How to: DIY Wedge Camper

More camping, from last weekend.









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Yeah with a longbed you can get a lot more length out of it. Would be nice! Wish my sleeping area was longer sometimes.

 

@Ripcord do you think the 3mm Alupanel will be strong enough on its own or are you still going to add the angle aluminum and rivets to strengthen it? I got some samples of 6mm and 3mm and I wasn't sure if the 3mm would work on its own or not.

 

The 3mm alupanel is much stiffer than the 3/16" (~5mm) ABS plastic I was using for the bed shell part, about the same as the 1/4" ABS.

I will still be adding the stiffeners regardless to make the panels as rigid as possible. Less weight in the end to get the panels as thin as you can then add the stiffeners than it is to just get thicker panels.

 

You might consider epoxying the stiffeners down rather than riveting them. They may be stiff, but i don't know how a rivets will do with those really thin sheets of aluminum with foam core. Or maybe a wet install of the rivets with epoxy?

 

As I also did on the ABS, I have a small section I am going to do a few test rivets on. But good looking out!

 

I have a question about the side panels. The “space” frame uprights are at a 79* or whatever angle but the top and bottom 1” square tubes are at 90*. When installing a side panel does the bulb seal soak up the difference and make it negligible? _/

 

Yeah, the bulbs take all that into account.

 

Awesome, thanks for the response. What are the seal dimensions that you used? I used 1” square tube for my build as well. Also the southco latches I see on Amazon don’t have the clamp capacity for the 1” tube. Where did you pick up your latches? Thanks again

 

Check out the spreadsheet I linked in the first post, has all that sweet info you seek.

 

looking good!

 

Missed that spreadsheet, great info!

 

Knowing that bulb seal makes up the difference saved me a lot of time and screwing around trying to cut sheets to size and then break them in a press.

 

whats the reasoning behind only going over a portion of the cab with the wedge? is the alum extru not supportive enough if you get to far out over the cab? personal pref?

 

Because that would put the CG of a sleeping person in the bed beyond the spaceframe, which was something I was trying to avoid. The further you go out on a cantilever the stress multiplies quickly.

 

So much respect for following through with building this, and thanks for sharing all your info. There's a lot of cool stuff that can be made with that extruded aluminum and it's nice to hear some lessons learned on the materials and design.

 

How did the alupanel/maxmetal work with the rivets? I was thinking of using 1/8” aluminum but that stuff sounds lighter and potentially easier to work with.

 

Thanks for the compliments! Glad people find the info useful.

The composite panels are awesome! Didn't really take many pics during the swap since I was kinda in a hurry to get it done. But the new panels are so much better than the plastic. in every way.

Took them to Moab after swapping them and they were perfect, no warping whatsoever.

 

And the black rivets I switched to are way better looking.

 

Heck yeah, looks awesome. Did you go with HD max metal or the regular? I might try out the HD, might be able to avoid the rivers.