Sawtooth Unlimited - Off Road Pop Top Camper Trailer

[stomperxj]

Looking good Jess. I was wondering what you where going to with the bottom edge of the walls, thats why I am doing mine with the angle iron that is big enough for the whole panel to sit on.

I really appreciate you and your build, it is giving me things to do and things not to do. And I dont mean that in a bad way, I mean it as in "this is how I was going to do it, but not now"

As for the bubbles under the glass, I was reading here about SIPs and one of the manufactures was talking about water getting in the panel. He show a pic of the edge of a panel and it had a saw kerf down the foam to let the air out during vaccing. I plan on buying the cheapest circular saw blade I can and rounding the teeth of it so I can put a kerf on the foam panels. I want the kerf to be 1/16 deep with a rounded bottom, to avoid a stress point in the foam. It will probably just fill up with epoxy anyway but it might help get the air out.

Edit, a way for you to do the wheel wells is just like you did the foot well. Just a 1 inch piece of metal welded to a strip cut out in the right shape. It would take a while to make thou.

Thanks, that is one of the main reasons why I post how I do things. So other people can see another way and maybe come up with a better way to do it or at least maybe get a bit of motivation/inspiration to work on their own project.

I know Styromax uses foam with grooves in it. They buy it pre-sanded and pre grooved.

I am going to give bending some aluminum a shot. Worst case I'll weld up some 18ga pieces to go in the fender wells.

 

[stomperxj]

New short vid up. Got the pantry panels glued and riveted and experimented with some aluminum angle for the edge of the fenders.

 

[Louisd75]

Jess, what are your plans for sealing the exposed foam? Are you just going to epoxy them or glass too? Or will they be covered by flanges for the various compartments?

 

[stomperxj]

Jess, what are your plans for sealing the exposed foam? Are you just going to epoxy them or glass too? Or will they be covered by flanges for the various compartments?

Louis - Any exposed foam or fiberglass edge will be covered with either a door, aluminum/steel angle or plastic T-molding. The front and rear storage cubbies on the interior will get T-molding along with the exposed edge of the bed platform. Everything else should be covered by metal of some sort

 

[Louisd75]

Louis - Any exposed foam or fiberglass edge will be covered with either a door, aluminum/steel angle or plastic T-molding. The front and rear storage cubbies on the interior will get T-molding along with the exposed edge of the bed platform. Everything else should be covered by metal of some sort

Sounds good

How wide was that roll of FRP and how much do you think you'll have leftover?

 

[stomperxj]

Sounds good

How wide was that roll of FRP and how much do you think you'll have leftover?

The roll was 84" x 196ft. I think I'll have somewhere around 60-70ft left. I know I used at least 120ft of it and probably a bit more. I stopped keeping track

 

[high-and-dry]

My roll was 8.5 feet wide and 197 long. No wonder mine was a couple of hundred pounds more than yours. It kind of sucks I have all these 12-14 long 2.5 wide pieces that are scrap. I will be using some of it for small panels but not much.

 

[stomperxj]

New vid up. Got the back panel glued and riveted today. Screwed up the kerf cuts but they will get covered with something. Ran out of Teroson. I have 6 tubes coming but they are backordered. Hopefully gluing the front panel next weekend

 

[stomperxj]

Haven't done much lately due to waiting on backordered Teroson 939. It finally came in and I got a few things glued. Aluminum angle on the rear shelf and top corner of the pantry. Also got the corner guard on the bottom back corner of the body.

I also had a colossal ******** with the front panel. As you can see it is cut. I explain more in the short vid I posted today. Should be an easy fix. Hopefully. Link at bottom

 

[high-and-dry]

Getting there, I maybe ahead of you now. I saw when you trimmed the torosen on the top inside corner of the pantry and went back and cut out all the crappy smears of torosen that I did. I also found out that even a week later it can still be gooey in the middle. I did figure out tongue depressors work well for smoothing the inside corners, with out the mess all over my fingers. I had about a 3 or 4 week wait for my order of torosen as well.

Might I give you suggestion on how to handle the OPPS of the front panel, just glue on another skin after you bend it, that way you wont have an exposed joint. Or I can send you some 2 inch fiberglass tape and just "patch" it ( I have 30 or 40 feet extra ) then fair it out. The hide the patch with a stripe or graphic of some sort.

 

[ITTOG]

Well you are not the first on here to make a big mistake. I was just talking about a few of my mistakes on my camper in my last post. It definitely happens to the best of us. I am with @high-and-dry on patching with the 2" tape. That would look the best. However, I understand not wanting to do all that extra work. Given you have aluminum angle on the edges I think the t-molding would look okay as well. But if it was me I would look for H-molding, but that might be difficult to get to match your panel thickness. Another thought, will t-molding give you enough overlap on the outside? I tend to overdo things but would want at least 1" overlap on each panel. Good luck with whatever route you choose.

How will you access the pantry? Is that going to be a slide out from the back?

Finally, do you know how the teroson adheres to steel. I am planning to use VHB to affix aluminum to powder coated steel. But I have been wondering lately about using an adhesive. 3m 5200 sounds like an option but looking at others as well.

 

[high-and-dry]

Ittog the terosen will hold to steel to the point the fiberglass will fail before the bond. The really cool thing is how stretchy it really is, my trimmings from corners will stretch to twice the length and snap back like a rubber band. I would think in your situation it will pull the powder coating off the steel if it sticks to the powder coating. I would say grind the powder coat off and go straight to the steel. I used 5200 to glue my floor down while waiting for the terosen, 5200 is stiffer and not near as flexible. Also costs a lot more, the sausage tube of terosen cost about 23 bucks,its 27 for a regular caulk tube of 5200.

His pantry has a long door the length of the pantry on the outside.

jump to the 2 min mark

 

[ITTOG]

Ittog the terosen will hold to steel to the point the fiberglass will fail before the bond. The really cool thing is how stretchy it really is, my trimmings from corners will stretch to twice the length and snap back like a rubber band. I would think in your situation it will pull the powder coating off the steel if it sticks to the powder coating. I would say grind the powder coat off and go straight to the steel. I used 5200 to glue my floor down while waiting for the terosen, 5200 is stiffer and not near as flexible. Also costs a lot more, the sausage tube of terosen cost about 23 bucks,its 27 for a regular caulk tube of 5200.

His pantry has a long door the length of the pantry on the outside.

jump to the 2 min mark

Thanks for the info.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

 

[stomperxj]

Getting there, I maybe ahead of you now. I saw when you trimmed the torosen on the top inside corner of the pantry and went back and cut out all the crappy smears of torosen that I did. I also found out that even a week later it can still be gooey in the middle. I did figure out tongue depressors work well for smoothing the inside corners, with out the mess all over my fingers. I had about a 3 or 4 week wait for my order of torosen as well.

Might I give you suggestion on how to handle the OPPS of the front panel, just glue on another skin after you bend it, that way you wont have an exposed joint. Or I can send you some 2 inch fiberglass tape and just "patch" it ( I have 30 or 40 feet extra ) then fair it out. The hide the patch with a stripe or graphic of some sort.

I think you'll beat me to completion. I have a lot of work left. Probably another 6+ months on this thing at least. Thanks for the offer on the tape. I'm going to stick with the aluminum and Teroson. I don't mind having a strip of aluminum across the front panel. I'll cover the seam on the inside with a strip of aluminum and Teroson as well. Should be plenty strong.

Well you are not the first on here to make a big mistake. I was just talking about a few of my mistakes on my camper in my last post. It definitely happens to the best of us. I am with @high-and-dry on patching with the 2" tape. That would look the best. However, I understand not wanting to do all that extra work. Given you have aluminum angle on the edges I think the t-molding would look okay as well. But if it was me I would look for H-molding, but that might be difficult to get to match your panel thickness. Another thought, will t-molding give you enough overlap on the outside? I tend to overdo things but would want at least 1" overlap on each panel. Good luck with whatever route you choose.

How will you access the pantry? Is that going to be a slide out from the back?

Finally, do you know how the teroson adheres to steel. I am planning to use VHB to affix aluminum to powder coated steel. But I have been wondering lately about using an adhesive. 3m 5200 sounds like an option but looking at others as well.

I was in disbelief after I realized I cut that panel in half I won't make that mistake again haha. I tried to find some h or some H molding that would work but the problem is the thickness of my panels. They are roughly 1.09" ish thick and most the stuff I found is for 1" so I'd have to trim the skin off of both sides which is less than ideal. the T molding should work well. I'm going to see if I can get some 2.5" overall height so I have a good amount of Teroson on both sides of the seam. I'll cover the inside with a strip of aluminum too. Scott said above and I agree, the Teroson should stick to the raw steel or the powder coat incredibly well, although I would scuff the powder coat first and clean it really well for the best adhesion.

The pantry is accessed from the curb side of the trailer. You can see my kitchen slides in the lower storage too:

 

[stomperxj]

Well the front wall is fixed. It wasn't too bad to get done. I'm over cutting these panels up. So much fiberglass dust and foam specks. I'll be glad after the roof is on.
New vid is up. Link at the bottom-