1 Bored Clerk's Garage Built Camper

Paint!





Finished painting the camper today...except I want to redo the door exterior. I’ll handle that tomorrow. We didn’t want plain white for the interior and we didn’t like any of the other standard colors so we mixed our own: Semi-Gloss White, Fighting Lady Yellow and Seafoam Green in some mixture that we would never be able to replicate. I painted the first coat on the interior with semi-gloss white just to get a coat on there while we decided what to do. It was too glossy so I bought some satin additive. I may have put more than I wanted in the paint as it looks quite matte in appearance so far. I think more matte is better than more gloss for the interior. Anyway, it is what’s it is and we’ll see in the morning! Surprise!!

 

Following

 

Welcome aboard! It’s going to be a short trip for you, my friend. You know, unless something goes terribly wrong.

 

Thank you, I went through all the pages and it got me to this point.

 

You have clearly seen my nightmares.

 

Today’s update:

Not much.

I finished painting the door so now the entire camper is painted and ready to go! However, I just realized it takes 7 days for the solvents to completely flash off which means no camping in it until that timeframe has passed. No need to gas ourselves to death (or at least loopy) on our maiden voyage. Plus I want to get a really nice coat of wax on it before I mount it. That has a 7 day wait for the same reason. Don’t want to trap in the solvents and keep the paint soft.

I did clean up a TON of stuff and made a huge dump run. That felt awesome. Overall, I’m pumped and this thing is happening.

 

This is really coming together. I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Let's just hope it's not a freight train! JK

 

For real! I’m going to work on some battery/wiring stuff to try to get the fan and fridge wired up before our maiden voyage. It may not be the final version of the system but I’d like them to both be functional. Especially the fan. So, delaying a week has an upside.

 

Putting this here as it’s somewhat camper related.


This little item from Redarc showed up today. This is a dual battery isolator (sbi12) that I will not be using as a dual battery isolator. I want to get the fan and fridge up and running quickly without spending much money until I figure out what I really need. So, I’m going to use this isolator as a way to protect the starting battery (group 31 AGM) in my truck. I have had a blue seas fuse panel and 100amp circuit breaker mounted for a long time with nothing hooked to it. So, I’m going to add this between the 100amp circuit breaker and the fuse panel. Then I’ll temporarily hook up the camper fan and fridge to the fuse panel. This will be a good test to see what a single group31 AGM battery is capable of running. We will likely always drive every day when we travel so I’m trying to find out if a dual battery system is absolutely necessary or if I can get away with a much more simple, lighter, cheaper system. My guess is I’ll end up upgrading to a full dual battery system but this is to get me going. Hopefully the isolator works well and reliably disconnects the loads before the battery is too low to start the truck. This will be fun! The wiring to the accessories will be temporary and will be cleaned up drastically once we know what we want.

 

Thought it was a tattoo gun before I read the paragraph.

 

It does have that visual quality when glance at it.

 

Having a second battery on board gives me peace of mind when I am in the middle of nowhere.

Yes, it takes up space. Yes, it adds weight to the rig. No, it probably isn't completely necessary.

But, like an air compressor and tire plugs, it changes a potentially PITA situation into just another day's camping adventure.

 

Some good work done tonight. And the first thing has been permanently mounted to the camper!



Roof vent fan has been tested and mounted and sealed! The sealant in the first photo is kind of gross both because I’m shit with a caulk gun and this stuff is strange. It’s a self leveling sealant from dicor. This is what I see online for finished installs so i don’t think I’m far off from ‘normal’. Hopefully I’ve done this correctly...I don’t want to clean all this crap off to redo it.

The inside will get its trim ring tomorrow or Saturday. I’ve got the wiring pigtail from the fan routed where I want it but it will remain unfinished until ALL the wiring and accessories are installed there.


Removed the accessory fuse block and circuit breaker from under the hood.


Starting to figure out how to rearrange everything while adding the Low Voltage Disconnect and still be able to wire everything. Again, temporarily.

 

This is "normal"?

Jesus, looks like me trying to sign my name with a mouse.



Uh..... .......I guess

 

That stuff is messed up to apply...it’s stringy and sticky and really hard to wipe up. Plus it sort of mushes out. Very strange. Does look like it creates a nice seal though. I could have probably done better if I could get on top of the camper and apply it from a more vertical position. At any rate, it’s on the roof and as long as it doesn’t leak, my ‘give a shit’ meter is sitting on ‘doesnt’.

 

Wonder if putting painters tape down would have helped.

 

Maybe. That stuff is very stringy...not sure you’d be able to pull up the tape without making a huge stringy mess that would be really hard to clean up