1 Bored Clerk's Garage Built Camper

Started laying in fillets today! Epoxy resin, colloidal silica to thicken and stir until you get a peanut butter consistency. I was dreading this process as it seemed to be like caulking which I dislike very much. However, it was kind of a zen process for me. It helps that you can just smear all the extra goo around to thin it out and make it "go away". Haha





In my mind, this was a bit out of order in steps to do but my brain was in the mood for this so I went with it! I had planned to finish all of the woodwork before fillets but it really doesn't matter and it's nice to cut the monotony.

 

Happy New Year! I spent the day working on projects: the camper and a new sewing table for my lovely wife.

Let's focus on the camper!

I laid in more fillets and cut the holes for the drawers.


Step one: Giant hole saw and courage!


The outermost corner holes were easy as the floor, wall and ceiling gave great surfaces to align to.


Once all of the corner holes are cut, connect the dots with the jigsaw to end up here.


Sand all of the edges smooth.


Pretty clean.

Then I went back in and filled voids and put in more fillets.

More work to come! I REALLY need to test fit it in the bed to make sure no nasty surprises are waiting. It's supposed to be dry this week so I should be able to get my wife and dad to help me load it up. Once I have that out of the way, I can knock out the rest of the woodwork pretty quickly.

 

Big moment: just test fit the base box in the truck bed...


It fits!



Really well, I might add.


Hello, future camper!

Took some measurements for the last bits of plywood and pulled it back out and put it back on its sawhorses. With that behind me, it's full steam ahead!

 

Looking good!!!!! Nice work!!!

 

Thanks!

 

In case anyone was wondering, there will be a step that goes in the receiver to make getting in the back door (above drawers) possible.

 

How do you plan to get this in and out of the bed? You may want to consider lifting points that are tied in to the main structure at this point.

 

I think I'd use those weird tripod camper lifts on each side. I only plan to put this in the truck once. It won't be an in and out all the time deal. It would only come out for repairs.

 

Looking good. Impressive work

 

Thanks! I've been a little slow on it but what the hell, it's supposed to be for fun, right? I'll have more progress to post this weekend.

 

Gave the ol camper some wings today!


These will extend past the bed lip and become steps in the final product. I want to be able to reach all parts of the roof to aid in strapping stuff down as well as cleaning/inspecting. These should help. I'll epoxy another layer under these to make sure they are plenty stiff and strong. Don't worry, they won't be hanging that far out into thin air, the foam part of the camper will attach to the top of these about midway (or so). Once it's all glassed together, they should be pretty stout. These will likely also serve as the lift points for the camper.


Showing off my mad clamp skills, yo! Having long lengths of thick wall angle aluminum and square steel tubing has been invaluable to clamping this project up for curing. I don't know how I would have done this without. Helps tremendously with clamp options as well as keeping things flat/square. That's not to say my camper is perfectly flat or square in any dimension but this has sure helped keep it reasonable!

 

Oh, I also ordered some Tacoma body mounts to take a look at for the camper mounts. I'm excited to get that sorted...it's been in my mind and bothering me for a while.

 

I got my body mounts in the mail!


I'm sure they would nicely support the camper and isolate it from vibration but I'm not sure if they have enough deflection (give/travel). I have added many things that have stiffened the frame a bit: skids (tie into frame behind transfer case), sliders, wrap around rear bumper. And I'm going to add another crossmember where the spare tire used to reside to hold my compressor. So, I need some flex...but how much? I'm probably way overthinking this but I'd really prefer not to tear my camper apart on the first trip. Any input from you folks would be appreciated. There is probably a simpler route that I'm just not thinking of...

 

Starting to lean toward mounting the camper using the body mounts in the front two corners then using Torklift Fastguns on the back two corners. The Fastguns come in two lengths and the shortest ones would need to pass through the bed floor and hook to the frame to work with my camper design. Now that I've sold the tailgate and cut the rear lower bedsides off (and much more cutting to come), I'm not opposed to drilling two 4" diameter holes in my bed. Haha.

 

I think you're on the right track! Not sure on the mounting specifics, but I wouldn't want TOO much flex. I would think that could damage components too.

 

That's why I'm thinking of using a known product like the Fastguns for the flex end. Less guesswork and seems to be a proven product with tested spring loads and travel. What's another $300. Sigh

 

Work done today (and yesterday):

Doubled up the wings. They are now almost 1" thick and feel very stout. Since these will be steps as well as the lifting point for the camper, it seemed worth the weight penalty.



Then I used the router to trim up the edges so they were nice and even and square




That is two 1/2" thick sheets of marine grade plywood epoxy laminated together.

I also cut the spacers for the inside drawer slides and epoxied those together. I left them curing overnight. I'll trim them tomorrow. I'm also going to start the process of creating secure and watertight fastenings for the slides. Epoxy plugs with embedded nuts. I've only read about it but it seems reasonable.

Bring on tomorrow!

 

I've been working on a small project for my wife as well as the camper the last several weeks. I decided to put the hammer down and get my wife's project done this week. So, major camper work will start again this weekend. However, I finally unwrapped these bad boys!




Bask in their 60", 500lb capacity, full-extension glory! Two sets = 80lbs.

Accuride slides are nice but spendy. How spendy? I don't want to talk about it. It's upsetting.

I bought these two months ago and just unwrapped them now. I know, bad to wait so long but I couldn't bring myself to wrestle with these pigs any sooner! Haha.

The reason I unwrapped them today is to get my hardware lines up so I'm ready to get them embedded in the camper box this weekend.

 

Very nice! What's the wife's project if you don't mind me asking?