1973 Compact Jr

[francene]

Kent, it's basically styrefoam with skin on both sides, from Home Depot, 1" thick, with Locktite Powergrab use to adhere it to the walls. Messy when you cut it up, but it vacuums up.

Fran

[Steve Hilby]

What a nice job of woodworking!

I don't recognize your drawer slides, but they look interesting; where did you get them? Do they include any feature to keep the drawers closed during travel?

[Dana T]

Hi Fran, thanks for the kind words and the pictures of Chuck Hagen's drain modifications.

Yes, everybody just connected a short hose to reach from the side drain outlet down to a tub, bucket, or container. One of the pictures shows the hose going under the trailer but no container was visible -- I don't know where it eventually drained to.

As for the city water inlet my current feeling is to not have one. The main reason is that I expect few occasions where I could use it, and the real biggie is that I would have to monitor the drain container much more closely. With the handpump supply being individual jugs of no more than 2.5 gallons, I know that if I empty the drain bucket every time I change the fresh water jug, I'll be fine. But with the city water hookup there is no easy way of knowing when to check the drain bucket.

The pictures hide a lot of flaws -- when you see the stuff I've done "for real" it is obvious I am no woodworker. But I am getting better at it. Thank goodness it's only a camping trailer and not the kitchen of our house!

[Dana T]

What a nice job of woodworking!

I don't recognize your drawer slides, but they look interesting; where did you get them? Do they include any feature to keep the drawers closed during travel?

Hi Steve, thank you for the encouraging words. As I told Fran, the pictures hide a lot of flaws. But my woodworking skills are improving!

I bought the drawer slides at Home Depot. They are "self-closing" in that the ends are ramped so the drawer drops nearly a quarter inch when it's closed. That's nice for everyday use but insufficient to keep the drawers closed while travelling -- for that I will have a bar that runs from the floor to the countertop and blocks all the drawers from opening.

These drawer slides have the advantage of making the drawers easier to construct and give greater interior width as compared to the traditional method of making a complete drawer and attaching slides. Unfortunately, the local Hope Depot carries these only in the 20" length. HD charged $10 a set for these.

Blum makes the MetaBox series which are better quality and are available in more sizes, but they are not available locally and are more expensive. They can be ordered, but usually when I finally figure out what I can squeeze into a spot I want to go get it right now!

[francene]

Dana, if you ever are at a campground with 'hook-ups', if there is city water, there usually is a sewer drain at the site as well, so you could use as much fresh water as you liked since the gray would be going down a drain, not your gray tanks.
Just a thought; so few state parks and recreational areas have such hook-ups. The one at Big Bear I mentioned is an exception.

(We used to live in Valley Center, CA for 18 years and had a vacation home in Big Bear for 10 years. After that, we camped there a few times in the summer.)

Now I'm in WA state, missing SoCal. Possibly will return.

Best,
Fran

[Dana T]

Dana, if you ever are at a campground with 'hook-ups', if there is city water, there usually is a sewer drain at the site as well, so you could use as much fresh water as you liked since the gray would be going down a drain, not your gray tanks.

Thank you for this info -- I hadn't realised that sewer connections came along with pressurized water -- this is good to know.

My wife and I were looking at the water and sink drain situation today and have a tentative plan. First I need to explain that the cupboard under the sink can hold three 2.5 gal and three 1 gal water bottles. We will designate one of the 2.5 gal containers as the gray water "tank", will place it in the corner nearest the door so it is easy to remove, dump, and replace. We will route the drain to that container in such a way as to preserve as much drawer space as we can.

The reason I want to use these small containers instead of the big freshwater tank that came with the trailer is that it is easy to carry and refill 1 gal and 2.5 gal containers without moving the trailer. But refilling the bigger tank is not so easy. Also, the big tank is not necessarily clean because the filler lid has a tendency to open while the trailer is being towed. Yeah, I could replace the filler with a latching/locking one, but the tank itself chops up the under-bench storage/stowage area so badly and inefficiently that I really want to rip it out. Vee haf plans...

Yes, I will be careful to preserve adequate tongue weight while making these alterations!

[Dana T]

Drain detail -- I decided I would just have the sink drain into a 1 gallon or 2 1/2 gallon jug, so all the piping is inside. I carried the drain straight to the outside wall then across to the rear of the trailer so that would allow me as much room in the drawers as possible.




There is a small section of pipe that extends into the jug which helps hold the jug in place. When I want to empty the jug I just tilt it a little bit and slide it out from the end of the pipe.




Here's a photo with the drawers installed. I was really happy that I got so much more drawer space -- all I had to do was utilize the space more efficiently.

[Dana T]

After reinstalling the heater and checking it out, it was time to load up the kitchen stuff and check it out. We made dinner and slept overnight in the back yard and discovered only one gotcha -- the middle drawer cannot be opened when the door is closed because it hits the twist-lock in the doorknob. I had never noticed that because when I was working on the drawers I always had the door open!

Anyway, dinner was a success, and we slept well, so it was time to go camping!

Here's the trailer in one of its preferred habitats:




The views from our windows




And the kitchen now that it's all together -- that's half a loaf of homemade bread sitting in the dish drainer:




My wife and I had a wonderful time. We really enjoyed the fact that we could see the blue sky and trees through the popup's windows even when the other window shades were drawn for privacy.

[Heath G.]

Dana, great job so far. I love the way you did the drain on the sink. I was lookinf for another way to rout mine to get some more room and I think I just found it. I think I will maybe run mine out the original hole and just eliminate the trap. It already leaks and the other half want me to fix it b-4 the lake Erie rally in sept. I just wish I caould get more done before that. Only 2 trips left for this year then maybe a resore in my compacts future. Thanks for all the pics and step by step you have provided. They will be handy for my project.

[Dana T]

Thank you, Heath. The hardest part was finding a shallow drain basket and a tailstock with an elbow that made an immediate 90 degree turn without extending down into the cabinet area any further than absolutely necessary. I tried several stores and found the drain basket at Home Depot and the most appropriate tailstock at Orchard. Each had baskets and tailstocks, but the tailstock at HD didn't fit as snugly to the underside of the sink, and the drain basket at Orchard was not as well made and also didn't fit as snugly to the underside of the sink. Man, all this shopping for less than an inch, but it makes a huge difference to the amount of storage in the top drawer!

[Dana T]

When I picked up the trailer in the Central Valley I also acquired a mascot -- a very colorful jumping spider. Actually, we have several, and I'm hoping we have enough to establish a small colony here.

Does anyone know anything about this specific spider?

Here's her picture -- she's on the fiberglass poptop and I had to use the flash, so all those white spots are just specular reflections from the fiberglass. Also, the color is a little off -- the light-colored banding on the body and hairy pom-poms are more of a creamy yellow than stark white.

[Dana T]

My wife and I had noticed that the original dinette cushions were too soft for sitting -- we'd bottom out. For sleeping they were OK but marginal because we could just feel the hard foundation with our hips if we laid on our sides.

So the other day I bought two "Hide-A-Mats" from Costco. They are 3 3/4" thick, 77" long and 36" wide. They are made up of four panels, two of which are 25" x 36", and the last two together make another 25" x 36" pad. My original thought was that the two complete mats would make a firm, but not hard, cushion or foundation for our bed.

When I got them home I took the "stuffing" out of one of the panels, and discovered that instead of foam it is a polyester batt. I like this because it doesn't soak up water like open-celled foam does, and it's quite light. We tried the batt by itself (no foam cushion) and it was OK for sitting, but much too firm to sleep on. We then tried that batt under the foam cushion on the seat and it met the bill as far as preventing bottoming out even while sitting. Thus we decided to use the batt under the foam we already had.

I could have lowered the supports for the seats/bed by nearly 4" to allow for the thickness of the batt, but we decided to slice the batts in half because we noticed that we were sinking only about 1/3 the way into the batt. Yesterday I borrowed a hot-wire foam cutting rig from a friend and a little later I had custom batts that are 1 7/8" thick, 23" wide, and 36" long for the seats, and 1 7/8" thick, 11 1/2" wide and 36" long for the backrests. The 23" is because the width of our Compact Jr is 69" (at the front) to 69 1/2" (in the middle). As an added benefit, I have some 1 7/8" x 2" x 36" remainders that will be handy for extending my side of the bed from the original 72" to 75".

All told, it took only one Hide-A-Mat to make our dinette seat cushions very comfortable for both sitting and sleeping.

Oh yeah, the Hide-A-Mat cost $50. That's less than the cost of even shipping that size polyester batt from any seller to my house!

[francene]

Hi Dana,
Your modifications look great and you are getting to use the trailer - good show!

What kind of window shades are those?

Did you make a new table?

Best,
Fran

[Dana T]

Hi Fran, nice to hear from you.

The shades are the $7 fanfold paper shades. I got both the "light control" and the translucent shades. I put them together with the dark "light control" ones on top and the translucent ones on the bottom. The idea was that if we wanted privacy we'd just pull down the bottom shade, and if we wanted to block the light we'd pull down everything. Great idea, or so I thought.

The problem is that the paper is really affected by humidity -- when it's dry the pleats are crisp and it's hard to get the shade to cover the whole window because the pleats want to roll it right back up again. When it's humid the pleats disappear and the shade is about 2 times too long and it's impossible (well, difficult at least) to pull the shade up. And if it gets dry before you repleat the shade it's no fun at all trying to get the paper properly repleated.

So I am replacing them with a new combo -- miniblinds and a pull-up light-blocking cloth shade. Here's the thinking: We want to do different things with the window
1. Transparent: We want to see through it or let air through.
2. Light Control: We want to block direct sunlight but still see through it and/or let air through.
3. We want privacy.
4. We want to insulate the window and are willing to block the view, and no way we want air flow!

The miniblinds will hang from above, can be retracted for Transparent, let down and angled for Light Control, or closed for Privacy.

The thick cloth curtains will normally be below the window and can be pulled up between the miniblinds and the window for insulation when it gets cold.

Lying with my head under the front window (which doesn't leak air because it's a solid pane) I sure felt the cool air flowing down from it even though the shades were pulled. I want to make a thermal trap that blocks that flow when I find it annoying instead of pleasant. Hence the thick cloth shade that pulls up from below.

Re the table, I had made that early on from a $11 48"x34"x3/4" birch plywood scrap that I got at the local ReStore. I had shown a picture of it at the bottom of this post: http://www.fiberglassrv.com/board/index.ph...st&p=326194

[JenPB]

When I picked up the trailer in the Central Valley I also acquired a mascot -- a very colorful jumping spider. Actually, we have several, and I'm hoping we have enough to establish a small colony here.

Does anyone know anything about this specific spider?

If these suckers weren't so fast, and I didn't think they'd keep biting me (yes, I said KEEP), they'd be among my favorites. What characters! I think they're Saltcidae, of which there are some 5,000 types. You can see LOTS of 'em through the links here.