ThePog

The thing is I have been 98% desk based for a while now, no time to even quote the workshop jobs, but I go down and do shit in the shed every night so still need the kit, and will need it for when the cad dries up and i can build stuff again. There was a discussion with the financial controller about whether I actually needed a drill, I said it would be exactly like having to live your normal life but without a bed.

They feel pretty chunky tbh. Apparently the rep has my number now, it is a downhill slope.

A bit more than a grand But it was on special. I couldnt bring myself to buy the other bits I wanted, maybe next month if the business is still cranking. I definitely couldnt have hidden the 3.5k for the full beans kit.

Should do the trick.

Altho i need that shit tomorrow and Mitre10 dont seem to sell Milwalkee.

Yea i give that shit a hard time, plenty of big drills into thick steel, good wrist breaking efforts. I have been leaning towards the Milwaukee.

Yea I have those boys for my wired grinders, I have one small one with a sanding disc and a big one with a cutting disc, they go hard etc. In fact the wee hikoki ran for 3 or 4 months with a cracked gearbox housing, just got a bit noisy...

Its all pretty slogged out, its all had 10 years of full on use, so probably need to start fresh. The grinder is still ok and with 3x batteries it should keep it going, plus I am kindof needing a wee circular saw and a power wrench thingy.

My nice Metabo drill has finally shat today, leaving me with only my dugga and grinder in that set and 3 average batteries. I paid proper money for it and am happy to do so again for a top quality set, has anyone got any recommendations?

Yea so that pile of stuff is extruded PVC, 35mm thick. The theory is that it is light and stiff, plus the air trapped inside will give reasonable insulation. There are cappings and corner joints etc to go with it... here is a bit I have left outside for a few months just to see how it copes. TBH I am not 100% sure this is the right material for a couple of reasons, the first is that is kind of brittle. It is not bad and no worse than other caravan materials but I would like it to be a wee bit more robust. The second is that it was supplied with many defects and dings from poor handling that I am having to work around. Again not a killer and it may be a case of getting the supplier to check the panels before sending out.... We may just have to rework the cover in something else if it ends up with too many patches. Anyway I have been cracking on with cutting the panels to size and seeing how it goes together. The windows and doors will get cut later, this is just a dry fit without glue. Altho first I stripped it down and finished all the welding. This meant tipping the whole thing over on its side to help with access, which was pretty fraught but doable with my forklift. Forgot to take pics that day. I also added some steps, as it is a bit of a hike up. These were kindof tight to fit in and needed a judicious trim on one internal leg to get them to sit in far enough. They seem to work pretty well though. Then just adding panels and checking the fit etc That last pic is the start of the lid proper, I reckon it looks pretty nice, with some clean lines. Obviously there will be windows and such but that is later. It is going to be a mission to assemble that lid and get it on, I will have to rig some lifting points. I also thought I should sort the lift control system which is what I have been up to today. Mostly translating this; Into this; Which surprisingly actually worked.. I may just bite the bullet and get a winch contactor unit as this will be much tidier, but I needed to get the wiring right in my head. So I at least need to get the lift limit switches in place before I can continue with the lid, that will be tomorrows job I imagine.

When I built my fatbike it had some difficult bends in the top tubes. I tried the sand bizzo but as I didnt want to apply heat it was shite. I ended up buying a very long spring the same diameter as the pipe ID, this kept the shape really nicely even though it could be difficult to remove afterwards.

Maybe not that friendly yet.... This one is way smaller, lighter and lower profile for towing, but should have about the same usable floor area.

Same same, they pay materials and I pay in time and design, we'll both use it...

Yea there are so many potential layouts that pack down. We very nearly did it with a kindof accordion type structure but the sealing was probably going to be difficult with so many hinged seams. There were a couple of really great ideas that were stymied by lack of manufacturing capability in nz, and reluctance to take a punt on a rando chinese factory to make what we wanted. I have not had a heap of time to carry on with this but there should be an update after the weekend...

So you want a lightweight, low drag caravan for yourself then....?

I towed it out to see how it looked in the light of day, looks about right to me; That was to make room in the shed for this stack of secret stuff, all will be revealed in a later episode.....

This is where it gets tricksy, I have various things that make using a timing belt for the lift a sensible option, mostly availability and prior use in various designs I have done. That main driveshaft lifts all 4 corners at exactly the same rate, it works well so far. Then there is much random shite I have added A doorway Stabilisers Towing accoutrements Tail lights Flooring A modified ATV winch for the lift mech that works perfectly but is pretty noisy, I may replace this if it is a problem. Many thanks to @datlow for that sweet idea. Some water tanks, 120L - set low and central so as to not screw up the weight balance too much A pressure activated water pump to suit The bed needs to lift away from the seating area during the day, this is my first cut at it which was a hilarious failure as at the horizontal transition point it went terribly wrong. I have found a better way now, more of this in future episodes.

Been cracking through this as my main project since Feb, its been a good time. Background; I have been designing this with some friends for a long time now after I built them a caravan a few years ago that was good but had a couple of limitations, mainly size and weight. This is the 547th design iteration since then, it is just time to crack on. It is a hard side lifting roof, and the methodology will become apparent with the pics. The reason is that it gives plenty of standing height while remaining reasonably compact, plus way less frontal area when packed down for towing, and hopefully some smart packaging will allow nice space usage. Firstly I went to Chch and grabbed this kit while I was there, altho the steel bits you see have been laser cut and folded locally; I ordered some steel and cracked on; Stand by for Part II....

A wee boy arrived today, its actually perfect, pretty grunty, the right revs, it can be manually disconnected, already has up and down controls... Chur for that.

I was thinking a limited run of handcarved woodprints. Limited by how bored i got after printing 3 of them

Its somewhere on the list.

It is a lifting roof caravan i am building, the lift is done with timing belts for reasons. I have something like 60mm gear/shaft system that drives everything. I worked out that I need about 50Nm of torque at 1:1 drive to lift everything comfortably. I also needs to be running pretty slow, like 10rpm. I was thinking about doing a build thread for it as it has some interesting features. I just hit buy now on a cheapy atv winch which will either do it or give me context for getting something better. This is the backup system. Yea I looked at those, probably too fast.

Hmm atv winches

Hmm that is a good possibility, maybe overkill tho. I shall look at wee ones. Good

I need a geared 12v motor with a low output speed and reasonable torque. My first thought was a windscreen wiper motor with a worm drive but i might need more than that and probably lower speed. Can anyone think of something else to do the job, ie cheap, grunty, common as muck etc TIA.