Still alive and kicking

         Well many of you might have thought that I have dropped off the face of the earth, but no I am still here on planet mother earth. The big problem that stopped me from working was that I just could not get myself to drill 16 holes into the cargo trailer roof, no matter how hard I tried. I just kept dreaming of 16 leaks that could not be patched. All that water dripping onto my bed and cabinets, not even thinking of the out of sight expensive $$$$ wood flooring, just gave me the chills.

To give credit where credit is due :  http://www.tosimplify.net/

Thank you Glenn & I hope you don't mind I use your picture from your blog to show how it will work !! The standard metal brackets and taped directly onto his fiberglass roof ? The tape will get here in about 7-10 days I'm guessing. I'm pretty sure it will work & I am thinking of using some brass door hinges so the panels can be tilted and or easily stolen :-)


P.S. Glenn has the one of the greatest blogs that I have seen on the web, as he travels the country for 2+ years now enjoying life and playing music, I can only hope that one day we will meet. PLEASE go and check it out.

I still have lots of other unbelievable stories to tell you guys, in the coming weeks, about what happened in my neighborhood and about how my upgraded DVD camera system is working, YES !! I even caught a killer next door !! 

I also meet the guys from two-vagabonds.de as they were nice enough to stop by my house for a great visit.

Simone, Olaf & Pacco in my driveway.

Their truck from their web site

http://www.two-vagabonds.de/

Installed Swan Security System

       The system is halfway installed and is up and running already. Total install time about 6 hours, since I did not know what I was doing - this was my first system. Now I will also get one for the house.
I learned some interesting stuff about cameras, the more you pay the better the picture that you get, also the more Infrared LED's you have - the further the night time distance the camera goes. A good $200 camera with 30 LED's will go up to 130 ft at night. Most cheap cameras don't give you anything worthwhile at night time, so what is the use? I would guess the thieves work 24/7 , not only during the day time hours. Cost of this basic system was approx. $350.

I chose a swan system as it has lots of different kinds and qualities of cameras to choose from, the more Infrared LED's that you have the brighter the thing glows at night time, I will try to get a night time picture if my camera is willing.  

It can be viewed in quad mode.

Or viewed as a single camera.

Easy to install - just drill 3/4" hole through side.

Rear driver side camera.

Front passenger side camera.

Front under side camera for when truck is unhooked.

This system has a mouse which makes it very easy to adjust all the cameras and settings. 

If all 4 cameras record, the current time is 342 hours on a 500 HD, 

then it will just start over from the oldest date.

This system can also be connected to the internet and viewed live,

after I get all the wires laid out that might come next.

I tested the 3 TB hard drive & got ipad 2 this week

         Since I had a little computer issue this week, by clicking something wrong on my VMware fusion program, that left my Mac and PC not talking to each other any more. After some help from my guru , I now have a machine where stuff I make on the PC shows up on the Mac and vice versa.... Well not perfect , but much better then finding nothing on the PC at all.


The 3 TB HD helped me to copy my files off the machine and hopefully soon iMac & PC will be best friends again.


The iPad 2 I thought takes great pictures & video's.  I was able to make my first crappie 5 minute video combined with pictures and video. I am very hopeful when trailer gets done to also make a video for You -Tube posting. Making movies with iMovie on the iPad 2 was a simple as 1 , 2 , 3 !!

Parts are finally arriving

Hey Hey Boys & Girls


OverTheTop ..........is finally back


My special order stuff has mostly arrived & my wallet is sightly slimmer, but what wouldn't I do for you guys, to throw in some more bling !!  I'm still way below what it would cost for a good used Airstream  
If there is something you feel that I am leaving out, don't be shy and leave me a link to your favorite goodie you would never leave home without.

The final wallpaper selection.

The supper well packed 36 gallon water tank 

They still can't tell a clear cover from a white one...

even on the second time around... who says you can't get

low quality, slow service & high prices from the Good Old USA !!

If its not too hot and to busy at work this coming week , maybe I can get around to installing some of this stuff.

Still waiting for parts to arrive

       While its boring as hell waiting for parts to arrive, I did get in a little shopping for some more Bling !
Here are some pictures of the goodies that I was able to find mostly at Orchard Supply , also known locally as plain old OSH.

I just love the blue LED on these floor lights

Flood lights with blue LED's, you can see they will do a 

super great job highlighting the glass tiles.

Its a kind of metal foil outlet covering material, like gold foil.

Stainless steel stick on wall tiles, this might become my backsplash ?

Its a little expensive at $20 per sq. ft !!

Nice lights, maybe for the exterior door ?

Assortment of small electric parts.

Assortment of small electric parts.

Liquid electric tape.

The newest marine grade electric connectors, not cheap at $5 a box, 

but might come in handy somewhere ?

Just waiting for more parts to arrive

       Ordering parts seams to take forever. Today I found the new glass tiles at a local Lowes they were in stock and on the shelf. Other stores have them as a special order item. Its always better to get them off the shelf, then they can be returned if something is left over. Lowes has a great selection of special order glass tiles.


Tiles from Lowes



       I am still waiting for my second 36 gallon water tank to arrive, its been 2 weeks now. The wall paper was ordered approx. 1 week ago and should show up soon, maybe Monday or Tuesday ? I also ordered another box of wood flooring for around the bed area, estimated arrival time is July 15th. It seams that while waiting for parts, time goes by slowly.

Found tiles for the back cargo door wall

      These tiles are pure bling, not sure if you can see all the colors, so I have tried 3-4 different angles. The tiles go great with the Diamond plate, wood flooring and the new wall paper. I will just need some accent lights to make them really sparkle.

 You can see how they reflect in the light.

Do you wanna build a cargo trailer ?

        Let me highly recommend you read or join the form from Mikechell.com . They have endless info that will be helpful for your project. Most of their members build really great Teardrop trailers. You can join for FREE. I am just a newbie over there, so I will let you know more details when I figure it all out. But if you click on the link below, you can get help with your cargo trailer project. Some of the projects are 20+ pages long.


The only bad thing about reading over there, is that I get more crazy ideas and spend less time building my project, what the hell, its a lot of fun seeing other projects.



Building cargo trailers

Newly added slide show & picture gallery

        WOW....adding that stuff, that took a little work for a almost newbie blogger, maybe when the project is all done I will be able to add some U Tube video with a little music so you can see the thing in full scale. If I can figure all that out ? That will be a couple of more months in the future, so stay tuned, LOTS of good stuff is still coming. Thanks for checking out the pictures.

The Interior Designer came to the trailer

     We spent some time talking about and picking out the wall finish, required to tie the whole project together. Since the interior items like glass tiles and diamond plate are very modern, it was decided that we would go with a metallic finish wall paper. Here are the final 2 selections, we decided to pick one of those two, you will have to stay tuned to find out which one until at least late next week at the soonest. It was also decided that we would get another box of the wood flooring to go around the bed area , to tie everything together. I sorta wanted to mix the two patters one on each wall, but that idea was nixed by the designer.


I guess I will try to spend the week doing the primer coat :-)

1 of 2 possible selections ?

1 of 2 possible selections ?

Stay tuned until next Friday July 8th or latter.

Was ist eine Flügeltreppe ?

       Was ist eine Flügeltreppe ? Answer there is no such thing ! Or is there ? As the bed is 43" high I needed a ladder to get in and out of the bed, but that idea was total crap. I felt like I would break my neck on that ladder getting in and out of the 43" high bed. So I decided to invent stairs with wings... ie. Flügeltreppe !! All inventions have to have German names as they easily describe the concept in one word. This stupid little idea took some time to build and putz around with, but in the end I am very happy with the way it works. It is now very easy to get in and out of the bed, looks nice and cost about $40 to build out of oak wood with the finish. I think it would support about 400+ lbs- more then a regular ladder. It is also easy to remove and allow access to the cabinets under the bed.

Flügeltreppe - stairs with wings, makes it easy to get in and out of 43" high bed.

Below is the finished floor, nice contrast with the cabinets.

The Porta Potty

      Wow, when I checked the stats today I noticed I had a bunch of views from  Mikenchell.com/forms , I had just joined that form a few days ago and was thinking when I find the time, I will also post some of my stuff there, those tear drop builders really know their stuff, I wish I had found them 6 months ago. Feel free to leave your comments on this blog. I still have lots of questions about stuff that is yet to be installed.


       Here is the view of the Porta Potty as you enter the trailer. When its all done it will look like a place to sit and relax. I had some left over flooring so I will use that for the front section. After much research and experimentation I decided on the "build my own porta potty method" because as I was looking around I noticed places, more and more wanted to charge $10 - $20 to dump your waste. As I mostly wanted to do boondocking or coyote camping, with a little cargo trailer I could go broke on dump fees. The loveable Loo gave me some great ideas. so I want to give you a link to their  web site below in red. 

http://humanurehandbook.com/store/LOVEABLE-LOO-Eco-Toilet.html

       Rather then have a bucket of sawdust , peat moss or something sitting next to the potty as they do, I decided to build a box inside a box, after all if you slam on the trailer breaks you don't want that stuff flying around the trailer - what a mess that would be. I also made the box approx. 20" high that was a perfect height for me, as you get older,  it gets harder and harder to get up from the pot. So I built the first handicapped porta potty. Generally at home those raised toilets are approx. 17" high. The whole box is approx. 27" wide  x 20" high  x 27" deep. I will install - bolt a bucket onto the floor & the potty bucket will actually sit secure inside that bucket. Then around the outside of the first bucket and inside that box will be the peat moss. I have personally tried this method in my bedroom "as I was a total non believer" about the smell and it does work. Just as an extra safety back up, because this is over the top cargo trailer, I will also install a 12 volt fan. Pictures of the whole set up will come latter. This method would also be a great emergency backup for your house if an earthquake or something happens. This is my only low tech - green solution, as I did not want to go broke on dump fees. If one wanted a regular toilet and flush tank could be installed there, but water weighs a lot, keep that in mind.


Chick here & go to the future with fan installed.

Interior design

       

Click here to see the current interior design

Here is the new carpet on the rear door,

it replaced the first design.

Click here to see the current interior design

Below is the first design 

Slowly I'm getting around to the interior design, I just had a little idea for the rear door design - does it look a little like texas. Now I just need a little Arizona design, then I will blend in all over the place. I was trying to decide if I should use stained wood or a white color ? Well maybe both ? Time will tell.

Wood flooring has arrived and is being installed

        The flooring was picked up last night, 5 minutes prior to store closing, in the middle of rush hour. Its about 1/2 installed, the tricky parts of the installation are yet to come. 45 sq. ft might not sound like a lot, but there are some tricky cuts and it is not easy to install the last row under the cabinet. The flooring is not packed very well and the end joints were mostly damaged and do not fit together very well, at least not to my satisfaction. 

Flooring has nice contrast with cabinets.

Flooring partial completion.

A little dental molding trim for the cabinets.

The housing for the fan under the location where the a/c sits.

The fan box has extra holes for additional air flow.

There is a middle metal damper plate to help seal off the compartment.

And a little door to close off the whole compartment, 

keeps things nice and tight.

Insulation is working as well as expected

        With the new roof having 3 layers of white paint I was pleasantly surprised at the interior trailer temperature today. As you can see the proof is in the pudding, the interior temp was the same as the exterior. I was expecting to get an additional 5-6 degrees more inside, so I was very happy with the result. By the way I left the roof vent open 1-2". I have also put the thermostat on the ceiling, where it will get the hottest, down on the floor it is normally about 5-6 deg lower, I am always looking for worst case. Tomorrow I will try and do the final hookup for the a/c unit maybe, so I can do some more testing to see what I can get with the 7,000 Btu from LG. It would be nice to get 100 outside and to be able to measure how much power and how low the temperature would go. That way I could figure out how much solar power I would need worst case.

The bottom row has the min & max temp.

I'm more a 50 to 75 deg kinda guy.

Wood flooring has been ordered, est. delivery 1 week

      I was planing to buy the flooring at Southern Lumber, but they gave me so much JAZZ with a $100 sample deposit ( which I had for 60 minutes ) on which they also wanted $9 sales tax, who ever heard of something so ridiculous ? $9 Sales tax on a deposit ? When I wanted to place the order, they also wanted another $65 in Freight charges to their store. They told me their profit on a $8 sq. ft. flooring was so thin, they could not possible sell it cheaper. STUPID people, if I have to pay freight charges, then it has to go to my home not their business. So they lost my business on this order.

      After a few calls around to some other companies, I found Gail Irwin from Conklin Bros on Almaden Exp. in San Jose. WOW she was so friendly, called me right back with a great price that I could live with and had me in and out of the store in 10 - 15 minutes. Once I sat down at her desk I never had to get out of the chair, not even to pay. She had keep all my info from when I called to write the order ticket.  She has about 10+ Salesman of the month awards on the front of her desk. I can see why, even with a small $460 order like mine, she treated me just like a real customer who was shopping for a 2,000 sq. ft. house. These days its really a rare treat that you still meet a professional with great pride & enjoyment in their work. Gail - Thanks for your Help !!

Plastic 35 gallon water tank & 3TB hard drive

       Received the special order 35 gallon water tank today, with shipping and tax the whole unit was $280. NOT very happy with the quality of the tank, there is a 2" patch in the middle of the large side, that is only 1/4 as thick as the tank. All 4 of the larger sides are smashed in from 1/2 to 1" almost, don't see how the tank would hold 35 gallons with those dimensions....  I will have to talk to company rep to ship this tank back.... very, unhappy customer at this point. Follow up..( the tank holds about 32 gallons ) The company did ship me the clear inspection cover June 22nd. They promised up and down the tank will not leak, the bulges will come out when the tank is filled. Who knows ?  To move the project forward I ordered a 2nd tank from them that will hold 36 gallons and go in the front of the trailer, that would give me a total of approx. 71 gallons. They happen to have the exact dimensions that I need for this project........so there we go. If I add some 5 gallon paint buckets in the truck bed, maybe I can get 100 gallons for extended camping. 3 gal per day - maybe 30 days ?

Fits ok , except for the sides being smashed in 3/4"

Than tank cover was supposed to be clear - not white.

large - thin 2" patch to the side ??

New 3 TB hard drive to hold movies etc....