Sanding and Painting the Bottom

I have started sanding the bottom.  You can see two areas where I sanded through to bare wood and had to patch the fiberglass.  Every time this happens it sets me back a few days while the epoxy cures.  I am not going to spend a lot of time trying to get the bottom extra smooth because it will take a lot of abuse and I don't want to sand the fiberglass too thin.  Also it will be out of sight, so in this case structural strength trumps appearance.

Here I've finished sanding as smooth as I want it.  I also sanded the sides up to a little over an inch because they will be painted up one inch from the bottom.  The sides were sanded much smoother.

The sides are masked one inch up from the bottom.  It's hard to see but I used automotive masking tape that does a very good job of allowing paint to get under it, so for the most part I will get a nice line.  In parts the paint may leak under the tape and I will have to scrape those areas.  Pre-taped plastic masking has been taped on top of the automotive tape to catch any drips or runs (there'd better not be any runs!).

The first coat of paint has been applied.  There are some thin areas, especially where I started the job and the roller was not saturated enough.  This will be taken care of with the second coat.

And here is the second coat.  I'm about out of paint so this will have to do it.  I used a very dark blue called "flag blue" by the manufacturer, Interlux.  It's actually quite a bit darker than it looks in the photo.

When the paint dries I'll be able to flip the boat right-side up.  I'm pretty sure that since I jumped ahead and drilled for the trailer then painted the bottom I will not have to turn it upside down again.

Prepping the Camper for Trailer Mounting

As mentioned in the previous post, I assembled the part of the trailer frame that mounts to the camper and set it on the bottom of the upside-down camper shell:

So far so good, but as you can see I had to place the trailer frame on spacers to clear the butt block (risers will be added when the trailer is installed).  This means the mounting holes are 3/4" away from the camper bottom, leaving a lot of room for error.  Now I'm that much more glad I decided to do it this way, because there would be more possibility for error while lying on the ground under the trailer.

First I shined a small LED flashlight down through the mounting holes and outlined the projected circles of light.  That was my first idea, but now I think a much surer way will be to use a square to project the outside edges of each mounting bracket down to the shell bottom and mark several spots around them.  After I remove the frame, I can take off one of the mounting brackets and lay it over all the outlines to mark the hole locations.

So here's one of the hole locations marked using the second method outlined above.  I think it will be pretty accurate, but the immediate challenge is getting the hole centered in the exact middle of the circle.

Here is one of the mounting holes drilled.  I decided to make it 5/8" diameter instead of 1/2" as recommended in the manual to give me a little more wiggle room.  The hole will be filled with thickened epoxy and a 3/8" hole drilled into the resulting plug.  That only leaves 1/8" of epoxy around the hole.  1/16" would be too thin to safely avoid drilling into raw wood.

The bottoms of all the holes are covered with tape to keep the thickened epoxy in place.

Here is one of the eight holes filled with thickened epoxy.  The epoxy was thickened with Cell-O-Fill this time instead of wood flour.  That may be to make it stronger.  You can't tell from the picture, but to borrow a woodworking term I left the epoxy a little proud, to be easily sanded flush later.

The small electric heater is still inside the shell and is turned on.  I have made a plastic tent over the curing epoxy to allow some of the heat on the outside also, without having to heat the entire garage.  The epoxy will be fully cured in four or five days, but it will be hard enough by tomorrow afternoon to allow drilling the mounting holes.

Next Day: Time to drill the mounting holes within the epoxy plugs.  I used this contraption to keep the drill bit as perpendicular to the camper floor as possible.  As you can see, I am using a Forstner bit.  I used it to start the hole because it does not have the same tendency to "walk" as a twist drill.  The Forstner doesn't do too well drilling epoxy though, so after drilling about 1/2" I switched to a twist drill.

Here's a finished mounting hole.  I didn't get it perfectly centered but it's close enough that there is definitely  no raw wood exposed.

One of the epoxy plugs had a large bubble that looks to be exposing wood, so I am going to fill it and drill it again.  There were two more plugs that had significant enough bubbles that I decided to refill them also.  This time I used the shank of a 1/16" drill bit to be sure I got any bubbles out of all three new fills.  I'll drill those three out tomorrow and that should be that.  Will leave the electric heater running inside the shell for 4 or 5 more days to be sure I get a complete cure.
I had thought I might be able to go ahead and permanently mount the trailer frame to the shell after this, but even though it is aluminum it is much heavier than I thought it would be.  Also, I will probably need better access to the frame when I am installing the other trailer parts.

Door Hinges and Rear Hatch Hinges

A layer of fiberglass cloth and epoxy is applied to both sides of the hinges.

The photo appears out of focus, but that's because of the epoxy in the cloth near the edges of the hinges.  Groups of hinges are attached together, to be separated later.  The manual implies that you epoxy one side, then flip them over right away and do the other side.  I tried this, but I don't recommend it unless you have really smooth plastic to lay them on.  I'll have quite a bit of sanding to do on the side that was flipped down onto the plastic.  Better to let one side cure to the point of no longer being tacky, then flip them and do the other side.

While the first coat on the hinges is curing, I applied a second coat to the inside of the doors.  As you can see, all this work is being allowed to cure inside my kitchen.  In fact, I did the epoxy work on the hinges on my kitchen table.

Contrary to what the manual says, I applied a second coat of epoxy to the hinges while the first coat was still tacky.  The second coat reduces the chances of sanding into the cloth. 

The hinges have been rounded off and sanded--BTW, they are sitting on an old throw rug I use on my bench to keep things from getting scratched up.  I'll apply epoxy to the entire hinges after they are mounted.  They are going to be out in the weather so need plenty of sealing.  The manual leaves out that you should apply epoxy to the insides of all the holes--a must!

I am going to set them aside for now and move ahead a bit--here's why:  The shell is sitting upside down right now and it needs to be flipped before installing the doors.  The way the manual is laid out, you flip it right-side-up to install the door sills, doors and "eyebrows" over the doors, work on the rear hatch, etc., followed by mounting it to the trailer.  After that the bottom is painted, so you have to take it back off the trailer!  (That's also when all the final sanding is done all over the shell.)  I think I see their reasoning for mounting to the trailer before painting the bottom.  The holes for the trailer mounts are supposed to be drilled too large, filled with thickened epoxy, and then the smaller holes are drilled within the epoxy plugs.  This is to protect the wood from water infiltration and it would be difficult to do this properly with paint in the way.  Here's what I'm going to try:

I already have the unassembled trailer.  I'm hoping I can assemble just the part that mounts to the trailer and set it on the bottom upside-down to locate the positions for the mounting holes.  After that I'll drill-fill-drill the mounting holes and paint the bottom.  At that point, if the trailer section is light enough, I'll go ahead and mount it to the camper and attach it to the remainder of the trailer later.

I hope all this works out--don't know enough about the still-boxed trailer to be sure--so I'll keep you posted.  I think this is a much more sensible method if it turns out to be viable, especially since I don't have anybody to help me flip the trailer--I roll it over on furniture blankets.  (I will have to get help when it comes time to lift the camper onto the trailer.)  So, stay tuned!

Epoxying the Inside

OOPS! I missed a couple steps starting way back on page 99.  The bottom of the galley flat and the insides of the quarter panels should have been epoxied then before the bottom was installed.  It's going to be a bit harder to do it now but not impossible.  The biggest challenge will be making sure I seal the areas I can't see, behind the reinforcing bars and the backside of the bulkhead.

Well that's better.  The inside of the footwell is all sealed up now and I'm very sure I got the areas I couldn't see.  If not, I can't really see how any water will get back there and even if it does it will flow off onto sealed areas right away. If wood does not stay wet it doesn't rot.

The bulkhead will not be covered up by headliner so I tried to be extra careful with its coating--even tipped it off with a foam brush, but it will still have to be sanded.  At least there shouldn't be any runs or sags. It's a pretty piece of wood and it is where all the electrical controls, stereo, and so on will be mounted.

This is inside the front of the shell, just forward of the ventilation bezel. All of this will be covered by headliner, so one coat to seal it is plenty, no more sanding here either!

It's getting colder so I have put a small electric heater inside, and you can see my digital thermometer sitting on the shelf bottom.  I like that it records the high and low temps for the previous 24 hours.  As you can see I've put plastic sheeting over the doorways to help hold in the heat.  I'll be checking the temp from time to time and adjusting the thermostat on the heater to try to keep it around 70 or so in there.

I used leftover epoxy to put the first coat on the insides of the doors.  They will be exposed to rain from time-to-time so I'll be adding at least one more coat.

Beginning Work on Doors

 First, the cut lines for the windows are marked.  To get the curves right on the corners, I used the pre-cut acrylic windows as a guide.

 

The windows are different for each side, so after careful comparisons, I labeled both the window and door.  Starboard side is shown.

 The window openings have been cut out on each door.  Much careful sanding followed to get the sides as straight and the curves as "perfect" as possible.  Also, I made sure the windows fit easily into the openings.  The window goes just inside the opening and the edges of the plywood will be visible, so I did them as well as I possibly could.  This will also hold true for the doors and hatches and their respective openings.

 The "sill" (to which the window will be mounted) has been fitted to the window opening and glued in place.  It is especially important to clean up squeezed out glue on the face of the sill.  Once it has hardened, it becomes extremely difficult to remove and it has to be cleaned off for the window to fit properly.

 

 The port-side door has been moved into the kitchen for curing.  It's starting to get chilly in the garage, so any parts that are small enough will be moved inside for curing.
NOTE TO BUILDERS: If you haven't already done so, now is the time to use rat-tail and small flat files to clean any epoxy and fiberglass out of the hinge-mounting holes on the door.  Do this before adding the stiffeners in the next step. The stiffeners cover part of the bottom hole and make it much more difficult to clean it out.  Also make sure any squeezed-out epoxy from the stiffeners is cleaned out of the hinge-mounting holes before it starts to harden.

 The sills have cured and now the door stiffeners are sanded and glued on.

 Stiffeners are installed on both doors and they are inside the house now for curing.  Later on, work will continue on the doors--coating the inside with epoxy, installing the windows, adding hardware and hinges, and several other details.  For now, it's back to sanding the interior of the camper shell.

Cabin Shelf Continued

Because the shelf did not quite reach the shell, I installed cleats on each side to attach it to.  When the camper is turned rightside-up, I'll fill in the gaps with thickened epoxy, along with the fillets.

And here is the shelf installed.  Looks like I didn't get a picture, but I added a nice fillet all along the shelf bottom and onto the cleats.  Again, fillets will be added to the top side when the camper is turned over.

Cabin Shelf

I've jumped ahead a few pages to install the cabin shelf.  The reason for this is that a fillet is to be run on the bottom of the shelf and that is much easier to do when the shell is upside down.

Before starting on the shelf though, I took the opportunity to round off the corner where the bulkhead meets the galley floor.  That's a spot where I'm sure to be hitting my knees (remember the shell is still upside down).  On the bulkhead you can see one of the slots that tabs on the shelf will be inserted into. 

Here are some shots of a stop or rail (called a "fiddle" in nautical terms) that is being glued to the shelf.

There will be 3/8" roundovers routed on each side of the rail and on the bottom of the shelf.  The ball-bearing guide on the router bit hits the wood below any piece less than 3/4" thick.  This would have marred the shelf wood, so I rounded the inside corner of the fiddle on a router table before gluing it to the shelf.

Be sure to round the rear corners of the shelf to clear the fillets on the bulkhead joints.  I did this with a hand-sanding block.  A power sander would be likely to take off too much wood very quickly.

The shelf has received two coats of epoxy, about 2 hours apart.  Tomorrow I'll coat the bottom.

I went back to sanding the bulkhead and had a bit of an accident (didn't get any pictures).  I was sitting inside the shell to do the sanding and it turns out it is a bit front-heavy.  When I leaned back the whole thing fell forward off the furniture dolly and hit the garage floor.  I checked and couldn't find any damage--epoxy is pretty tough.

The same thing would have happened if I had put it on foam blocks as recommended in the book, and in fact it would have fallen farther.  At any rate I have laid a furniture blanket on the floor in case this happens again.  I may add some weight at the back also to balance it better.

Continuing Fiberglassing of Bottom and Inside Vent Bezel

Here's the bottom all sanded and ready for fiberglass.

Fiberglass laid on.  Future builders and those getting started take note:

CLC doesn't provide any extra cloth.  I always cut it a bit long and trim it, and as you can see I ran out before the bottom was covered.  Even though I had some left over from previous projects that I used here and there, e.g., the three squares for the vent bezel, I still didn't have enough!  I'm glad I still have some extra to patch in that missing area with.  Anyway, looks like you'll need to be extra careful and always measure out just enough.  Hold on to any you cut away for possible future needs.

I added the extra here at the front, so that the overlap is on the bottom, not on the transom and quarter panels.  I only plan to sand the bottom enough for paint to stick--not going to worry about hiding joints like this one.

At this point, the bottom has received two coats of epoxy.  The manual doesn't call for a second coat, but I think it's a good idea, to help avoid sanding into the fiberglass cloth.  I add the second coat when the first coat has started to cure but is still a bit tacky.  You can probably tell from this photo that I didn't do that great a job on the corners around the end of the butt block.  It's a pretty big job and I couldn't spend a lot of time messing with those areas before the epoxy started to kick so I had to move on. 

So I sanded the excess off and patched those areas.  I found that I was able to make a small patch of cloth conform nicely to the shape.  More rounding of the butt block corner might have solved this.

This is after the second coat of epoxy.

I'm doing the same patching on the corners.  Most of them were OK, but I decided those corners might take a lot of abuse, so a little reinforcement won't hurt.  I'll be doing the same thing on the front end of the shell.

Here's the inside of the vent bezel all sanded and ready for fiberglass.  It's still damp with alcohol at this point--that dried in a few seconds.

 The cloth has been applied,

and two coats of epoxy.  You may remember that the edges of the bezel were just barely touching the shell, but I believe after the fillets and all the fiberglassing it is going to be plenty strong.


 

Preparing to Fiberglass the Bottom

The manual says to turn the shell upside-down and set the bezel on some foam blocks.  Since I have to move it around by myself I decided to put it on a furniture dolly instead. 

The rear of the camper is supported  by a sawhorse.  The homemade sawhorse I had was too short so I went down and bought one that has adjustable legs.  At its shortest setting, 32", it is just the right height.

The first step is to sand a roundover all around the perimeter of the bottom, because the fiberglass will roll over onto the sides about an inch or so.  There is a problem at each end of the butt block, though.  This is the rear end where I decided to cut off the tabs (the right one is already removed) and fill in the whole area:

Here it is filled in and curing.  This will give the cloth a place to "flow" smoothly down onto the transom.  I'm not sure what's going to happen at the sides of the butt block--I hope I can make the cloth conform, otherwise will have to cut some darts.

And here is the rear end sanded.  The front end got the same treatment.

There is more filling and sanding yet to do at the ends and all around the sides, then comes the fiberglass treatment.