Re-imagining a 1948 Boles Aero Trailer

Updated 1/22/2022 Just a short post on the slide out for the porta potti I mentioned in the cabinets post. I wanted to have a porta potti for those occasions you heard the call of nature but didn't want to leave the trailer to use the campground facilities. Think middle of the night in a down pour. I got the idea of a slideout arrangement from pictures of van conversions. The space constraints and tradeoffs between small camp trailers and Sprinter/Transit van conversions are very similar. I used some generic 22" 600lb capacity locking sliders I found on Amazon coupled with 2 Accuride 9300-series bracket kits to mount the sliders to the floor and support a 3/4 plywood base that I covered with vinyl composite tile (VCT) left over from tiling the trailer floor. The generic sliders are dimensionally identical to the Accuride sliders but about 1/2 - 1/2 the price. The entire arrangement is real heavy and structurally sound. I'm actually mostly worried about the attachment to th...

Well it's been a long time since I posted. I've been busy working on the cabinets but we've also spent several weeks making up for lost vacation time. In the intervening months we went to Maui, Montana, Newport Coast and I spent a week backpacking in the Sierra Nevada. I also made a quick trip to Decatur, Texas to pick up my next project, a 1952 Silver Streak Clipper. The Clipper will be the subject of a follow-on blog... I finished installing the cabinets in the '48 Boles Aero last weekend. Construction was a much more difficult task than I'd anticipated. Some had to be built in place, while each of the others had unique requirements that had to be met such as clear the wheel well, or fitting a very specific sized refrigerator. I started by installing a shelf at each end of the trailer. The front shelf will go over the dinette while the rear shelf will go above the bed. Under each shelf are a set of LED down lights. Of course this meant that the shelf had to accomm...

Following installation of the EPS foam board insulation I installed the new wall panels. The original panels had gotten quite discolored from water leaking and condensation, particularly around the windows.  Based on all the images I've seen on the internet, the condensation issue seems to be common to these small "canned ham" trailers. My theory is that the metal window trim that is typical in these trailers accelerates this problem because it sits right up against the endgrain of the wood panels and during cool mornings and evenings, even if you're not using the trailer, moisture in the air will condense out onto the cooler metal window trim and then get wicked up by the end grain of the panels. Original Panels In any case, I chose to replace the panels. Based on a tip I read I saved the old ones to use as templates for the new ones. It was a great idea, but I could have benefited from it better. More on that later. I'm not sure what the wood type was in the ori...

To move forward with the insulation and wall panel installation I needed to be able to do the rough-in electrical wiring and that meant I needed to think through the appliances I wanted, lighting, etc. I'd been thinking about it but hadn't written anything down. I used an idea I saw on one of the "van life" websites and decided to use a visual block diagram to capture "the plan". I started with the major components requiring electrical power. Then I roughed out the physical placement of those components in the trailer. This meant I needed to finalize the floorplan an cabinet layout. After that I broke out the 12VDC wiring paying special attention to where the wiring needed to be embedded in the walls. Most of the wiring will be strung through the cabinets where it's easier to access and not visible. Similar with 120VAC wiring. There's still some room to adjust as I move forward, but the rough-in wiring in the walls is essentially final.  

  Like the floor, I decided to use extruded polystyrene (EPS) rigid foam board insulation in the walls and ceiling. The three factors I liked were: 1) essentially waterproof; 2) good insulation properties; and 3) it doesn't leave as much residual foam dust as regular Styrofoam panels.  The walls and ceiling have room for 1.5" thick insulation so that's what I went with. At 1.5" EPS has an R-value of 7.5. I had to special order it and it took several weeks to arrive. In the picture above you may notice there are areas where I used 1" EPS instead of the 1.5" EPS.  The wood wall panels that will be installed over the EPS are only 1/4" thick and won't provide a good holding surface for anything needing to be securely screwed to the wall. Cabinets, curtain rods, and lights will need to be secured. to the walls. So I created voids for strips of 1/2" plywood by using 1" EPS instead of the full thickness 1.5" EPS. I used leftover marine grade...

  Flooring is done The job of actually installing the flooring was easy. Getting prepared to do it took a long time. I used a vinyl composite tile (VCT) from Armstrong. VCT is not "peel and stick" tile, rather you towel on some special VCT adhesive, let it dry to a tacky surface, lay down the tile, and use a heavy roller to make sure it seats into the adhesive. Where you need less than a full tile or a cut out you use a utility knife to score the tile and then it'll break along the score. It's all easy. Most of the time was spent letting the adhesive dry to a tacky surface. Watching glue dry They make a lot, and I mean a lot, of different colors. There are only a few "patterns" though. Home Depot and Lowes only stock a few different tiles (black, white, grey, and tan). I decided to special order a color I thought would complement the wall panels I'll be installing. That ended up being a fail.  UPS declared the first shipment "lost" after a few ...