Building a 5x10 Square-Drop (The Bradbury)

[DrewsBrews]

I think it is a time+convenience vs cost thing. Plywood being probably a bit more expensive, but alot easier and quicker to get a strong and flat result with complex angles and various size and shape cutouts.

 

[Tony Latham]

coupled with adding all the doodads outside the vehicle. (water, rotopax, spare tire, etc.)

Easy peasy. Just plan and leave some "meat" where it will be needed.

Tony

 

[gearsoup]

Well...
This just went from "something I want to do" to "something I have to do". I just bought a set of doors from Vintage, I went with the 30" x36"s

Working on the skeleton ply currently. Might be going overboard, but I tend to do that. It's down to 32 pounds and there's at least 2" of material in all areas with extra reinforcement wherever I'm mounting something outside. There's a fab shop down the road that recently expanded into laser work. They've done some work for me in the past, so I'll see if they can zip out a couple 1/4" MDF templates for me so I can make short work of this:

 

[DrewsBrews]

Templates would be nice to keep around afterwards too. So you know where to drill for fastening something to the wall after using the trailer and figuring out needed additions.

 

[Tony Latham]

Working on the skeleton ply currently.

Looks good. Are you planning on butting the spars to the skeleton or setting them on it over the headliner? There are major advantages to building from the inside out–setting the headliner–and then the spars on it.

Tony

 

[gearsoup]

I hadn't considered the headliner before spars, I was thinking spars > roof > ceiling/headliner. No reason whatsoever I can't go skeleton > headliner > spars > roof

 

[gearsoup]

Well, hit my first "materials" snag. I just assumed that the big box stores would have 3/4" foam boards, and they do not. That have some semi-rigid EPS foam, I suppose that's better than nothing...

Another option, and likely a bad one, is to sandwich two 1/2" ply together and lose half inch interior space, not the end of the world. I think that might be overkill though on what's really needed for thickness

 

[Tom&Shelly]

We solved that problem by buying 1 inch thick foam and making a 6 foot long hot wire foam cutter. We used the 3/4 inch ply frame as a guide and trimmed off a 1/4 inch of foam. Another way to do it is to sand it down, with a lot of dust collection. Foam sands quickly.

Tom

 

[gearsoup]

Hmmmm, a hot wire cutter, that's an idea!

 

[DrewsBrews]

I tried to do some searching. There may be more regional stores that I'm not aware of. The only one I could find was the Lowes in Augusta has 3/4" Kingspan Greenguard XPS in stock. None of the other locations have it.

 

[gearsoup]

Aside from top/bottom of floor, all lumber and insulation has been sourced. My mind has shifted to the hatch design, as what I had was just a quick mock up. More specifically, I'm think about how to seal it. After reading a bunch (both in the book and on tnttt.com), I think the route I need to go is this:
I've notched my walls about .200". I'll fasten (either with alum trim or butyl tape) the Vintage galley seal to those faces and install the "T" trim piece to the hatch itself. Based on that, it looks like I just want the regular hurricane hinge

Anything majorly wrong with that plan?
I do expect that I should reduce the width of my hatch, rough 3/16" per side so I can account for the width of the "T" trim as well as a bit more for safety.

 

[gearsoup]

Knowing that my hatch design is inherently weak, I also modeled up some brackets that will be bolted in place. I thought about making them myself, but SendCutSend.com will knock out 8 of them for the whopping price of $37 including shipping. Can't beat that pricing, imo.
If you've never used SendCutSend, strongly recommend them. Super easy website and instant prices. All they need is a DXF or STEP file and you work thru the prompts to get exactly what you need. They also do bending and offer coating services.

https://sendcutsend.com/

 

[Tony Latham]

Anything majorly wrong with that plan?

Make sure you have room for the rubber seal. I know you're not using my design, so this is just an example.

Tony

 

[gearsoup]

How much "squish" should I factor for, assuming I'm using the Vintage gasket?
Another question: do I rely on adhesive to hold the seal in place, or does it clip into a trim piece that is affixed to the surface?

-EDIT- after typing that, it occurs to me that I should just consult your book where I suspect you've described that bit. I've not arrived at that portion yet, so I apologize if that was addressed!

 

[Tony Latham]

How much "squish" should I factor for, assuming I'm using the Vintage gasket?

No more than a 1/4", but I'm not sure what seal you are using. The 1/4" is for a D-seal.

The Trim-loc I suggest for doors needs no more than an 1/8" if I recall, or it will gain memory and function poorly.

Tony

 

[gearsoup]

I went with the Neoprene Galley Hatch Seal. I'm also going with the Vintage doors

Started on the deck/base last night, got the frame and one side of ply glued and nailed (18ga). Turned out alright. I thought I'd be neat and trim off the factory edge on the cedar 5/4" and it curled a fair bit. Enough pressure and clamps and I got it back to flush, more or less. I'll take a sander to the high spots so I don't have any ripples when I run the outer skin past them. Titebond says to
allow 24 hours of dry time, I assume that's gospel, or should I be able to get started on the top side this afternoon?

 

[gearsoup]

(and no, it's not sitting solely on the saw horses, I've got some 3/4" ply and cedar decking underneath to keep it flat)

 

[gearsoup]

Made some progress over the weekend!

Looks like my floor ain't sitting that flat. Either that, or the ply is out of square. I'll run a string on it to see what's going on, shimming if needed.

When I had the templates waterjet (they said "no" to laser and wood), I had them give me a rough opening for the doors. Sadly, the doors (and trim) came in larger than the size listed on Vintage's website, so I had to do some freehand trimming and fitting as I went

 

[gearsoup]

I may have hit my first design hurdle. I was planning on doing this for a wall construction

Is there a flaw in this design approach?
For pocket holes, I've seen people assemble inner/outer skins while wall is laying flat on the table so they can epoxy it, but then one ends up needing to run pocket holes thru both the inner and skeleton.

On the topic of epoxy, I've sent some inquiries out to Raka. This will be my first foray into ever using epoxy, so I want to make sure I'm buying the best stuff for my application and experience. I do plan on a MonstaLiner coating, so it should be somewhat forgiving if I goof here or there (and I will)

 

[Tony Latham]

For pocket holes, I've seen people assemble inner/outer skins while wall is laying flat on the table so they can epoxy it, but then one ends up needing to run pocket holes thru both the inner and skeleton.

Absolutely, install the inner and outer skins while flat. You can dump a little weight by going to 1/8" Baltic on the interior.

Make sure you glass the exterior, or it will probably check under the Monstaliner and cause all kinds of grief. Putting down a layer of 4 or 6-ounce glass, while flat, is a simple thing.

There's no reason to run pocket screws to the outside. Do it from the inside. And set those holes while the wall is flat. The mattress will cover the holes, but they make pocket hole plugs you can add once the wall is attached to the floor to give it a cleaner look.

I also run a line of vertical screws through the exterior skin, into the floor, and set just below the surface. Once the wall is mounted, I mix a bit of thickened epoxy and cover the screw head.

Also, you don't need 9mm ply for the floor system. 1/4" (or 6mm) is fine as long as you have supporting joists. I used doubled 3/4" plywood for this, set on edge. They are very stiff.

Weight adds up quickly during a build.

Tony