1 Bored Clerk's Garage Built Camper

Carbon-core. They were a little flaky on the custom sized panels I ordered (4' x 10'). But I have no doubt they'd be great for 4x8 standard sheets. Also, avoid the luan/meranti covered sheets. They've had a lot of delam issues with those from what I've read. The fiberglass covered sheets seem good to go though.

 

Nice, thanks man

 

Done for today.


Here is how I decided to join to two floor panels. A straight butt joint is no good. You need some other form of structure as far as I can gather. Common sense says so too. I cut a three part stair step over three inches then cut a mating stair step into the other panel. I figured there was plenty of surface area contact as well as plenty of mechanical keying in the open honeycomb area. This joint is a mashup of real joints that I made up because I could do it with tools I already have.


I slathered on the six10 epoxy and mashed them together. Dad helped me get the joint as tight as possible and clamp it in place. Then we threw some weight on top to get the seam as flat as possible. We'll see how it went tomorrow!

This seam will be finished off with 6" wide 6oz fiberglass on both sides. I may also run two strips of plywood perpendicular to the joint to reinforce it more as well as provide more strength for the mounting locations.

 

I'm sure with the six10, the joint is stronger than the panels!

How did you cut the stairsteps - router?

 

Yeah, router. It worked pretty well. I still had to go in with scissors and trim a few pieces of plastic that didn't want to separate.

 

Reinforcements!


I cut a couple of kayak paddle shapes from 1/2" marine grade plywood to use as reinforcements/stiffeners for the floor and mounting points. I wouldn't have done this if the floor was one piece but I felt it was reasonable since the floor is two pieces.


I sanded the entire bottom of the floor to get the shiny off. Then I epoxied the 'paddles' in place. Once that cured, I sanded the edges around the paddle and laid in some thickened (colloidal silica powder) epoxy fillets to make glassing over everything easier.

Once all of this is cured, I'll come back in and rough it all up and glass over it and the seam. The floor is taking a while but once I flip it over to start putting walls up, it'll be very difficult to get access to it again.

 

I've been nursing an elbow injury for a week or so but all of the sanding, cutting and lifting has aggravated it too much. So, you won't likely see any updates until next week. I was going to be gone out of town this weekend anyway, so you won't miss too much. Maybe I'll get some images up of what I'm building since I can't actually build it. I haven't really shown that.

 

Here are some images of what I'm building. It would be much easier for you all to understand what I'm doing if I showed these a few weeks ago!


Here it is from the passenger side back corner. There would, of course, be a door in the open hole in the side. I didn't bother building that in CAD. The main walls are 48" tall with another 6" over the bed. The gray boxes on the two corners that you can see will be aluminum boxes. The front one (on the right) will open up and will contain camp essentials such as stove, utensils, pots/pans, camp chairs, etc. the one on the back will be more of a locker and will open to the side. It'll have a drain plug so it can be hosed out. We'll put anything we don't want in the camper here: wetsuits, muddy stuff, wet stuff, etc. there will be a window in the door, a window on the back wall, a couple small windows on the driver side and one in front to match up to the back window in the truck cab.


Here's the 'floor plan'. The aluminum boxes are the dark rectangles in the corners. The Orange part is a queen size mattress. There will be a small amount of storage along the back wall and a small entrance area by the side door to leave shoes.

This is very similar to a teardrop trailer in camping style and size. Without the hassle of towing a trailer!

There will also be a roof rack, roof vent/fan, alu-cab shadow awning, and, likely a front rack/wind deflector.

There it is! That's the general plan. Deviations and additions will be made along the way as time and budget require.

 

Spanish class starts today for my wife and I so I only got a little done tonight.


Got 4 layers of 6" wide 6oz cloth on the bottom seam between the wood braces. One strip down the middle, two offset (one to each side), then another down the middle. I think it's wet out really well and its laying nicely so I'm pumped. I'll get the wood braces covered tomorrow night.

 

Looking good

 

So awesome! I wish I had the patience for such high-quality work.

 

Thanks! I'm not sure it's high quality...we'll find out when I get it on the truck and out in the hills for a workout.

 

A little more progress tonight.


Doesn't look like much but it took a couple of hours. I got the rest of the seam on the bottom of the floor glassed in and I glassed over the two wooden braces.

Next step is to sand (lightly in some areas) the floor to get it prepped for paint. I'm not going to paint/coat until the whole box is done but I don't want to be sanding upside down later on.

 

Looking good.

 

The floor is ready to go and I have six wall panels cut.


I have three wall panels left to cut and 7 ceiling panels.


I have two more full 4' x 10' panels to break down. I need to get these down to a size where I can cut them smaller on the top of my table saw with limited space because once I start fitting walls to the floor, my work table will be in use until the camper is done. And a 7.5' x 6' box will be sitting on top of it taking up a lot of space. I will have very little room to move let alone cut panels. I've got to be strategic. I won't get these two panels cut down until next week, probably. We'll see how I feel the rest of this weekend.

 

Always tough working with limited space.

 

Limited space is a relative term. I have a pretty decent sized garage, but my projects seem to have grown with my garage size. No matter how big your garage is, you will start a project that barely fits. It's a law or something.

 

It's the same with a house. The bigger the house I get, the more crap I acquire.

 

Preach!

 

Well, after a 45 minute nap, I got a burst of energy and motivation to hit a big milestone!


ALL of the camper panels are cut!


Due to the change in camper design, I also have enough leftovers for something interesting. Hmmm...what to do... Or I have just enough pieces to fix any massive screw ups I may find!

Next up is to sand both sides of every panel. That'll take a couple of hours, I'd guess. That's the only major thing that really bummed me out about these panels. I SPECIFICALLY asked if they cold sand this size panel at the factory and they said "yes, we do it all the time". They show up un sanded and I call to get the "oh, yeah, I guess we actually can't sand custom panels. And don't worry, I forgot to charge you for that anyway!" WTF!? I felt really screwed and lied to at that point. Oh well, I'm clearly over it.

After sanding, I have to cut all the laps into the seams which requires a lot of forethought into how this thing goes together. I'm up for the challenge! I'm expecting to be glueing panels up next week sometime. Super pumped about that!