1 Bored Clerk's Garage Built Camper

I'm starting a small camper build for our 2013 Tacoma AC. I had originally thought I wanted to build a chassis mount pop up camper. That would have been awesome...if I never actually wanted to go camping. After spending a week in Iceland living and traveling out of a Renault Kangoo Maxi (think Ford Transit Connect for those of us in the states), it became immediately clear that we needed far less than what we had planned. So, the huge multi-year project was scaled down to something I think I can pull off over the winter. I'll update this post with a rendering of the new concept when I'm done with it.

Up to date photo:



It starts here!

5 sheets of 1/2" marine grade plywood. This should get me the whole base structure up to the bed rails where I'll switch to foam core construction. The whole deal will be wrapped in fiberglass and epoxy (I've not had great luck with epoxy...especially in winter).

Wish me luck!

 

Good luck!

 

Sub-ed for sure! Good luck.

 

Made some sawdust today!


There's a camper floor.


Two sheets of plywood cut into pieces that, somehow, will make a dry, warm place to sleep.

 

This should be cool

 

I like your optimism!

 

Subbed

 

Subbed

 

Got the 'ol router out and made slots and ledges.


I put all of the various slots and ledges on the camper floor for the drawer dividers and electrical compartment. I have a few more cuts and slots to make before I start glueing up the first 4 panels. All of these features are a little time consuming but they make assembly so much easier!

 

It's starting to look like something! I don't know what, but it's something.


This is just clamped together as a fit check. I'm going to cut the front wall (foreground) before I glue this up. I feel like that will give me a good place to stop and solidify some pieces before moving forward.


These will be the storage drawers. They look massive right now but after allowances for slides and seals, they'll shrink down a decent amount. The left side will be camping gear: stove, chairs, table, cookware, etc. The right side will be recovery/repair stuff: tools, recovery straps, winch paraphernalia, shovel, etc.


This is the electrical box: battery, charger, Spod SE (probably), etc.

 

A note about tools:


This is my woodworking tool collection. I have been given every piece of this but, so far, I've only used one circular saw, a router, tape measure, pencil, framing square, a straight edge that I cut off of one of the sheets of plywood, a few clamps and safety glasses. You don't need much to do a lot of work. Now, I also have a really nice table saw but I haven't used it because I don't have an outfeed table which makes cutting full sheets of plywood by yourself a sketchy proposition. I imagine I'll be using the table saw a lot more when I get to making drawers, doors and hatches; smaller stuff, though a router and skillsaw could easily do that work too.

Anyway, just thought some of you might want to see what it takes as I go through the process.



Oh, here's my straight edge. Since I didn't have a straight edge, I used my circular saw to freehand cut along a line I drew...straight-ish. The edge of the plywood was quite straight (if not completely square) so that became my 'Good Edge'. You can see I marked that edge with a sharpie so I didn't mess up and use the wavy edge. Make your new straight edge piece somewhat wide (so it doesn't bend) and the full length of a sheet of plywood (so you can cut along the full length of a sheet of plywood). Then save the damn thing! I always end up cutting my straight edges shorter and shorter for use in other small projects. I guess I could buy a straight edge but this method always works for me.

 

How do you build a camper? One panel at a time.

Here's proof: one panel.



Check out my patented 'clamp on a clamp' work holding method. It's legit.

I need to get more clamps before the big glue-up. I mostly need pipe clamps for long reach which is good because they are much cheaper! I'm going to be clamping across the bottom in both directions so I'll need a few clamps that can straddle over pipe clamps. Those are considerably more spendy. But, it's never a waste to have more good clamps!

 

I actually believe I hold the clamp on clamp patent but that might just be in Canada

Haha

 

After that bumper build, you know I'm on board for this one.

 

I'm in a serious clamp shortage, that's for sure! Whatever gets the job done.

 

If you could hang in for that epically long bumper build, then I think you have the patience for this build!

 

Subb'd... Love watching these builds. Good luck dude!

 

I would offer to send you some of mine but I think shipping would kill it lol

 

Thanks!