The Schnoodle Shack - Final Update - Goodbye My Friend

[aggie79]

Jim,

I think your new design will work well. On my teardrop, I had planned weather seals in both locations but only installed the outer seal per your new design. We've been on two 3-hour plus trips where on one leg of the journey we travelled through a downpour. Both times I did not have any leakage even though both doors have a slight twist in them. The outer seal has worked so well that I'm not sure I'll install the inner seal per your old design.

Take care,
Tom

[Jim Edgerly]

Thanks Tom, take care, Jim

[ohbugger]

Just read your whole build journal. Great work, nice camping pics and the trailer is beautiful! You should be very proud!

[Jim Edgerly]

Thank you everybody for the compliments. My wife and I are very proud of it, and enjoy showing it off. We only got out twice this season, Columbus day weekend and the following weekend, but on those 2 trips with few campers around we gave over a dozen "tours". I've also given 6 or 8 "tours" right in my driveway...some to the neighbors that "just had to see inside", and some to total strangers who were driving down the street and saw me working on it in the driveway. It's always fun to show it off, and so far I have not been in too much of a hurry to get somewhere that I did not have the time to give a proper tour.

I think I will make a sign for next year with something like "It's called a Teardrop Camper...and yes I made it" for display while my wife and I are away from the camper. I also put in an order for a couple of T-shirts from a local T-shirt place next town over. They print custom one-at-a-time T-shirts, no minimum quantity, and my order for 2 shirts comes to $8.50 each for the shirt and printing on both sides. The ink is in the fabric and not just screen-printed on top so it lasts a long time without peeling or fading. This is my Shack T-shirt:

[mike93lx]

Jim, I like the T-shirts. That's a neat touch.

My wife is still on the fence about something as small as a teardrop (our current camper is a 14' pop-up) and loves the idea of checking out yours before building. I'll touch base with you in the spring and see if we can meet up. Thanks.

[Jim Edgerly]

Mike, We will definitely connect in the spring. She can try lying down in it with the doors closed to see if she feels claustrophobic at all. I myself am very claustrophobic, to the point that I need drugs, 3 Lorazepam tablets (Ativan) plus a blindfold, to go into an MRI machine. But I don't feel the least bit claustrophobic sharing The Shack with my wife and dog. My wife was questioning my sanity building a teardrop being so claustrophobic, but faith told me "build it and you will sleep in it!" My wife and I are thrilled to have it.

It replaces a tent for sleeping, but it does not replace having a good screen house to go with it. As long as your wife understands that you need an additional "living room" to go with the "bedroom" to replace an all inclusive pop-up then hopefully there will be no problem. Just remind her that you don't have to air out a teardrop after a wet spell the way you do a pop-up to prevent mold and mildew. That in itself is a big selling feature over a pop-up.

Take care and see you in the spring, Jim

[Jim Edgerly]

The process of rebuilding my doors is coming quite nicely. I fitted them to The Shack recently, stained them, and was now ready to start the finish process. I used Raka epoxy resin on The Shack back in September, and I am very pleased with the results. Easy to work with, nice finish. Well, I placed my doors in a convenient to work location in my workshop, pumped 3 ounces of part A (resin) and 3 ounces of part B (hardener) into my container and started mixing, for 2 minutes as recommended in the manual. Those familiar with Raka already know the problem. The temps in my basement are a bit cooler than outside in Sept, so the consistency is closer to a "nectar" than the varnish consistency it was in the warmer temps, but no problem, I can still spread it OK. So I completely finish the first door, and I go to mix more for the second door...and the realization of what I had done hits me in the gut like a sledgehammer. I see how much lower the resin is in jug A than the hardener is in jug B...because you use TWICE as much resin than you do hardener for a proper mixture! I had carelessly mixed it 1:1 instead of 2:1. I immediately ran upstairs and called the Raka sales line.

I talked to Larry, who answered on the 3rd ring. I asked him if I had just ruined my project, and he didn't answer with a yes or no. What he did tell me was that the epoxy resin as mixed would never totally harden, and that it would always remain "rubbery". He asked how long since I put it on and when I told him just a few minutes since I finished he told me my best bet was to go down and scrape off as much as I could as fast and I could, and wipe down the door with acetone or varnish thinner afterwards, and sand off what I could not remove.

60 seconds later I had grabbed a handful of rags, an assortment of plastic putty knives, and was pulling on my disposable vinyl gloves. I thanked God for the cooler basement temp because the epoxy resin was still the consistency of nectar and had not even begun to cure, and the scraping process was not too bad. I placed a large piece of cardboard under the window "hole" where the window will go, and started scraping all the resin into the hole onto the cardboard (the door was already lifted off the table on blocks). Once I had as much scraped off as possible, I started the varnish thinner wash. I took an empty plastic margarine tub, put an inch deep of varnish thinner, and used half of a steel wool pad. I soaked the pad, wiped it over the door, then kept rinsing it out in the thinner and re-wiping the door. I changed the thinner a couple of times so as not to reapply a thin coat of resin, and after about 15 minutes of cleaning the door it appeared pretty clean. I then soaked a couple rags and wiped down the doors to get any remaining residue off. Luckily the thinner evaporates pretty fast, and after a couple of hours I recoated the door with the properly mixed epoxy resin. The door appears to be fine, but I swear my heart skipped a few beats once I realized what I had done.

I learned the soaking steel wool pad in thinner/varnish remover years ago from refinishing a table. I'm glad I remember it under pressure, and I hope someone else in here can use it in an emergency, that's why I cross posted this under General Discussion as well as my build journal.

[Ratkity]

Glad you could recover from the oopsie. Hope you were in a decently ventilated place!! Don't tell your cardiologist of the skipped beats hehe.

Can't wait to see the finished doors!

Hugs,
Ratkity

[kinto]

glad the epoxy emergency worked out. that said, the awesome part about building these ourselves is we can always re-fabricate if needed!

camper looks great


kent

[Jim Edgerly]

It seems like forever since I have posted an update in here...maybe because it has been. First I had a couple heart catheterizations then I no sooner recover from that and my wife gets diagnosed with breast cancer. Nine months later she is done treatment, and had beat cancer a second time. We did get in some camping this last summer but not as much as we plan for next summer. We found out our schnoodle Wally is a real camping dog. Every time I drag the camper out to work on it he tries to either jump in the camper or in the car...he is good to go on a moments notice. He doesn't know it yet but we have reservations for 3 weeks of camping in the Acadia National Park area next July...a very dog friendly area. We hope to get in 5 or 6 weeks of camping next summer because my wife is a teacher so she has the time off, and I am retired.

I rebuilt my doors that were slightly warped. Improved the design to decrease the possibility of getting water inside, and added a wooden drip edge over the door so when it rains the water does not run down the side of the camper and try to get in the door, but rather gets directed away from the door and falls harmlessly to the ground. I put a small groove on the underside of the drip edge to make sure that if the camper is on uneven ground the water cannot follow the underside of the drip edge back to the top of the door.

Picture of the door and drip edge follow.

I am currently in the process of fabricating a battery bracket out of angle iron and 11 gauge sheet steel so I can move my battery from the tongue to underneath the camper. The bracket will be bolted to the frame right behind the axle, and will shift around 60 pounds from the tongue to pretty much a neutral position. This will remove a good 60 pounds from my tongue which is right up around the max of 200 pounds, maybe slightly more. Now I can put my bike carrier on the back of the car without the nose being pointed skyward.

I will post pictures of the fabricated battery bracket, and mounted, in the spring when I can get access to the camper.





I forgot to mention how many comments we get on this thing. Can't tell you how many times somebody drives past out campsite, stops, and yells out the window "Hey, you build that thing?" Last time we went camping, up to Salisbury Beach, MA for 2 days, and we ended up giving 17 "guided tours." Seriously, 17 couples/families dropped by during the 2 days and wanted to see the galley and inside. It's lot's of fun to say, "Yeah, I made it, want a guided tour?" We've got in the habit of making the bed as soon as we get up in the morning because there have been times that we've had visitors within 10 minutes of showing life in the morning. Hate to show it with a messed up bed and the dogs stuffed animals out of place.

[droid_ca]

Wow Jim great to see you back was beginning to wonder what happened to you your trailer is looking great by the way amazing that it was built in your basement

[Jim Edgerly]

Yeah, I have to look back and say what a journey it has been building this thing...and to think the bulk of it was done in my basement with only 3 feet of clearance around the camper, pushing it to the left to work on the right, and pusing it forward to work on the galley. We've always loved camping, tenting that is, and this opens up a whole new world to us. Now we can take the dog with us, and not feel guilty leaving him at the kennel in a cage. 3 week camping trip this summer with other assorted shorter ones, and hoping for a 4-5 week camping trip the next. My wife is my best friend, and we love spending the time together. Being able to have the schnoodle with us who loves camping as much as we do makes it perfect.

[aggie79]

Hi Jim,
It's wonderful to hear from you. I'm very happy that you and your wife have overcome your health challenges. Fantastic job on your mods.
Happy camping,
Tom

[CliffinGA]

Jim I'n glad your doing better from your heart issues and very very happy your wife beat her cancer !! I know that sometimes people think those are just words but I've lost to many members of my family to cancer so it is always something I think about and pray for cures for ones that have it. I'm glad you and your wife will be out camping this summer, my wife is a teacher also with only 7yrs til she retires but we still are unable to take that much time off because of my work. Enjoy yourselves and I hope y'all have many great trips and tales to share with us on here. Keep in touch!

Cliff & Sheri

[Jim Edgerly]

Before I get onto some pictures of the battery cage I am fabricating for under the Shack, a couple other pictures. I built a couple of ramps to drive my Shack up onto. It lifts the Shack almost an extra foot off the ground which makes all the difference in the world when it comes to working underneath the Shack. I only wish I had made these a year earlier so I could have enjoyed them early in the build process instead of at the very end.