Go big or go home

so between being sicker than a dog (spent most of mayfaire in my tent sleeping) my normal mundane business stuff, and happy distractions like the world rhythm festival, i haven’t had a whole lot of time to do the blog thing.

so, without further ado, i bring you a grate:

this was a spot i didn’t get a chance to finish when we originally built the trailer, and i’m glad i didn’t, since we have had several events that we packed down so wet that we had literally 40-50 gallons of water in the trailer.

so a big drain:

isn’t a bad thing

we had a few nervous moments at hortings hideout, with the size of the drop from the back wing to the ground (we were level, on a hillside that was far from it) so we figured it would be a good idea to add some tiedowns for the sink cart, and the freezers…

… but now that you mention it, i’d been wanting a freezer cart for a while… (those little wheels on the bottoms were never intended for what we do with this) so here’s the freezer cart:

the center grate is for a wastebasket, to collect all the crumbs and such from loading chicken nuggets into the frybaskets (they get the oil really dirty realy fast otherwise)

the back grating is to protect the back of the freezer (the heat exchanger primarily) from damage, and you can see the overkill casters in this pic. i salvaged them off a bunch of sun microsystems sparcserver 1000e servers i had in the scrap pile.

the clearances are tight, but i’m really happy with how this turned out. they’re argyle proof

in the above pic, chris is welding the frybasket hangers in place.

here is the finished product, complete with the anchor points welded on (salvaged from a set of heavy duty truck chains tuck snagged from the side of the highway) the anchor points sit over the tiedowns on the wing mentioned earlier, and overlap the ones on the sink cart.

so i really liked the way tucks trailer turned out, especially the back bumper…
so i bobbed the one on the kitchen trailer, and punched a bunch of holes in it for lights (mine are clear with red led’s, and my trailer requires more because it’s larger) i added an extra set of stop/tail lights for visibility’s sake, and roughed in the holes…

running out of time for mayfaire, i painted the bumper (holes are still roughed in) and ran with my magnetics again. note the spiffy new fold up steps i added to make getting in and out of the trailer with the wings up easier:

they work great, and they’re argyle proof:

when i designed this thing, the goal was to make it so i can set it up anywhere. so far it’s been set up on a steep slope, over a 6′ deep ditch, over a huge puddle, etc. a lot of time and thought went into the design, and i can’t help but change something that bugs me.

so those 8 legs that are a pain to mop around, under the deep fryers?

gonzo…

here’s the new fryer mount. it’s welded solid, and tacked into the trailer:

here’s chris welding the back brace to the fryer mount:

and welding the bottom of it….

the finish product (the silver square in the back is a frymaster deep fryer with the legs, front trim, and front door removed)

here’s the first fryer mounted:

and the finished product:

they worked great at mayfaire, and i must say i really like how they turned out.

so, the big top doesn’t work at every event, since there are many that it’s just plan too big for… so one 15 x 20 panther with a 10 x 20 dining fly later, and the problem appears to be solved, as we try it out for the first time at mayfaire:

looks pretty good all things considered…

i’m going to need to make some longer poles and do some repairs to it, but the crew loved it, so it’s a keeper customers seemed to like it too, although some had a bit of a hard time finding us…

so far so good.

i’m not much of a photographer, but there was a few things that caught my eye, so i snapped a pic.

this one is a welding arc, being reflected off tucks sunglasses in the rain…

this one is the same welding arc through the windows of my car

this one is a shot of chris welding in the dark:

gotta love the rain…

and that’s where we’re at.
mayfaire was fun
well, what i got to see of it.

thanks to everyone who’s been worried about me.
i’m not dead yet
-stone

so i’ve been over at my friend tuck’s a lot lately, working on my kitchen trailer, and his utility trailer.

a bit of history…
so once upon a time i had a little beat up holiday rambler travel trailer… typical stick and staple, water damage in a few spots, etc.

in the sca i run a small eatery by the name of the dew drop inn… (what else would you call my bar?

aerial shot…

we do burgers, fries, espresso, sno kones, gyros, chicken nuggets, and whatever else i have a craving for…

anyway, unloading that 600 lb grill out of the small trailer every event was going to be the death of someone (probably me) so i spent about a year trying to come up with a better solution…

the solution was a trailer that unfolds into a kitchen, and fits under the pavilion in the pictures above…

i seem to be missing the original build pics, but i found a few…

this is the above mentioned rv trailer, stripped to the frame, the fold out wings installed, and i’m working on mounting the aforementioned grill… (the original cart is right behind it)

i also designed it to be easy to clean out and so on, so nothing is braced directly to the floor…

and since this never leaves the trailer, i had to account for some wierd loading and so on, which is why it sits in deep pockets built into the frame… (notice the wheel wells aren’t finished yet)

here’s a picture of it being packed up for it’s debut event (notice the back wall has not been completed yet)

of course, i built myself a few accessories to go with it…

anyway, within about 3 weeks we realized that we hadn’t painted the trailer properly, or the paint was the wrong stuff, or something… not sure exactly, but it was coming off…

but of course, we’re mid season, there’s no way to fix it, don’t have the time or the place to do it in…

fast forward to last week, when my buddy tuck says we can do it at his place since i’m working on his trailer over there anyway…

so after a few hours of unloading, setting down the wings, the jack legs, etc…

and so on, we broke out the industrial simple green, and washed the trailer…

as you can see, it’s a mess. large patches of rust from standing water, and a thick coating of grease from a grease spill (deep fryer drain valve wasn’t closed) and all sorts of other unhappiness…

so we let it soak for a while…
then we got serious…

very very serious…

(fayd has a “wow that’s going to be a pain to clean off” look doesn’t he?)

of course, tuck had us set up with all we needed to kick out the jams…

including a pretty dj

then we started the strip show…

(yes, we let naomi play with razor blades)

and with the help of our super epic (but biodegradable) degreaser, a couple angle grinders, a pressure washer and a lot of elbow grease, it starts to come clean…

this is under the grill…

facing the rear: (keep in mind we never had a chance to paint that rear wall)

and the front where the stove, the small grill, and both deep fryers live…

almost done…

customer side…

and while we were waiting for things to soak, chris and i built a freezer cart…

the casters came off giant sun servers, so they were probably a million each originally, and came with a free mainframe… (same ones as are under the sink cart… i retask a lot of stuff)

so, considering what happened with the “recommended” paint last time i painted this trailer, i decided to take matters into my own hands…

rustoleum “9100″ 2 part industrial direct to metal epoxy mastic.
this is the stuff you paint battleships with, so i figure it might, just might, hold up to my little inn.

customer side, wheel well deck piece removed…

same side, different angle…

back of the kitchen, wheel well deck piece removed…

center of the kitchen, facing the front of the trailer (customers would be to the left, that’s the grill mount on the upper right)

front of the trailer. the deep fryers go in the gap in the right hand rail…

random angles…

this paint takes forever to dry, and it’s the stickiest substance i have ever seen when it’s been mixed for 2 hours or so. looks promising, but the bugs couldn’t stay away from it…

special thanks to fayd, nami, naomi, kera, chris, tuck, nez, argyle, jamie, and of course, riley, who, being “top dog” just had to supervise (and like any supervisor, he’s looking the wrong way)

till next time,
-stone