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Part 23 — Fold-out awning
The DIY Travel Trailer Project FINALLY gets an Awning - Part 23
Source: The DIY Travel Trailer Project FINALLY gets an Awning - Part 23 · 2023-05-23 · 14:55
What Joe did
- Made a small door awning and a larger fold-out awning from welded aluminum.
- Chose manual hitch-pin storage for the small awning rather than roof storage.
- Set up the large awning with a ladder and described a one-person and two-person setup time.
- Used painted aluminum sheet, VHB tape, angle sections, hinges, rivets, brackets, hitch pins, and a garage-door rubber seal.
- Explained that insufficient structure beside the door prevented a single continuous awning.
Numbers
| What | Value | Where in the video |
|---|---|---|
| Build age | four or five years | I think this is four or five years in |
| Solo setup | 4 to 5 minutes | takes about 4 to 5 minutes |
| Two-person setup | 2 to 3 minutes | anywhere from 2 to 3 minutes |
| Large awning | 8 feet wide by 8 feet out | awning when it is extended like this is 8 feet wide by 8 feet |
| Small awning | 3 feet wide by 2 feet out | smaller awning is 3 feet wide by 2 feet |
| Overlap | about 3 1/4 inches | about a 3 and 1/4 in overlap |
| Skin | 0.040 aluminum | sheeted it in the painted 040 aluminum |
| Intermediate angle | 16 gauge | sections I used 16 gauge aluminum angle |
| Hinge | 1/4 inch | a quarter inch heavier duty hinge |
| Awning weight | about 67 pounds | about 67 lb which is what I figured |
Materials and parts
| Item | Detail as Joe says it |
|---|---|
| Structure | welded aluminum tubing; 16-gauge aluminum angle |
| Skin | painted 0.040 aluminum with VHB tape |
| Hinges | two galvanized hinges from Home Depot; heavier-duty hinge from Industrial Metal Supply |
| Hardware | rivets, aluminum channel brackets, hitch pins |
| Weather seal | garage-door threshold seal on 1-by-3 aluminum angle |
Tools Joe used
- Welder
- Rivet tool
- Ladder
Tips and mistakes
- He abandoned folding support arms because he could not make them secure in breezes.
- He chose a simpler manual setup over a more complex mechanism.
- He says the missing structure beside the door was a design-stage oversight.
For my build
- Nathan: Plan awning attachment structure before closing walls or installing siding.
- Nathan: A 67-pound awning is a meaningful weight and budget item for Nathan’s different trailer.
- Nathan: Prefer a simple, repeatable setup while Nathan is new to fabrication.