The Rain Has Lifted, Time To Do Some Work On The Camper - Reinforcing The Walls

The last number of weeks have been getting pretty crazy weather, but today for the first time the rain finally lifted. It was time to get down to reinforcing the walls. The bad weather managed to pull apart some of the frame that was head together with 1 inch L brackets and also pull a bungee chord apart (they did only cost 1.49 each though so i'm not too sure about the quality). I first started off by removing those brackets and upgrading them to the 2 inch brackets. It was not because of choice I started with the 1 inch brackets, I just happened to run out of anything bigger.

I went to the shop, and picked up 40 of the 2inch brackets, and 40 of the one inch brackets just to have by chance I need them further down the line. Nothing is worse than starting the job to realize that you don't have what you need.

In the picture below you can see some of the brackets I was left with after today, along with the Makita drill that was given to me as a present over Christmas. This drill came with the usual spare battery that can be charged while you are using the other battery. And today, like every other time while working my battery did go flat and a jump to the other battery was needed.

Below you can see what the corners look like, they are 2x2 inch batons that are held together with the brackets using 4x40mm screws. Turned out quite well.

A side profile of the camper to date so far. You can see on the front left corner, there is a bit of wood connecting the left panel and the front right of the camper. This is to hold the entire frame together during the next few weeks, which will no doubt be windy again.

In the very middle of the camper, I added a sort of T-shape piece of wood. What is this little guy for? The job is pretty simple, just like a circus tent, the leg in the middle holds the tarp up, stopping water from collecting in the middle of the tarp. The big pools of water that were seen earlier in the blog are avoided this time!

The picture below shows a floor view of the camper to date so far.

The over all frame is now in place, and nicely secure. Now the interesting bits such as the curved edges which will be made from MDF can be added. The camper will stop looking like a box and more like the camper that I have in my mind.

Although the frame has come together will, some work will still be needed to affix the frame to the cross members (bit 4x3 inch wood at the chassis level) that were put in place earlier on. This is a job for a day when it is less windy, and the sprit level can come out to make sure everything is level!