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!