BTHO New Mexico

After well over a year of planning and some work the Aggie Wagon finally made it's first appearance at an A&M football game. As usual we were working until the last minute and hauled the trailer up to the parking lot at 11:30pm on Friday night. After a few celebratory beers and a little bit of sleep we made a few laps around College Station to get supplies and started to set up.

By this point we had the margarita machine and the kegs ready to go, beginnings of success.....

Blake and Richy decided to take a test drive of the almost frozen margaritas.

At the peak we had around 40 people show up and probably closer to 60 come and go before it was all said and done.

At the end we went through two full kegs of beer and 10 gallons of frozen margaritas. All in all it was a very successful opening to our tailgating adventure and we hope to see you out there for A&M to BTHO Utah State!

Margarita Machine!

Since we realized that not everybody will want to help us drink beer during tailgating events we decided to help those strange individuals who don't like an ice cold beer on what will most likely be a super hot day. So needless to say we decided to break down and reluctently exceed our budget again and buy a margarita machine.......



Another task for the weekend was to try and conceal the rear rollup door so we pulled out some leftover tin and cedar and built a box around it:



Overall we are making progress for the final push before Sept. 5th. Here is a look at the awning opened up, we are very close to having the trailer ready for football season.

Finally an Update

Well after Chilifest came and went the motivation level for working on the trailer went down the tubes. Blake and Richy put in several long/all-night work sessions getting it in working order prior to Chilifest while Eric and myself were offshore in the Gulf and of course Sean being in London couldn't really help them either. After several months of inactivity we realized that football season was very rapidly approaching and we had fallen way behind out target schedule. So we moved the trailer into my dad's fully outfitted barn/shop he just had built and got back to work.

Since the last time we had worked on the trailer summer in Texas had arrived so first on the list was to get the air conditioner hooked up and working! We had to build a vent and put in a register to make sure the air was headed in the right direction.

Once that was done we had to install a few more hinges and the closing mechanism for the awning to make sure it was sealing tight.

After the awning was in working order we trimmed the inside of the awning in tin and cedar and installed the beer towers for the keg system we have. We plan on having two kegs for all the tailgating events and are always looking for ways to help make that happen....

We have the trailer wired up for two TVs to hook up to Dish Network with one planned to be facing out for people hanging outside of the trailer and one for everybody inside the trailer. We found some TV mounts that should work for us and got them installed. I brought a TV from home to test it out on, and will more than likely serve as one of the TVs at the games. Here is the one facing out.

Here is the TV mount for the inside of the trailer.

The next thing up was to install the speakers and audio equipment. Again we pre-wired the trailer to have speakers in the awning as well as inside the trailer to listen to music or help out while watching some football. Here is a picture of the speakers on the awning.

Here is a picture of one of the speakers inside the trailer.

The work will continue from now until the football season finally gets here. Come check us out in the "High Occupancy Vehicle" Lot 70 before the game on September 5th and then head in to watch A&M BTHO New Mexico.

Trent

Seats and New Team Member!

We knew we were going to have to get some sort of seat coverings built at some point, but none of us have any remote idea about sewing or anything that would prove helpful to do upholstrey. We enlisted Sean's mom Teri to help us get things squared away. She is an interior decorator so she not only knows who to get things from, she actually helped us realize what would look good and what wouldn't , thank goodness for that. She also helped us find a good deal on material, all around it was more of the simpler things we have done on the trailer. So, thanks again Teri!

In addition to that we have another new team member. Yet another good aggie has joined up to help get this thing up and running. It wasn't too surprising that he decided to join as we have convinced him to spent several days helping us get things built. We are glad to have Richy on the team, it is good to have a mechanical engineer around to help us petroleum engineers build stuff.

Here are a few pictures of the seats:





Now Eric and I are once again offshore, so it is up to Blake and Richie to get everything finished up. They started building the BBQ pit which is no small task. Hopefully we will get lucky and get everything finished in time.

Awning is Cut and Bar Started

We finally got the awning cut out of the side of the trailer, and all of the structural support we added to the trailer seemed to do the trick as nothing seemed to flex or bow. After everything that we learned building the side door the awning went pretty smooth. Here a few pictures:




As you can see it is pretty good size. I think it comes in at just shy of 11' long. After we got it cut and hung we started to work on the bar. Eric is making sure we get a good mark on the corian top we are using so it will fit before gluing. I was surprised he was able to get out once he got in.



Gives and idea of how deep the bar will be. The box on the left is a keg box on casters that will roll out from inside a cabinet and hold two fulls kegs.

Starting to make more and more progress, our deadline for Chilifest is fast approaching.

Seat Frame Done

After spending the weekend working on cabinets in Winnie, Eric and I left to go offshore and luckily my dad decided to continue working on the trailer and got the seat frame finished. Here are some pictures.

Trent

Cabinets are done

So after a weekend of working on getting the cabinets framed my dad finally got all of the cabinets doors finished and installed on the trailer.  We used the tin that we got for the ceiling and made door frames of cedar.   The turned out really nice and match the rustic theme we are shooting for.

While we were in Winnie we racked in the freebies, in addition to the free tin that we got from Gulfway Lumber one of my dad's friend who also happens to be his neighbor owns a construction company and gave us a corian countertop that he had laying around to use.  Overall it has been a successful few days with the trailer in Winnie, and with all the generosity of the folks there it makes it tough to bring it back to Houston, who knows what else we could have come across if we keep in there.  Here is a few good pictures that show the countertop and the cabinets.

       

New Team Member and More Progress!

So more than a few weeks ago we added a new member to the tailgating team, but I have been a slacker about putting something up on the blog. Our buddy Sean who pretty much recruited us all to work for Hess from A&M decided that he wanted in on the seemingly never ending project. Although he now lives in London we are hoping that he will get to catch at least a game or two this year and then eventually head back stateside. Even though his current contribution is more monetary in nature than physical work, we are all glad to have him join up and will certainly put him to work when he re-joins civilization.

It had been tough as of late for all of us to get together lately to put some time in on the trailer. I had to be offshore a few times, Eric had been busy wrapping his work up for the North Dakota group so it pretty much left Blake on a solo mission for a week or two. He made some good progress, most notably getting some paneling on the walls and getting them stained. Here is a picture of when the paneling first made it up.

After realizing that I had a few days to spend working on the trailer I decided to take the trailer over to my parents house in Winnie and have my dad share some of his woodworking expertise with us and get some of the cabinetry figured out. After getting my uncle to haul the trailer over we set out to find some tin to use for the interior ceiling. It turned out that the local lumber yard had some old tin that had never been used but had dulled and corroded a bit and they let us have quite a bit of it at no charge. So we put up some of the tin and then started working on the cabinets. We made quite a bit of progress and things went pretty smoothly, it certainly helps having a more experienced woodworker around to get trim work done! Here is what we got done:

Making Some Progress

After finishing up the framing and wiring we started to run some insulation, we got to the point where we needed to run the component video wires for the TVs and had to wait for them to come in after we ordered them online.

When the wires came in we ran them.  We had planned on putting the satellite receivers in one place on the trailer, and ordered two 50ft lengths and then realized the receivers would work better in another place and as such we had way too much cable.  So we ran it up and down the trailer to take out the slack.

Once we got the video cables ran we started to put up the lights and test out the electrical system.  And all the lights and plugs ended up working just fine, as you can see Blake is pleased.

   

The next big step was to start getting the exterior side door cutout and hinged and working.  Needless to say as amateur carpenters hanging a custom made door is not the easiest thing in the world.  So we started by cutting out the door in the side of the trailer with a skil saw and got to work.

  

It took some serious thought and a lot of sanding and planing to get the door hung.  But as you can see it is now up and working!  

Next on the agenda is to completely finish up the door completely and start working on the interior siding. 

More Framing

So we continue to frame things in and are making progress on getting the interior of the trailer looking like something actually usable. We are building a big seat in the front of the trailer that will accommodate several people as well as serve as a place for some of our more hard drinking team members and friends to pass out on. In addition it will also serve as a storage space under the cushions.
We also found a portable air conditioner to put in the trailer off of craigslist and decided that we wanted to put something around it to keep it in place when we are traveling so we built an enclosure to house it and will make some ducting to help it work when everything is all installed.

Since we are having a portable air conditioner as well as a margarita machine we had to go to a 220V electrical system, so that meant a breaker box and and few breakers to get things how we want when it comes to the electrical system.

Now Dad I know that all of the wires leading from the exterior generator plug are the same color, but trust me I labeled them on the wire VERY clearly so that nothing could get mixed up.

We have made more progress than this, but I keep forgetting to take pictures, I will take more during the weekend.

Back to work

We finally got back to work as a team this past weekend. Over the holidays Blake worked on the trailer solo while spending some time up in College Station with his family. He was able to get the gooseneck painted, the brakes completely finished and working. So now the trailer is fully haulable with brakes, safety chains and the breakaway kit. The only issue that has surfaced is that there is a slight delay in the braking system. Come to find out it is pretty common when you have an electric over hydraulic actuators. Makes sense that it takes a little time for a pump to build enough pressure to engage the disc calipers. Since the rest of us had other plans over the holidays Blake was on is his own so needless to say we didn't get too much done. After the holidays Blake pulled the trailer down to Humble and parked it at Eric's house.

The next step in our trailer's construction was to frame it in and start getting it ready to finish out. So Blake and I got the baseplates in and bolted down onto the trailer cab, and put the studs up and framed around the awning.

We will finish out the framing and then start to run electrical, stereo wire, TV cable, etc. It is definitely starting to come together!

-Trent

Up and Running

After many rounds of discussion and contention about whether or not our gooseneck plans were structurally sound or too heavy to function properly we finished the gooseneck conversion and took the trailer on its maiden voyage.   We were leaving right around sunset and since we didn't have the lights working we didn't get to take it that far, but got it up to 60mph and the trailer pulled just fine.  Next up on the list is getting the lights sorted out and the electric over hydraulic actuator working to make sure the brakes work on the trailer.  We are hoping the pace picks up now that it is a mobile trailer.

I left my camera at home, so all I have is cell phone pictures, sorry about the quality:

Just rolling out of the shop

And there it is

It actually looks like a trailer

So after the second week of work it is actually starting to look like a trailer. We spent the weekend building the gooseneck. We decided to make the top piece of the gooseneck out of one piece to try and reduce the amount of welds seen on the outside of trailer. So we started cutting and bending the steel.

The cuts have been made and waiting to be heated and bent.

Bent and leveled.

We put the gussets up before putting the top channel on. They are a little big, but we think it helps the trailer actually look like a normal gooseneck despite the height.

Blake is obviously excited about the progress.

After the second channel got put up.

View from above.

Actually looks like a trailer now, with the gooseneck coupler on it and cross braced.