New From CO

[aaronf]

Hi all,

I've been lurking this forum for about two years now and decided to share my build. I spent many, many hours searching and reading threads here and utilized a lot of your experiences into my pop-up foam build. I figure it's time for me to share my experiences for the next person.

A little information about me: I come from a backpacking background and have always slept on the ground, either in a tent or under the stars. As the demands of life grow my trips become shorter and my wife and I, along with our young daughter, do a lot of weekend rock climbing trips. We typically leave on a Friday night, climb our hearts out on Saturday and Sunday and drive home Sunday night. Our motivation to camp is driven by climbing and we often stay on BLM or Forest Service land, arriving after dark. One particular late night I was setting up our tent and blowing up the air mattresses amid a flurry of snow showers when I looked across the dirt road and saw an old 13' Scamp camper and told myself we needed a better, more efficient camping setup.

A few months later I came across a free Craigslist posting for a 1970's Palomino popup camper. I immediately jumped on the deal and quickly discovered why it was free.

Here it is when I brought it home. 1978 Palomino unknown model, most of the interior was missing, much of the fabric was brittle and easily tore, mold on the floor, and it was generally in poor condition. It did, however, have a newer looking 3 way fridge.

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[aaronf]

We wasted no time stripping the camper apart. I scrapped the aluminum pieces for an exciting $28 and sold the working 3-way fridge for $250. As I got the camper down to the frame I discovered yet another reason the trailer was free. The axle was bent, it looked like someone hit a rock, causing the trailer tires to toe-in significantly. There was also some frame damage that needed attention. We pulled the camper to the dump and left most of it there. Somehow during the tear-down at the dump I managed to tear a ligament in my hand which sidelined me from climbing for a year.

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[aaronf]

The bumper on the back of the frame was hardly attached, a few welds were broken here and there, and the front half of the frame had a surprisingly large span that needed more steel. I sanded the frame with a wire wheel, which took forever. Many cans of Rust-Oleum paint and it started to look pretty good. I met a friend of a friend who was a welder by trade and in exchange for a plethora of Busch Light he did the necessary repairs. He added a few pieces of steel where I requested as per the build I had planned and also stiffened up it in places he thought were necessary.

I have no idea of the accuracy of this technique, but to get the weight of the frame I used a bathroom scale to weigh each wheel and the tongue jack and added them together. Around 400lbs. The frame is 118" long x 75" wide sitting on tiny 20 inch tires attached to what appears to be a 2000lb axle with old electric brakes. My guess is the empty camper was pushing the limits of the axle and bearings, and loaded with water and supplies it was likely easily overloaded.

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[greygoos]

Welcome and good luck with your plan.

[aaronf]

My requirements for this build included:

- Stand up inside
- Fit three people - two adults and a child
- Have enough space to comfortably get out of bad weather and cook somewhere protected
- Fit under my 82" garage
- Must be simple and faster to setup than a tent. I want to pull into a parking spot and be sleeping in minutes!

On top of all those must-have's I also want it to be lightweight and affordable.

I set my expectations high and spent a lot of time reading other builds and playing on Sketchup. I eventually decided on a foamie pop-top finished with PMF. Here's some early Sketup renderings. My design was to popup vertically like a Sportsmobile campervan. I'm hardly a Sketchup pro - this was my first time using it so please ignore any weird shapes or lines. I don't have a rendering of the entire camper as I only used it at times to help envision how different parts would come together.

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The red panel at the front of the camper is a bed that raises and lowers.
The table is also designed to drop down and create another bed.

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[aaronf]

I could talk details for days about how I came to a particular design element or why I did what I did. I will try to avoid that and just show what I did. If you have any specific questions please ask away and I'm happy to share my thought processes and what I learned.

After the frame was prepped I began on the floor. The bottom is 1/2 plywood covered by 1" thick Owens Corning XPS rigid foam and then covered with 1/4" plywood for the subfloor inside the camper. Each layer is glued together with Titebond III. The floor dimensions are 119" long x 81" wide.

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There seems to be two schools of thought with regards to the underside of a camper. Either completely seal it or leave it raw so any moisture can escape. I decided to leave it raw with the exception of where the wood meets the steel cross members where I lathered thick outdoor deck paint on the plywood. After this was painted I flipped the plywood over.

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[aaronf]

Next up came the walls. I did a similar design to the floor. Again using Titebond III, I glued 1" XPS foam to 1/4" plywood. To keep the pressure on the joint while the glue dried I placed every heavy object I could find in my garage onto the plywood using extra pieces of 1" ply to help distribute the weight. I waited a week for each side to dry to be sure the water from the glue had evaporated. The summer time high temperatures and low humidity of Colorado helped also.

weight

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The wheel wells are 1/2 ply glued and screwed. They're very solid. I put many coats of exterior deck paint inside the wheel well and then later multiple layers of spray on truck bed liner. I really don't want these to leak or absorb water. So far so good.

wheel well

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[aaronf]

Here's a Sketchup screenshot of how the walls and floor join.

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One of the things I did during the frame prep was add a few pieces of steel angle to the outside of the frame due to the floor overhang. I was concerned the weight of the walls and eventually the roof would require extra support. There's a few more pieces than what this picture shows. All joints are screwed with high quality screws and also glued.

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[aaronf]

I don't have a lot of pictures of the next steps. We made the front wall in the same fashion as the sides and then cut it down with circular saw to match the angles on the front kickout. The kickout is 12 inches and houses part of the bed that can transition into a couch. We use two 4 inch air/foam mats made by Exped that when put together are 78" x 60", almost the exact size as a household queen mattress. These pads are the reason the camper is so wide at 81". I wanted the bed layout east-west to save interior space and we already owned the pads.

As with everything inside the camper, the bed is glued and screwed into the walls and floor which add to the rigidity of the entire structure. I was initially nervous with strength of the walls, the 1" foam and 1/4" plywood were still very flexible but with the bed, interior cabinets, and benches added into the structure it very quickly became one solid unit.

Here is the bed in couch mode. The lower part is fixed and doesn't move. The upper half slides into the camper living area and drops down to the level of the fixed half to create the bed. I used upholstery webbing over the bed frame to hold the mattress rather than wood slats in an effort to save wight. We use sleeping bags and a down blanket rather than sheets.

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Fast forward a few months here. This is what how the front panels mounted onto the kickout. There are some interior blocking in the corners as well across the front. It's also glued with a lot of PL Premium. It's surprisingly solid and doesn't flex at all. All the round dots you can see are holes in the foam where I screwed cabinet head screws through the foam to pull the plywood tight with the interior braces and cabinets. They were filled with PL Premium and then sanded smooth before applying PMF.

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The whole family got involved, whether they liked it or not!

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[ToxicFlies]

Looking good!

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[aaronf]

Bed from the inside

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Sketchup design of the top edge. This would give me a drip edge to attach the canvas and support the roof when closed.

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How it turned out.

roof edge picture

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[aaronf]

The back wall was framed a bit more traditionally. The door frame is made of actual 1" x 2" and a single piece of 1/4" plywood. 1" foam was later added to the inset create a smooth rear wall. I also purchased a door from Ebay. The door frame is 44" tall x 33" wide.

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Interior cabinetry is a mix of 2" x 2" and 1" x 2". Again every joint is glued and screwed. Pocket hole screws pulled it together very nicely and the entire unit is built into the wall which added a lot of rigidity to the exterior structure. Keeping it simple with a water jug and cooler.

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Here's the interior covered with a layer of primer. On the top edges you can see the storage boxes that run along each side of the camper. This feature probably gets the most compliments, second to "Oh my gosh, you built a camper!" There are 10 small boxes that are perfect for storing all the miscellaneous stuff that gets thrown around when camping. Books, keys, flashlights, cell phones, utensils, anything and everything. The kicker is it also helps add rigidity to the walls.

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[aaronf]

The bed is looking good and most importantly functions as it should.

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The benches are attached to the wall and assist with rigidity. The longer one is about 36" wide and will fit two smaller adults side by side, works perfect for an adult and child. The back of the bench arches to make it more comfortable. In the down position, the bed butts up against the back of the bench at the level of the seat. The smaller bench is perfect for one person. Both are hollow underneath for storage. Notice the cleat on the wall for the table.

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[aaronf]

Not an inch of space was wasted. Behind these magnetic covers are small pockets around the wheel well. They are storage for extra 1 lb propane tanks and also a few other rarely used items.

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The counter top is 72" x 24" x 1" thick pine pre-made from Lowes for $25. It was the perfect size and all we did was cut a hole for the sink then sand and cover with a clear layer of polyurethane. We're very happy with how it turned out.

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Here it is with the sink installed. Also, notice on the floor the small round black object. That's a marine foot pump for the sink. I don't have many pictures of the sink system, but we ended up with a 7 gallon freshwater tank under the sink operated by the foot pump and a 3 gallon waste tank also under the sink. There is a valve that direct dirty water to bypass the tank and drain outside depending on where we're camped.

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[aaronf]

Hands down the most stressful part of the entire project was the roof. I spent many hours with a pencil and paper trying to figure out how build a 36 inch lifting system for the large 10 ft x 6.5 ft roof. I didn't have the budget for a pre-made lift mechanism and had zero fiberglass experience. I doubted a foam roof would be stiff or strong enough to hold the canvas taught. In the end I decided to frame it with wood and waterproof with PMF. Aluminum would have been nice but wood was so much more affordable. It's overbuilt and heavy. At 140 lbs it felt lighter than the roof that came off the old Palomino popup.

It's built a lot like a wall. 2x4's on the edges, 2x2's 16" on center, and sandwiched with 1/4" plywood inside and out. Voids between the 2x2's are filled with 1.5 inch XPS foam.

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Completed roof sitting on the camper body for the first time.

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