I bought a steel frame from an auction when Potomac went out of business. I was also able to buy a bunch of windows and cabinet doors from a surplus dealer in Michigan.
This is NOT for the weak of hart! I have been working on it steadily for 6 months spread out over the last year and a half. By far the hardest thing is finding the parts. There are literally hundreds of little things you just cant find at your local lumber yard.

I had 3 major suppliers, all within a hours drive.

Tri State Surplus, ebay store  in Hudson, Michigan (517-448-4433)
Bontrager Surplus www.bontragers.com   in White Pigeon, Michigan
RV Surplus Salvage, www.rvsurplussalvage.com in Elkhart, Indiana

Everything in the rig is made for a RV. And yes, its wood framed. With a layer of Luann, and then a layer of wood backed hard fiberglass siding,. There is one seam on each side one above the door and one above the slide out.

If you are wondering its almost done! We are hoping to take it camping this 4th weekend.

I’m a IT Director and a geek at hart so of course I had to pimp my ride. That added a lot of time and money, but it’s sweet! It’s decked out with a onboard computer 6 LCD flat screens.

32” widescreen HD TV for the living room
22” widescreen monitor for the main PC console
19” widescreen HD TV for the Master Bedroom
Two 8.5“ LCD/DVD TVs for the kids bunks
7” LCD Touch screen mounted inside a access panel for outside.

All of the screens are hooked back to the master PC where we will rip all of out home DVD’s so they can watch movies without trucking DVD’s back and forth. I also have a long rang wi-fi router and air card for the internet. I have a sling box hooked up at home to our satellite which allows us to watch our home Direct TV over the internet sitting at the campground.

Anyway its all custom all the doors in it are pocket doors to save space. And I was able to do things that the factory cuts corners on.

Sure, some of you have said, dam, that thing must weigh a ton! I don’t know how much it weighs, I will find out when I take it to the scales. I have pulled it in and out of our barn 100 times attached to my dodge ram ½ ton. Its is sagging but not as bad as I thought it would. We have a seasonal site at Yogi Bear in Fremont Indiana. It will sit there all season. I am hauling it up there in a friend’s one ton dually.

Anyway that’s my story, if your brave and you have lots of time on your hands go for it.
The total cost is less than 10k. With all the toys installed. I need to take some final pictures, but here is the skinny of it. Feel free to look at my website, the thumbnails are broken, but the slideshow should work. And all you lurkers on my site, sign the guestbook already! I love to read your comments.
www.chadsprojects.com
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Northwood, OH
 
E-mail: cnicholls@tstate.com