Category: 2018 Camper Build

And now the camper has a door. The start of a door at least. The hard part, the hanging, is done. I’ll put aluminum angle around the door frame for strength and weather resistance. This might well be the only place where there is plywood on the outside, not counting the underneath. The walls and roof will be rigid foam covered by paint soaked canvas. A technique referred to as “poor man’s fiberglass”. Back to the door, when the latch arrives I will take the door down again and install it and then I’ll put the opposite stud in at the best location.

Did some work on the camper today. What you see here is the entire passenger side, part of the back and driver side with rigid foam attached. I’m using 1″ Foamular in 4’x8′ sheets and gorilla glue. If you look close you can probably see where some of glue foamed up and ran down. This is how far two sheets go. About two more sheets should finish the driver side and the front through which I shot the picture. Two more will go in the roof or lid since that will lift off. I’ve estimated 7 sheets would be required so I might be ahead.After that I’ll make the semi-final decision about the skin. The current plan is canvas and lots of paint on the outside and 3mm plywood on the inside. Many people swear by this technique, canvas over foam. so I’m hopeful. And it should be light. If that doesn’t work I can always put plywood over that.Obviously nothing inside yet but once I’m done with the foam and skin I could take it’s vast emptiness somewhere and open up an army cot.

I built the lid shown previously but it was too heavy. I didn’t take the weight of the paint into consideration and I used an entire gallon of paint on it as glue. I was surprised too. I need to be able to lift with one hand while raising a wall and it was too much. So I free cycled it to someone to use as a slightly elevated platform. The new lid will forego the plywood and be Foamular, possibly 2″, skinned with canvas. That should reduce the weight by about 80 lbs maybe more. I hate the wasted material but there was nothing to do about it.