Sawtooth Unlimited - Off Road Pop Top Camper Trailer

[azscotts]

Soon fellas. As soon as the weather breaks I'll be back to laminating panels. Takes too much electricity to heat the shop up to 80* for the epoxy to cure in the winter.

Yeah...Epoxy/Fiberglass work don't mix too well with wintertime. The first plane I built was composite, so I feel your pain.

 

[ITTOG]

Living in Houston I kind of forget there are construction seasons.

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[azscotts]

Living in Houston I kind of forget there are construction seasons.

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Summer in Arizona, it's kind of the opposite. The high heat can cause your epoxy to exotherm and basically harden too fast reducing your pot life, etc. I remember getting up at 0400 to work on my camper when it was "cool" at 85 degrees.

 

[stomperxj]

Summer in Arizona, it's kind of the opposite. The high heat can cause your epoxy to exotherm and basically harden too fast reducing your pot life, etc. I remember getting up at 0400 to work on my camper when it was "cool" at 85 degrees.

Similar here in summer. In July and August its 90-100 a lot of the time. This epoxy has a 45 minute pot life at 80* and it takes 3 of us about 45 minutes to laminate one full panel.

 

[shirk]

Great thread and your videos. Look forward to following along.

 

[stomperxj]

Great thread and your videos. Look forward to following along.

Thank you

Well guys after a 6 month break I'm back after it. Got the road side wall laminated this past weekend. One more flat panel to go and then I have to make a curved form for the roof panel.

 

[VanIsle_Greg]

Welcome back...heh

I stopped working on my project last August...need to get back on it as well. Life happens and stuff gets in the way, including winters!

 

[calicamper]

The pop top hard side combo is something I think hasn’t been done enough and/or well enough. I would buy a hard side pop top with rear cargo door in a heart beat. But NOBODY make em.

 

[stomperxj]

Second wall is done, front and back panels are laminated. I switched from the ******* PVC conduit I used in the first wall to aluminum. works much better. Did a mock up with both walls. It's starting to look like something I'm going to start gluing panels to the trailer soon.

New video link at the bottom

 

[ITTOG]

So glad to see you back. I have missed this build so much I started my own, not nearly as cool though, to hold me over.

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[stomperxj]

So glad to see you back. I have missed this build so much I started my own, not nearly as cool though, to hold me over.

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Thanks man. Took a bit longer break than intended but I'm back after it now. I just subbed to your thread. Looks like a great build so far. Your scale model was awesome Hope your leg is healing up ok. Holy ******** that was a bad one...

 

[stomperxj]

New vid is up. I glued some panels to the chassis.... finally

If anyone has a suggestion for a new low profile air rivet gun I'd love to hear it.

 

[57Cessna172]

looking good!

 

[VanIsle_Greg]

PROGRESS!!

Looking good. Making some popcorn now and heading over to YouTube!

 

[Jonny_Rotten]

This is unbelievably well thought out and put together. Inspiring stuff. Thanks for sharing.

Since this is an off road trailer, are there any concerns with the box being built directly onto the chassis, rather than built separately and then attached to the chassis with a mounting system? Truck campers seem to use mounting system - do they experience more flex in the chassis? Perhaps a stiff frame design and suspension means its not necessary?

I've seen some builds here that simply use heavy objects to weigh down the sandwich layers of a DIY composite FRP wall. How critical do you think the vacuum table is?