Oh, for an insulated garage door!

It was a cold Saturday but I figured I should make the most of it......it's time to cut in the stepdown.  For the uninitiated, when John Serro developed the Sportsman-series of Scotty Trailers, he wanted to make it so the the trailer could be parked in a standard garage of the time (read late 1950's).  The overall height of the Scotty Sportsman is only 6-foot 4-inches.....which would make for a trailer that would be impossible for an adult to stand up inside unless the floor was lowered somehow.  Serro did this by creating a portion of the floor that is roughly eight inches lower than the rest of the floor.  In looking at the trailer a year ago, I found I could just barely stand up inside and at 5'-8" tall, that works.  For me, the trailer is a place to sleep and get dressed....I do the rest of my camping outside!

With that said, here we go...!

Wood inside, snow outside

Not enough room to build this from below sooooo.....

.....this 12-year-old needs to earn his keep and up comes the floor!

A bit of judicious jack action to straighten a crooked floor strap

The smaller ribs are now trimmed and glued, floor's back down, time to saw!

First cut....

Second cut....

Third cut reveals half of the stepdown.

Fourth cut and there it is!

There's always that worry that I'm off by an inch in the wrong direction...

...but with all the times I've measured over and over, it pays off in the end!

I think I made some serious progress today.

The floor of the stepdown is only resting on the straps right now.  The next step will be to lift the floor out for one last time to secure the floor to the walls of the stepdown and fasten some angle stiffeners to each corner of the stepdown.  The floor will then be ready for a nice layer or two of waterproofing compound followed by being set back in place.  I think I should be looking for those eleven new bolts to anchor the floor back to the frame.