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Why After Sue's back operation, we knew that we would have to do something to improve our camping options. We looked at caravans, but with nowhere to store one, it didn't make much sense. So instead we had a look at trailer tents, after getting some idea of what we wanted we found a reasonable one locally. Interior After a few wild thoughts, we decided to redo the interior, out went all the flowery curtains and bedroom dividers. In came 19 yards of material covered in custom cars, plus about 12 yards of plain blue, and 10 yards of cream. The sleeping compartments had the flowery fronts removed and replaced with the white background custom car material. The single downward zip, was replace with a full 3 way zip, to reduce drafts. The seats were made from two 80"x10"x5" bits of foam, they were covering in a fixed cotton covers, then each gained 2.5 yards of the blue custom car material ! We used the old bedroom zips on the covers so that we can remove them. We attached some anti slip material to the bottom side so that they dont slide around. The curtains used up the rest of the blue background custom car material. The ceiling lining was copied from a modern tent, but we attached the toilet tent with a sleeping bag zip so that we can leave it out at shows with decent toilets. The lining was made from a lightweight plain cream material. The toilet compartment from a heavier material. A plain blue colour was found which matched the curtains, from this we made fitted sheets and duvet covers. The elastic holding the matresses down went, and some elasticated straps were made up and attached with press-studs. This holds the matresses down, and keeps the bottom of the bedroom compartments taught, making them virtually draft-proof. The electrics are powered by a 12V battery, I've used speakon connectors (use by pro-audio gear for speaker connections), the 2 and 4 pole plugs both fit into 4-pole sockets, they are 20A/100V DC rated. I've worked out a cigarette lighter socket charger, allowing the battery to be charged en-route to the run, without having to cart the battery in and out of the house ! We've an 8W tube above the cooker and another in the bedroom area, we've a dual tube 16w unit in the living room area. We've got household two gang faceplates mounted on control boxes on the cooker and in the bedroom area. These are just velcro'd into place. The living room lamp is switchable from either the kitchen area or the bedroom area. We cut up a massive blue tarpaulin to be our ground sheet. We made one for the living area, and another for under the bedroom areas. This gives us massive amounts of DRY storage at shows ! Various other bits were used to blank off and draft-proof areas where we could. Other The tent was sprayed with over 5 litres of 'Fabasil' to try to keep it waterproof. We replaced the low guy ropes with reflective ones, without these the trailer tent collects water under the matresses, but they are at trip wire height so would otherwise be dangerous at rod-runs. We added a jockey wheel, this means that hitching and unhitching doesn't require any lifting. With a two way spirit level on the 'A' frame, so we can also use it to get the tent level. |