POD: Homebuilt foam core fiberglass skin pop-up camper build thread
- Thread starter pods8
- Start date
Backroad Explorer
Adventurer
Pods your work is givin' me Goose Bumps!
Looks Great!
Looks Great!
Yeah cool to get the top exterior done but still have to finish off th door/flip walls and then do the lower half and also do some fairing work on the interior and paint that too, but its a step in the right direction.
I used their two part epoxy primer, magnapoxy, that stuff seemed really nice in that it coated very well and dried fast too. I wanted to use an epoxy primer (I wanted to take no chances though the scuffed raw epoxy coat likely would have been fine) as it is by far the best primer verse any single stage stuff in terms of bond ability.
Monsta is definitely not a 1 coat system, the first coat does not get full coverage. Now answering your question is tricky. They advertise 60sqft per gallon coverage done in two coats, I'm sorta thinking that is conservative for hard to estimate surface area or such. On this flat surface and easy to calculate footage I was not able to lay down that much coating in two coats without obvious "thick" areas. Because the product was mixed up and my timeline was tight while I had help visiting (and it was 3-4hrs between coats based on my temps/humidity) we ended up doing a "third" coat immediately after finishing off the second coat to try and use up the mixed up product. This seemed to strain the rollers more and would pull little flecks off them (that is one of my 5' critiques). So that's what we did for the top half. For the bottom since I have the coating already to use I'll probably be looking at doing three truly separate coats which ideally won't stress out the roller while still getting thick build.
The coating isn't cheap to do since such a thick build is going down. BUT there is huge savings in faring work so pick your poison. We spread out the fairing compound with drywall knives fairly smooth, then sanded it out with a 7" sander and a 5" random orbital (and a little hand sanding) and raw epoxy coated it and scuffed that up over a weekend. Perfect for under this type of coating but we'd have had to do a lot of long board sanding to get a surface that looks good under a thin glossy paint.
Yeah for sure worst critic but its just being honest where there is room for improvement. Main items to comment on the job are:
1) The roller flecks noted above, I'll switch to three true coats for the bottom and see what happens.
2) To do the color change the coating is overlapped 1" or so, you can see the build difference but that is the nature of the beast for a visible color change. We had thought about doing the grey sides first and wrapping the white over it which would have hid that overlap by taking the grey undercoat up to the top but the color seam isn't fully crisp since the tape is down over a textured surface so we thought it better to hide that on the top of the seam rather than bottom. Will be hard to see the bits of grey on the white when looking upwards at something 7' up on my truck.
3) We learned on the roof, you need to generally evenly roll out an area and then leave it, if there is something that needs to reroll you tend to have to do it all to get even texture. On the roof there isn't a good spot to transition that, so in the right light you can sorta see some differences. But that isn't something many would notice and that assumes they even have a line of sight on the roof which normally no one ever would.
Tape sticks to monsta just find, getting a uniform tape line against a textured surface is the issue. The smoother your texture the better a line you'd get, I had intended to go for a more muted texture than I got but since I did the immediate third coat on the wet second coat I ended up with more texture. Like I was saying I'll plan for three individual coats going forward, when done that way I think the texture will definitely be less (to which doing a tape line would be more crisp). One thing going for you though is that monsta is really thick so its also not going to be as likely to get under tape with decent contact. Another thing to keep in your head is there is a visually noticeable coating thickness at transitions so plan accordingly. I wrapped the grey onto the white so that the tape line would be on the top side of that joint and hard to see since you're looking upwards but in turn you see the additional build of the white under the grey for the 1" I overlapped them. If I would have gone the other way around that build up could have transitioned on the top of the radius and really wouldn't be visible but then the color cutover line would be facing downwards and more visible for any lack of "crispness".
I can take some better photos of what I ended up with over the weekend. I know I could do better if I had it to do again, there is flexibility in the application methods if thought out ahead. In reality its pretty adaptable stuff when you think about it.
Lower half it outta the driveway and back in the garage, not the greatest pic but give you a front shot. I'll get out a good camera when the exterior is completed down the line:
Here are some tape line close up, you can see some of the lack of crispness due to texture and the thickness differences both in the color change and also 1" down in the grey where it overlapped the white. 7' up on my truck though I don't think many would notice:
Here are some tape line close up, you can see some of the lack of crispness due to texture and the thickness differences both in the color change and also 1" down in the grey where it overlapped the white. 7' up on my truck though I don't think many would notice:
Pro tip: Beers and actuators don't mix. 
I had just roughly glued up the cores for the flip up walls and was showing the father in law the roof lift, view with the flip wall cores in place, etc. Then I clicked the switches to lower the roof and stepped out of the camper, then noticed that I had left one of the flip wall cores in place which the roof was already starting to push down on. I was closer to the wall than the switches and damage was imminent so that wall core got the "wrath" of a couple karate chops to knock it out of the way and part of it ended up busted so some rework is due there. Oops. This is a case where I could now see merit in having a remote in hand. Granted just being diligent about your camp break down would also be good, this is the first time I had a flip wall sitting in place so it hadn't become engrained to check yet...
I had just roughly glued up the cores for the flip up walls and was showing the father in law the roof lift, view with the flip wall cores in place, etc. Then I clicked the switches to lower the roof and stepped out of the camper, then noticed that I had left one of the flip wall cores in place which the roof was already starting to push down on. I was closer to the wall than the switches and damage was imminent so that wall core got the "wrath" of a couple karate chops to knock it out of the way and part of it ended up busted so some rework is due there. Oops. This is a case where I could now see merit in having a remote in hand. Granted just being diligent about your camp break down would also be good, this is the first time I had a flip wall sitting in place so it hadn't become engrained to check yet...
Kilroy
Adventurer
Pro tip: Beers and actuators don't mix.
I had just roughly glued up the cores for the flip up walls and was showing the father in law the roof lift, view with the flip wall cores in place, etc. Then I clicked the switches to lower the roof and stepped out of the camper, then noticed that I had left one of the flip wall cores in place which the roof was already starting to push down on. I was closer to the wall than the switches and damage was imminent so that wall core got the "wrath" of a couple karate chops to knock it out of the way and part of it ended up busted so some rework is due there. Oops. This is a case where I could now see merit in having a remote in hand. Granted just being diligent about your camp break down would also be good, this is the first time I had a flip wall sitting in place so it hadn't become engrained to check yet...
Been there with my Alaskan
One funny thing I've noticed is dust naturally accumulating on the painted areas with wood blocking underneath, you can see it in the above photo (look at the white lines around the window, etc.). It dusts right off as its just loosely sitting there but for whatever reason its getting drawn there when in the air.
Anyways chipping away at glassing those flip walls now, I did the side of one yesterday and will hopefully knock those out over the week in the evenings. Its sometimes nice just to do a small piece and not push to do more as you don't get worn/sloppy.
Look ahead at figuring out a door. I think the original jamb profile I had put into the frame is a recipe for a PITA to fit up. See below but basically I had only left a gap for a door lip on the outside, I think trying to fit up a door to that is going to take way to dang long. I'm thinking instead of cutting out that projection entirely and just fitting a door into a straight walled cutout (with some amount of reasonable gap for swing clearances), then for the gasket surface add a ring on the interior face that projects over the edge of the door (with an offset for gasket). This would make fitup and glassing all the components much much faster I think. Also I would think it should seal well still as nature has to funnel through a say 1/8"-1/4" gap for 2" of depth to even get to the gasket surface, then hook 90deg and cross over the compressed gasket.
Need to start on the door soon, taking all insight under consideration:
Anyways chipping away at glassing those flip walls now, I did the side of one yesterday and will hopefully knock those out over the week in the evenings. Its sometimes nice just to do a small piece and not push to do more as you don't get worn/sloppy.
Look ahead at figuring out a door. I think the original jamb profile I had put into the frame is a recipe for a PITA to fit up. See below but basically I had only left a gap for a door lip on the outside, I think trying to fit up a door to that is going to take way to dang long. I'm thinking instead of cutting out that projection entirely and just fitting a door into a straight walled cutout (with some amount of reasonable gap for swing clearances), then for the gasket surface add a ring on the interior face that projects over the edge of the door (with an offset for gasket). This would make fitup and glassing all the components much much faster I think. Also I would think it should seal well still as nature has to funnel through a say 1/8"-1/4" gap for 2" of depth to even get to the gasket surface, then hook 90deg and cross over the compressed gasket.
Need to start on the door soon, taking all insight under consideration:
riveroceanandmountain
Adventurer
wow... a double door.... very cool solution to getting in while the top is down!
Gotta do something to get access for the times you just want to toss some gear in and also even if you could actuate the top from the outside there are maintenance instances you'd want to be able to get in. I originally was thinking a split door but that just seemed a big pain in the butt. A access door in the main door will only loose a little space for passage and be so much easier to do. At the size it is its big enough to throw gear through, including coolers and such. We'll see how comfortable it is to crawl in but that'll be what it'll be. Lift the top if undesirable.