POD: Homebuilt foam core fiberglass skin pop-up camper build thread
- Thread starter pods8
- Start date
Update 6 (68.5hrs in): Been a little harder to work in time lately so no update until now. I've now glued up and surface sanded the front, driver side, and rear wall. I've remounted them so I can fit them to each other (and the floor) and do additional fairing sanding to the cores now before I go glassing them which will make any future sanding much harder. I need to turn some attention to how I'll do the door/latches so I can at least do the fixed wall portions so the passenger side can similarly get faired in.
I've started putting together the floor portion of the cabover as well with the 1" thick material I "planned" with the hotwire. After running the calcs on the siderails I've formed a plan of action there which I need to get some supplies on order for so I can build those and fit the rest of that up as well.
After all that is just a bit of sanding/router work to make round corners and smoother transitions between pieces. Then it gets broken apart and glassed up.
(Note the cab through window is inset on the inside due to what I was able to readily source. The rest are flush inside/out. )
I've started putting together the floor portion of the cabover as well with the 1" thick material I "planned" with the hotwire. After running the calcs on the siderails I've formed a plan of action there which I need to get some supplies on order for so I can build those and fit the rest of that up as well.
After all that is just a bit of sanding/router work to make round corners and smoother transitions between pieces. Then it gets broken apart and glassed up.
(Note the cab through window is inset on the inside due to what I was able to readily source. The rest are flush inside/out. )
washington taco
Explorer
pods8 will you be at the Overland Rally in Ellensburg? Would love to see your work. This is outstanding work!
Honestly I wasn't even following along to know there was one. However being realistic it would be pretty damn optimistic on my end to have to shell completed by then based on how much time I've been able to get in each week. I'll get there eventually. :coffeedrink:
I'm open to talking shop with interested parties though so don't feel intimidated if you want to chat or see the state of things at some point (should be more entertaining down the road when there is more to see!).
Update 7 (82.5hrs in): The cabover floor has all the wood inserts I was planning to add cut in and installed, still needs to be sanded. I cut/fit the two passenger side wall pieces that form the door jambs and glued them together, still need to fill/sand them. I was a bit zoned out while building the cabover side of the wall and only built it to the height of the front wall rather than the cabover rail height actually needed. It's not that big of a deal since I can just extend the cabover rail piece with the only extra aspect being I need to continue the door jamb up the edge of that.
Although I'll be out of town over memorial weekend I should have the supplies for the cabover rails when I get back and I hope to quickly knock those out and sand/fair out everything and then break it down to start glassing in early June. Here's hoping...
Passenger side wall/door jambs cut/fit prior to gluing up.
Passenger side walls glued up. The cabover floor is standing the in background.
Update 8 (101hrs in): Little slower on the progress due to some travel over memorial weekend and going camping this coming weekend (that is why I'm holding onto my FWC currently 
). But some good visual progress was finally made. The cabover pieces were assembled, filled, and sanded. I fit up the cabover today. Honestly it didn't go as smooth as I'd have liked as the floor wasn't quite fitting up right, something got out of square (likely a cumulative of tolerances in the assembly). I ended up trimming off a wedge from one side and epoxying it onto the other to work the floor into fitting.
Next stage is break out the sanders/router to radius various corners and smooth each piece into the next. Then they will be disassembled and glassing begins. I had hoped to finish this portion off today but the fitment issues burned up too much time. As always I just gotta roll with the punches and keep my timeline flexible.
). But some good visual progress was finally made. The cabover pieces were assembled, filled, and sanded. I fit up the cabover today. Honestly it didn't go as smooth as I'd have liked as the floor wasn't quite fitting up right, something got out of square (likely a cumulative of tolerances in the assembly). I ended up trimming off a wedge from one side and epoxying it onto the other to work the floor into fitting.Next stage is break out the sanders/router to radius various corners and smooth each piece into the next. Then they will be disassembled and glassing begins. I had hoped to finish this portion off today but the fitment issues burned up too much time. As always I just gotta roll with the punches and keep my timeline flexible.
I'm breaking it down to all flat pieces so I can do the glass work with them lying flat, I'm thinking the extra effort to then reassemble them will be offset by the easier time working in the horizontal plane. 8 pieces: Floor, Driver side wall (including cabover rail), front wall, back wall, front cabover short wall, cabover floor, rear portion of passenger wall, front portion of cabover wall (including cabover rail).
Kilroy
Adventurer
Won't your clearances for putting back together all be off after you've applied glass? Thought glass would be binding it all together.
The panel/panel interface clearances hasn't been what I'm sanding/fairing out by test fitting, it's the outter surfaces/edges (not sure if that makes sense in words). I'm just trying to knock down the drastic high spots to minimize, not eliminate, sanding/fit work later.
The glass will be binding it all together, I'll have to cut cloth "tape" strips to apply a ply schedule across each joint. It's an extra step this way but I suspect it'll be far worth it compared to trying to glass this thing as a whole unit in my garage. Doing the bulk fiberglass work in the horizontal plane should be much much easier. Then the cloths "tape" strips will be wet out on plastic sheeting on the work bench and carried over and worked into place.
If I had a larger shop with more space and vertical height and a set of scaffolding I'd likely do the thing as a whole by flipping it around to do each panel horizontally.
(No progress to report, when camping over the weekend).
Heifer Boy
Adventurer
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Heifer Boy
Adventurer
Bugger !!! I spend a long time on that reply last night and then had connection problems and ended up post 3 times last night. I cleaned it up but must have clean up too much.
What I was on about was I asked why you are using the method of wetting out the cloth the way you are?
For laminating I read up on both the dry method and the wet method of applying the cloth. The dry method won hands down!! The wet method (which was applying dry cloth to a wet surface) proved to be very difficult to get cloth flat and wrinkle free and generally used significantly more resin too. I tried a little bit of this method and it proved to be the case and everything else I did laying ouy dry first and then applying the resin.
I found the most difficult part of the laminating I did concerned the edges. Cut cloth edges fray like crazy regardless of how careful you are and trying to get them in place with a sticky resin soaked squeegee was frustracting. A roller or a brush was even worse as it all caught on the frayed edge and pulled off and dragged the wet cloth about the place. Very time consuming to get tidy and bubble free. So I ended up using larger over hangs and triming up after the resin has gelled. Much easier and much tidier.
In your case I think lamintating the panel horizontally is a great idea and you should get a nice consistent finish that way. Then you can just feather the edges and 'tape' as you have described. I'd recommend laying a line of masking tape 50mm out from your corners and cutting your cloth to about 200mm wide strips. Then you lay cloth and you can hold this on place temporarily with tape or thumb tacks or staples if needed. Then pour on your resin and squeegee to your taped lines and over the edge to the other taped lines. Although this bit is vertical you soon get and idea of how much resin to scrap over the edge. Then trim along the masking tape line and peel off the excess once gelled and you are left with a nice clean wrap over your joint. Same for the the vertical joints and you will definitely have to hold the cloth tape temporarily but once you get going from the top down the resin will hold it in place easily. Apply the resin with a brush and squeegee to your taped lines and down to remove the excess.
Loving the build BTW. The detail you have put into the frames and walls is outstanding and I can't wait to see it become a solid box. It's hugely satisfying :wings:
I hope this post works this time...
I spend a long time on that reply last night and then had connection problems and ended up post 3 times last night. I cleaned it up but must have clean up too much.What I was on about was I asked why you are using the method of wetting out the cloth the way you are?
For laminating I read up on both the dry method and the wet method of applying the cloth. The dry method won hands down!! The wet method (which was applying dry cloth to a wet surface) proved to be very difficult to get cloth flat and wrinkle free and generally used significantly more resin too. I tried a little bit of this method and it proved to be the case and everything else I did laying ouy dry first and then applying the resin.
I found the most difficult part of the laminating I did concerned the edges. Cut cloth edges fray like crazy regardless of how careful you are and trying to get them in place with a sticky resin soaked squeegee was frustracting. A roller or a brush was even worse as it all caught on the frayed edge and pulled off and dragged the wet cloth about the place. Very time consuming to get tidy and bubble free. So I ended up using larger over hangs and triming up after the resin has gelled. Much easier and much tidier.
In your case I think lamintating the panel horizontally is a great idea and you should get a nice consistent finish that way. Then you can just feather the edges and 'tape' as you have described. I'd recommend laying a line of masking tape 50mm out from your corners and cutting your cloth to about 200mm wide strips. Then you lay cloth and you can hold this on place temporarily with tape or thumb tacks or staples if needed. Then pour on your resin and squeegee to your taped lines and over the edge to the other taped lines. Although this bit is vertical you soon get and idea of how much resin to scrap over the edge. Then trim along the masking tape line and peel off the excess once gelled and you are left with a nice clean wrap over your joint. Same for the the vertical joints and you will definitely have to hold the cloth tape temporarily but once you get going from the top down the resin will hold it in place easily. Apply the resin with a brush and squeegee to your taped lines and down to remove the excess.
Loving the build BTW. The detail you have put into the frames and walls is outstanding and I can't wait to see it become a solid box. It's hugely satisfying :wings:
I hope this post works this time...
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Heifer Boy
Adventurer
Now I'm not getting any line spacing!!! And a big chunk of what I said went missing from the middle!!! What's going on!!!
All fixed up now.
All fixed up now.
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stomperxj
Explorer
Looks legible to me HB....