a way to do it without some funky shapes. I did need to to build a small cover for the part of the wheel well in the lavatory, shown next to my mockup.




This will sit on top of part of the black tank, and have a sliding door on the biggest part of the cabinet. I started with face and back frames, shown overlaying one another, and then put in cross braces.



With patience, I was able to trim the cherry ply for the back and sides of the cabinet to fit snugly, and then glued into position. The lower cubby will hold one’s toilet tissue and has a backing now as well.








The main problem came with cutting the pieces for the back frame. Not in a construction sense either. End of long day, using 18” push piece on the table saw, but off-hand went to move the piece and Wham! right into the pad of my thumb, through my “cut-proof” gloves designed for sheetmetal, which probably saved a much worse injury. Definitely too tired to be working on power tools that day. 1” by ¼” chunk out of the pad of my thumb. ER said the cut was too big to sew (?!). Have you bled for your trailer? Not the first time but definitely the worst.

[MattB]

I am a growing fan of shellac finishes. This is blonde shellac. Several coats sprayed, sanded and adding several more layers with hand application. Including some elements of French polishing really starts to make it smooth, and it gives a nice warm glow. It really brings out the nice grain of the cherry. I want it to finish a little darker, so am counting on the natural darkening of the wood itself.

[Foiled Again]

Finish is [emoji7] beautiful

[MattB]

After a great deal of trying to precisely fit the toilet into place during the full scale mockup, I had to adjust from my original plan. This kept me from being able to use my original black tank. So it will be used on another trailer. But by making my own holding tank, I could customize it to work with the space available and it made the cabinet design easier. It would make finding the right toilet a bit more difficult.

There is a little bit of a chokepoint but the rinse valve with eliminate any concerns. Heard about this technique on the VAP, but couldn’t find the reference, then found a guy on Youtube doing what looked like a credible job, and about 100 weirdos who did not look credible. I followed the one guy.

Measured and designed the box and then pocket screwed it together. Then covered in one layer of resin all over with the lid off. Then put in three layers of fiberglass cloth and matting, alternating. Then trimmed and sanded to make it smooth and catch any voids, and then one more layer of resin over everything. I have some super heavy duty silicon sealant to use to attach the lid and I will drill the holes when I finally plumb the toilet. Went together better than I expected, though I have been practicing some fiberglass skills on another eggshell trailer.

[InsideOut]

Originally Posted by MattB

...but this is the arrival of the quarter round plywood.

I am actually pretty pleased with it. Very, very solid, and looks pretty well built, straight, etc.

WOW! I didn't know these existed...very cool! We built our own when we did our trailer several years ago ~

Your project is looking great, sorry about the thumb!

Shari

[MattB]

A couple shots of the round corners for the shower. I went with a larger width section attached on to one side of these to incorporate them into the door frame. Shown with the contact cement drying.



And then after screwing them together.



In order to pay for more trailer work, free space and put pressure on myself to finish a trailer so that I have one available for travel and camping again, we sold our 2012. This was the trailer that got us into the Airstream lifestyle and made some wonderful memories for us. Probably over 30K+ miles and something that has both provided primary shelter and enrichment for our family. Happy to have it sold to a wonderful family, but sad to see it go, and not be able to use it again. Don't know why one should feel sad about seeing a trailer go, but there it is.

[MattB]

Q: How do you fit a fridge, a microwave, an A/C electrical supply unit, and A/C compressor and a vent (along with some water supply and drain lines and wiring) all into one bulkhead cabinet?

A: Very carefully.

It took me about three design iterations to figure out how, and in which order to fit everything into this cabinet, but needed to make efficient use of space. Generation 2 mockups shown in the process of disassembly as they were used to help make the final version. Ultimately, from bottom to top: intake air vent, fridge, microwave (with A/C electrical supply behind it), A/C compressor (with a spice rack in front of it to help act as a sound insulator), and then outlet vent.




The tricky part was actually incorporating the end of the wheel well at the right side of the base, and the radiused corner of the wall. So I added some custom fit brackets to match the curve of the corner. I also wanted a way to service the A/C unit without a huge difficulty to get in and get to the filter, so I am adding an attachment system for the cabinet face using heavy duty magnets. More on that later on.

Lay out the support for each layer, as each was a little different based on the needs of the item supported.



Put it all together and add a few spacing brackets.



Went with the Isotherm fridge: