Holspeed Mk11
a homebuilt camper - on a budget

    Like many camper trailer owners we started out tenting. After a number of successive wet camping trips late in 2007 our 10 year old tent was showing its age and I figured there must be a better way to stay dry but still retain the camping atmosphere. Friends of ours had a camper trailer and after checking out their setup I concluded this was the way to go.

    As the subtitle says this was to be a budget build - sourcing well priced materials, utilising what hardware I already had, and doing as much of the work as possible myself.

    Like a number of CamperTrailers members have done I simply intended to purchase a complete tent top off the internet and bolt it to our old box trailer. I looked at what the Chinese tents were going for on eBay and figured I should be able to get one at auction for less than $1500 including delivery (we are 450km from the nearest capital), add a few hundred to modify the trailer and fit a kitchen. It looked like we could do it for well under the (theoretical) $2000 budget.


the trailer

    Some years ago I obtained, quite cheaply, a second hand 7'x5' box trailer. The floor and sides were rusted out but the chassis, axle and spring setup were still good. I lopped everything off level with the chassis and did a contra deal with a local fabricator to add 350mm high front and side frames, fit a jockey wheel & new 50mm ball coupling and make up a proper tail gate. The original mudguards were passable and re-used. The new floor and sides were simply treated pine planks screwed to the chassis and framework. The rusty 13 inch rims were replaced with much better 14 inch items. In this form the trailer served admirably for the next 10 years behind my work van, carting most anything you could think of. Due to a change of employment the trailer hadn't been used much in the last few years and so became a perfect candidate for a camper trailer project!

    A visit to the local steel merchant saw me stocked with various bits of RHS, angle and flat sections. I dragged out the old stick welder and after much practice extended the sides and tail gate by 200mm, giving enough height to slide our big icebox underneath. I converted the fixed front into a drop-down gate. The old mudguards were discarded and I had some 2mm sheet bent up for new ones. They came as 2.4m long channels that I had to cut, bend and weld together. Brackets (4 each side) welded onto the chassis rails at right angles support the guards. There is a 5mm gap between the guards and chassis for drainage. The original tail light mounts were re-used as they are very solid and protect the lights well.

    I made up adjustable stabilising legs for the rear of the trailer using 30x30mm RHS. A hole drilled near the bottom with a nut welded over it allows a bolt to tighten up on the 25mm leg inside. A 75mm square plate is welded on the bottom of the leg. Plastic caps in top of the outer tubes stops them filling with water.

    As my tow car is much lower than the old work van, the trailer sat at an odd angle. I purchased some steel bar and made up blocks to fit between the axle and springs, this had the effect of lowering the trailer body 40mm and levelled things nicely – it will never be an off-road trailer, but then neither is my car!

    While not conventionally used in trailers, timber is cheaper and lighter than steel sheet and for me at least is much easier to work with. I purchased some sheets of 17mm CD plywood for the floor and sides; these were sealed and painted prior to fitting. I choose Charcoal hammer finish (White Knight brand from Bunnings) on the outside as it covers a multitude of sins and found some Botanic Green in the shed for the inside. I did try spray painting the hammer finish but my little compressor didn't like it so I ended up hand brushing it. I found if you mix in some turps, the paint tends to spread more easily and brush marks don't show up as much.

drop down stabilising leg

the trailer - ready for a roof

mark1 - the prototype

    Over our years of camping, along with lots of poles, ropes, pegs, etc, we had managed to amass a few heavy duty silver/green tarps and so while saving for the tent top I got clever and made a mock-up of a standard soft floor side fold tent. Using some donated poles from an old cabin tent I fabricated bows and mounted them to a bed base made of second-hand chipboard. The wife’s sewing machine then got a workout sewing up the tarps to make the tent section. Polyester upholstery thread (from Spotlight) was used to sew it up and the joins covered with waterproof tape – though we found out later that the tape wasn't actually waterproof!

    I also made a kitchen box from a sheet of 12mm CD ply to slide in beside the ice box. Apart from new spreader bars to support the annexe area we didn't have to buy anything else. In keeping with the camper trailer look I fabricated holders for the 4kg gas bottle, battery box and jerry can out of scrap steel and bolted them to sides of the trailer.

    The first outing was Easter last year (2008), everything worked as intended (it didn't rain) and we got a number of favourable comments about its suitability.

Mk1 at Jackass Fern Gully

    Having been reasonably successful at sewing the prototype I started looking at the cost of actually making our own canvas top. After eliminating cheap Chinese canvas from the equation (unknown quality and importing small quantities is cost prohibitive) we looked at the Australian stuff. There appears to be only a few Aussie manufacturers of waterproofed canvas suitable for camper trailers. Wax Converters http://waxcon.com.au was probably the most popular brand. I looked at samples from both WC and Defab http://www.defab.com.au - the quality appears to be same, the specs are very similar and both guarantee their products, however, based on quotes received from a number of places, Defab canvas is about 2/3 the price of the comparable WC product. Being a budget build, naturally we'd go with the lower cost. Doing some rough sums showed that we could probably make a top from Aussie canvas cheaper than a Chinese version could be had from eBay, not a huge saving but justified looking at it further. Plus, I just love making my own stuff. I would still have to get hold of an industrial sewing machine though as the wife’s little Bernina wasn't going to cut it.

    As luck would have it I was speaking to a friend on another matter and happened to mention what we had in mind - “I have an industrial sewer if you want to use it”, it was music to my ears. The proviso was that the machine had to be stored and used inside the house rather than in a possibly damp environment like my shed (wife was not amused). I would appreciate being inside though as it would be the middle of winter, the downside that there wasn't much room to work in.

    After using the prototype again at the CamperTrailers Group Jackass Fern Gully meet in April (it was wet) I had a rethink. As our 2 older kids are now away at Uni there are usually only 2 or 3 of us camping, with a soft floor camper trailer the wife and I would have the luxury of the high-rise bed but our youngest would still get the floor. A 3 berth camper trailer was the answer, but without breaking the budget. If the other kids were home and wanted to come camping then there's always the tents.


a new design

    The trick was to come up with a way that opened up the trailer allowing access to a second bed inside - this meant the main bed had to flip or slide out. A double bed mattress is a little smaller than the 7' x 5' I had to work with so either way would be OK. One thing I decided was that the main bed had to finish over the drawbar when opened as this is really a dead area on a trailer and supporting the bed base off the drawbar is much easier than one coming out from the side or back.

    I think I over engineered the bed base design though. With a 25mm square RHS frame and 12mm CD ply top I calculated it would weight nearly 40kg - without a mattress. At over 2m long I don't think it would have been manageable in an end flip configuration. So, a slide out it had to be.

    Another constraint I placed upon the design was the packed height of the trailer, an issue found with the Mk1 – with 2 mattresses and a table on top it was too high . I hate not being able to see over what I'm towing (which is why we will probably never have a caravan). It meant lowering the bed into the trailer, but this was a good thing as the tent could fold inside the trailer and nothing would move around whilst travelling.

    A downside to dropping the bed meant that our big icebox would no longer fit underneath. We had smaller one though and would became the gauge to set the height of the bed base. My beer would have to go in an esky instead. The bonus of this camper trailer design is that less canvas is required than a normal soft floor, it's not as long or as deep and although a little higher, the bottom of the walls start almost a metre from the ground.

    It was at this point that I decided to go for it and make my own.

    A great tool I found was to draw everything out on graph paper as it allows you to do scale measurements and see where everything fits. Rather than buying graph paper though I found a website that allows you to print your own - http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/

the bed

    From our savings, the steel and timber was purchased for the bed base. The front gate was removed and a horizontal support bar welded across the opening. The rear gate, which no longer needed to be opened, was bolted and sealed up.

    The frame for the bed base is rather solid, we are not heavy people but I opted to overdo it a bit so the thing wouldn't sag. To carry the weight I found some 30mm wide castor wheels at Bunnings and bent up steel brackets to support them. Originally there were 3 down each side but I soon realised that the ones above the single bed would protrude too far into the trailer and be a hazard. The design was changed to just one set of wheels at the front and plastic strips mounted onto timber battens fixed along the sides of the trailer. While not as smooth as using all wheels, the bed slides in/out quite easily with silicon spray on the strips. To stop the bed tipping over when pulled out more than halfway I mounted a pair of smaller, sliding door wheels (Bunnings again) above the bed board, about 250mm behind the lower ones. A piece of plate screwed to the back edge of the bed board stops it from pulling right out. To lock the bed in place when both extended and retracted I fitted a small angle on either side of the trailer, just above the board - 1/4” pins just drop through them and into corresponding holes in the bed board. I hadn't finalised the front bed supports at that stage as I was in two minds whether to extend the existing 1200mm long drawbar.

wheel mounting

rolling bed base

inside

    The internal design called for a single bed down one side of the trailer with lift out panels to access storage underneath. I wanted as much available space in the slide out kitchen box to store all the cooking gear and dry food, with room on top for the icebox. This was achieved by using the full width of the trailer and having the lower end slide under the bed when packed away. When pulled out, a ply panel (stored under the single mattress) converts the area normally occupied by the stove section into a seat/side table.

    300mm of the bed board remains in the trailer when extended, with the area underneath serving as a front locker for the electrical, gas bottle, pole carrier, etc, and is accessed via the drop down front gate. On the same side as the kitchen slides from, a 500mm wide door was cut out, starting just behind the front locker.

    For the internal framing (bed, locker, etc) I used 19mm x70mm pine – something I already had as it was left over from an off-cut pack of timber purchased cheaply some time ago (a benefit of living in a pine plantation growing and processing region). New 12mm CD plywood was used for the panelling and looks good with a couple of coats of varnish.

    I ended up lining the walls, floor and inside the front locker in marine carpet, not something that was budgeted for, but happened to be on sale at Bunnings at the right time. Looks much better than painted timber I must say.

internal framework ready for panelling

the bows - the things that hold the roof up

    I started with the traditional 3 bow design which simply folds out from the side – normally no adjustment is required once erect but the end walls are angled in at the top. However, because our tent had to fold out lengthways it would be over 2m between each bow. I felt the span would be too great and cause the canvas to sag unduly, so opted for a 4 bow arrangement.

    Much measuring, drawing and re-drawing was done to get the bow pivot position and action right and in the end was a bit of a compromise. Both the 3rd & 4th bows have to be extended and 2nd has to be raised from the bed base once the tent is unfolded, however, it adds little time to the setup and the end walls finish vertical giving the impression of more internal space.

    I had intended to have new bows bent up to support the nice new canvas but saved some money, had just one made and rehashed the 3 from the prototype. I should give them a coat of paint though as they do look a little rough.

aligning the bows to measure up for the canvas

the drawbar

    One Thursday night on the CamperTrailers Group live chat I showed members a photo of how things were progressing with the build. Whilst voicing approval for the work completed, the majority said they had an issue with the strength of the current drawbar setup. Given that it was simply butt welded onto the chassis rails I had to agree having had the same thoughts myself for some time.

    Although I had been OK welding the framework on the trailer, this was a job best left to the experts. Following advice from my local welder some 75mm x 50mm x 4mm RHS was sourced and a visit scheduled. After cutting off the old drawbar, the trailer was flipped upside down. A few zips with the MIG and it was almost 600mm longer, and a heck of a lot stronger – pity my pocket was now much lighter..

    Refitting the brackets for the overrider bars (required on my tow car) to the extended drawbar gave me a mounting point for the bed supports. One end of the 20x20mm support fits over the bracket, the other end slips over a bolt through the bed base side rail.


the tent

    Instead of the traditional sail track method of attaching the tent I opted to use hook & loop (Velcro). This way meant it could be removed and refitted easily and potentially any slack in the canvas could be adjusted out.

    I found a canvas supplier who is happy to sell direct to the public – Mick at Raymond Traders in Adelaide http://raymondtraders.com After much drawing and measuring it was time to place an order. I looked at what other tent makers use and chose 14oz canvas for the roof and 11oz for the walls, in grey toning. Along with the canvas, I also ordered 25m rolls of 50mm wide hook & loop (Velcro is GREAT). We got the expensive sticky back stuff but could have saved quite a bit as contact adhesive works just as well (somewhat messier though).

    Also purchased was some “midgee proof” insect screening for the windows, ½ dozen No.10 chunky zips for the windows, door and annex, and a spool of light grey M12 poly/cotton thread. For the annex roof & end walls we went with Duratuff by Defab, a 14oz PVC material. While PVC doesn't breath as canvas does I never intend to close it in at the front so condensation shouldn't be an issue, plus, the cost is somewhat less than canvas – about 75% cheaper actually!

    I collected the sewing machine and started by practicing on some scrap canvas. I had left the machine set as I got it but found that when sewing the heavier canvas it was dropping stitches. A quick call was made to a sewing machine mechanic friend to see if he could point me in the right direction. After an inspection it was found that the machine wasn't actually as heavy duty as first thought. It would do the job, but with compromises.

    Changing to a larger needle virtually stopped the dropping stitches issue, but the machine wasn't capable of handling the heavy thread I had purchased and was advised to stay with the thinner M25 that came with it – a pity it was black thread but I wanted to get started..
In hindsight I should have kerbed my eagerness and ordered the smaller thread in grey. Sewing straight is not easy on large pieces of canvas and dark stitching on light coloured material stands out like the proverbial..

not the neatest sewing

    If you ever visit a canvas shop you will notice they have large tables to lay the pieces out on while sewing. Having to make do with a 1200mm by 900m dining room table made the job very awkward indeed, with a lot of stopping and starting to reposition the work. I also found when sewing different thickness and/or dissimilar materials together that one piece would often pucker (or the other would stretch) meaning the pieces you cut exactly right could end up the wrong length. Both these conditions (in my case at least) also tended to create some ordinary looking stitching.

    Perhaps I'm making excuses but I know that a larger work area, with big tables, and a more capable machine with a “walking foot” would have certainly made the finished job much better.

getting there

tent section finished

    One thing I wouldn't attempt again is to try and get big chunky zips to go around corners – they are a pain in the you know what. Maybe there is a trick to it but I had great difficulty sewing them in, plus you need to use extra wide strips of canvas to cover the curved zip on the outside. Far easier would have been to use a zip either side and simply Velcro the top (or bottom on a door) closed.

    As a consequence of having to use a large needle to sew the heavy canvas meant that a good sized stitch hole was left behind. Normally this would be almost filled with thread and when conditioned (the method of wetting/drying to swell the thread and canvas) would completely close up leaving a water tight seal. Because I had used the thinner thread this wasn't the case, even after repeated conditioning it still had some leaks – mainly where the PVC was sewn directly to the canvas (I had sewn Velcro covered PVC strips to the roof to secure the bows in place when erected).

    After some research I found you could get a wax type sealer in stick form which you simply rub into the seams, but none of the camping/disposals stores had any. They all offered me a liquid sealer (smells like plastic model glue), and while it's probably good stuff on a nylon tent I wasn't prepared to find out what it did to new waterproofed canvas. I ended up finding a stick at K-Mart whilst looking at other stuff – a good thing too as I almost ordered some online, at double the going rate... Happy to say that it works and things are nice and dry inside now.


annexe & other bits

    I opted to use heavy PVC for the annexe as it is quite cheap, making it from canvas would have added another $350 to the cost. I bought enough PVC for the annexe, 2 side walls, shade awnings for the tent end windows, a full length skirt that velcros onto the side of the trailer, and a travel cover.

    PVC is not the easiest stuff to sew and instead of slipping through the sewing machine it would “stick” to the bottom plate (sorry I don’t know the technical term) – I found occasional applications of talcum powder made it much easier though.

    Because I’d also used the same sized needles as the canvas, the stitching holes were quite pronounced and were sure to leak. I bought some of the liquid sealer mentioned above and ran that along the seams. It certainly works although there are a couple of spots which drip in heavy rain – another application should fix that.

annex, side walls and skirt

some extra protection

    I had always intended to fashion up a tropical style roof, but was to come later. However, due to the leaking canvas issue, I thought it wise to make one now – just in case..

    A tropical roof serves several purposes; it protects the overhead canvas from marking and staining, offers extra protection from heavy downpours and most importantly, is an insulator against heat and cold – to be efficient there needs to be a reasonable air gap between it and the canvas though.

    I had some fibreglass poles from an old 2-man dome tent, ideal for roof supports. There was just enough to make 4 equal length rods, a bit wider than the tent. I sewed small pockets on the edge of the roof canvas in line with each bow, then, by bending the rods slipped the ends of each into the corresponding pockets to form 100mm high domes. Having an abundance of silver tarp left over from the prototype made it an easy choice as the roof covering. With the tarp material cut over length I formed tubes on the underside in which to slide the fibreglass rods through. In good conditions the tension on the rods is enough to keep the roof in place but I added Velcro tabs around the outer edges to hold it down in rougher weather. Thin guy ropes at either end allow it to be tensioned lengthways.

tropical roof

the kitchen

    I used off cuts from the bed board and scrapped the old kitchen box for the rest. Just a basic setup to take most of our cooking gear and dry food. It slides out of the trailer on plastic strips (actually “yellow tongue” used in chipboard flooring) screwed to the bottom of 30mm high timber runners. The space underneath allows the legs to fold up out of the way. A lip on the trailer end of the box rests against a strip of aluminium angle riveted to the guard to stop the box sliding off when pulled right out. The legs themselves are made from 25mm square RHS with short pieces of tube (an old tent pole) slid inside; tent pole “T nuts” make them adjustable for differing ground levels. Folding stays from an old card table lock the legs in place when lowered. When raised, the tubing parts of the legs are held up with round spring steel clips (designed for tool boards) screwed to the underside of the box.

    Some more bench space would be good as the icebox takes up most of right hand side and the return is a little on the small side. It does all pack away neatly though - the return fits in behind the box and rests against the tailgate.

plenty of storage	leg detail
kitchen setup	kitchen in

kitchen out

budget icebox

    I've mentioned our ice boxes a couple of times. These aren't actually commercial units; rather, they are simply recycled fridges. Working in the accommodation industry we occasionally have to replace units that have failed (some of them not so old either). Provided the door seals are still good, once stripped out and the holes sealed up, they make very efficient ice boxes. The smaller one is about 80L and is quite light. I attached some handles so it can be carried.

    The larger unit was a medium sized fridge; the main part is 150L with another 45L in the freezer compartment. At present this one is redundant as it no longer fits in the CT, however I think I’ll will end up mounting it to the drawbar somehow and reclaim some space inside the camper trailer, just need to find a way of getting it off and on easily.


lighting & electrics

    Pretty basic actually as our needs are simple. Sorry, there is nothing about 12 volt fridges, solar panels or big AGM batteries in this section. It's possibly a legacy of being tent campers but we have never seen the need for a real fridge, and while this may change in the future, an efficient esky and a bag of ice will do us for now.

    What I was looking forward to though was not having to cart around gas lights, extension poles and extra gas bottles. Then there's the exploding glass shades. And you would think they could come up with a permanent mantle. All this hassle just to be able to see at night.
Enter the LED light! Lightweight, bright, and runs on the smell of battery acid – it has to be a campers dream. OK, so maybe I'm exaggerating somewhat but I like them.

    Sticking with the budget theme I found some 12volt LED strips at DX http://dealextreme.com 50cm long containing 30 bright LEDs, with good reviews and at less than US$10 each had to be a bargain. With an idea forming I also ordered a couple of cheap USB powered reading lights.

    Thanks to a group member (sorry I don't remember their name) putting up a post about where to obtain reasonably priced Anderson plugs I ordered a bag of 15amp Powerpoles from PowerWerx http://powerwerx.com in the US. These are great little plugs and even with international freight costs, work out much cheaper than anything else I could find here.

    From the battery I ran the main power feed through a keyed isolation switch (salvaged from a renovation job), allowing the power to be switched on/off without removing the lid of the battery box to disconnect a terminal. Via a 10 amp fuse the feed then goes into a distribution block (sounds flash but is just a cheap plastic terminal block). I split power feeds off for each lighting/power circuit and also added a 7805 voltage regulator on one of them - this was the 5v feed for the reading lights, or any other USB powered device we may wish to plug in.

    Using heavy twin I wired up the Powerpoles, one at the back of the trailer for the kitchen, one under the single bed for an inside light, and another in the front locker for the main annex light. Also fitted was a 3 switch wall plate near the door to enable us to switch the lights from in or outside the tent.

    I bent up a small bracket and mounted the socket end of a USB extension lead to the wall beside the single bed, then cut off the male end, soldered on some thin twin lead and ran it back to the 5 volt feed on the distribution block. For the main bed lighting I used a double USB socket removed from a dead computer motherboard, but this time with a flying lead so it can rolled up and stowed away when the tent is packed up. A Velcro strap holds it onto the bed bow when in use.

When the order arrived from DX I wasted no time in wiring up the lights. We are rather impressed with these LED strips; they produce plenty of light and draw less than 200mA. With all the lights ablaze the total current draw is only ½ an amp – I think the battery I'm using (currently on loan from the boat) is overkill.

    The USB lights aren't too bad for the price either, OK to read with and good for finding your boots when nature calls in the middle of night. One of them went rather dull the first time out though, not sure if the light is a dud or the regulator is putting out a bit more than required and has killed it, will have to check that out.

excellent value for money LED strip

USB reading light

Anderson PowerPoles

front locker

    The forward area beneath the bed base makes an ideal storage compartment. Rather than carry the gas bottle on the guard as we’d done previously, I made up a separate box inside the locker. When the front gate is raised, the box is sealed off from the rest of the trailer (required by law). In the off-chance of a leak, gas can escape through a vent in the floor.

    Also housed in the locker is the battery and associated wiring. A 1500mm length of 150mm storm water pipe under the single bed holds all the poles and spreader bars. There is plenty of room for a tool box to hold pegs, ropes and spare bits & pieces. The bed support bars live in here too.

storage locker

so what did it end up costing

    After so many years the original trailer owed us nothing so that cost was not factored in at the start. My labour was free and as I did virtually all the work, unless stated, all costs below are for materials only. As noted throughout this document, I had lots of things already that were used in the build - tent poles, timber, wire, second hand items, etc. I didn't put a dollar figure on these but I guess if you had to buy everything new it would easily add a few hundred to the total.

updates

    I started writing this article several months ago, just been a little slack in getting it finished and posted up. Since completing the CT we have done a number of successful trips away, naturally though, we pin pointed a few things that would improve the experience.

    Because the tropical roof won’t fold down neatly with the canvas, it has to be taken off and laid on one of the beds. Wet pack-ups mean wrapping it in a tarp and hoping it doesn’t leak on the way home. The roof rack from my old work van had a 90mm pipe carrier bolted on the side. I shortened the pipe and mounted on the side of the CT, the rolled up tropical roof fits snugly inside. I had to buy a new screw-on cap – cost $6.00.

    I’ve since moved the carrier to the rear of the trailer.

carrier for the tropical roof

    Maybe I’m getting old but I felt that our good 100mm foam mattress wasn’t as comfortable as it used to be. A near new DB inner-spring mattress from one of the spare beds at home was pressed into service, what a difference it made to our sleep!

    This presented a problem though; normally, when setting up, the bed base is pulled out and allowed to hang in mid-air while the support legs are fitted. However the weight of the new mattress placed too much strain on the sliding door wheels at the back of the bed base causing the axles to bend. I replaced them with the same type of wheels used on the bottom but this made for clearance issues with the bows when sliding the bed in/out (which is why I hadn’t used them originally). It took a bit of moving things around but is working well now. Still an issue was the overhanging weight putting an alarming bow in the bed base..

    We’d been carting the trailer spare in the boot of the car as I’d not made a carrier for it on the trailer. Time to kill 2 birds with one stone.
Originally I was going to go the easy route and just have the spare laying horizontal on the drawbar, standing it vertical though made a natural support for the bed base when setting up. I had enough scrap to make it up for zero cost.

    I fitted some S/H wheels to the bottom of the big icebox so it can be moved about (it’s rather heavy when full). I then made up alloy runners (donated from the previously mentioned ladder rack) that bolt across the drawbar. We can now roll on/off the fridge without too much effort. Again, it was a no cost mod.
With the smaller ice box gone we can now fit a bit more into the trailer.

big ice box and vertical spare

    Would I do it again? You bet. I had a ball designing and building our camper – using it is the icing on the cake. I have lots of ideas for a future project, so don’t be surprised if you see MkIII pop up one day.

 thanks to Dirk for sharing this idea

april 2009