Builders Blogs
Several Caravan Builders have posted their own blogs about their experiences building caravans. Each of them have their own individual approach to the design and construction. Their links are shown here.
Updates
The purpose of this page is to provide additional information to builders of prospective builders of The New Gypsy Caravans. It includes corrections of errors, modifications of the design, and additional features, as well as new information on material. Much of this information has been based on discoveries, of other caravan builders..
Roof Covering
There are some potential dimensional problems with different types of caravan roof coverings. The book has specified 10' x 16'. However, this needs to be the finished dimension.In many cases the finished dimension is somewhat smaller than this, with the 10 'dimension being somewhere around 9'6". The present design for the caravan has an overall length of 9'3". About 3 1/2" are required to wrap around both ends of the roof structure, allowing for 1" under the inner bows , which , in theory should be sufficient to hold the tarp in place. As a practical matter, however, there should be additional material to allow for variability in the the material or structure. A 12" x 16' tarp should be more than adequate to provide this tolerance.
This does not solve the problem of using other fabrics. In most cases fabrics such as the synthetic canvas materials like Sunbrella, may typically only be available in widths of 60".This means that two pieces will be required to be stitched together to provide a full width covering. However, the stitching will require some material, and the overall width will be less than 10 ft. In this case, the best solution might be to reduce the overhang of the roof overt he "door"end of the caravan by several inches to accommodate the loss of material.
King Posts
The original caravan design used 2" x 2" (1 1/2 x 1 21/2) posts. The new design uses 2" x #' for the king posts. Since the king posts provide much of the strength for the structure, that this was a reasonable move. However, if care is taken to notch the 2 x 2 posts properly, they also should present no problems, if they are desired for some reason.
An alternative way of building the king post without cutting the notch at the bottom, would be to screw and glue a 1" x 2" board to the 2" x 2" post. The 1" x 2" would be 11" shorter than the 2" x2" post or 61"long.
Door
Some of the 3/8"thick plywood door has a tendency to warp in the longitudinal direction. This can either be prevented or fixed by attaching I a 48" length of 1" x 2" along the edge of the door opposite the hinge edge, allowing about 3/4" for the door overlap. The 1 x2 would be attached with the 1" (3/4" surface attached to the door. This solves another problem, which is how to simply lock the door from the inside of the caravan. A 1/4"hole can be drilled through the 1 x 2 and its adjacent king post. The door can be then pinned shut using an an eye bolt with a 1/4"diameter.
Thank to Brian Schmittling and Sandra and Fred Storr
