14 ft of Poor Man's Fiberglass Goodness....

[ardan]

Sanding the Glue.

When you saturate the canvas with glue when the glue dries there are little tidbits or tiny bumps of glue from the drying process. We sanded them off, this makes a much smoother surface, NOT smooth, the texture of the canvas is still there. We didn't want non uniform bumps on our paint job.

[ardan]

After the glue is dried and the walls are all sanded down we painted the walls with a good quality exterior latex paint. We USED NO primer just the good quality exterior latex paint. Since we will be putting a total of about 5 coats we used the "Oops" Paint from Lowes ($9.00 a gallon) for the first 3 coats. (that is why the color is so strange). We will get the real color for the final 2 coats.

[ardan]

Just covered the first wall with a tarp and build the second one right on top of it.

[ardan]

The fenders will be on the outside of our camper therefore we had to come up with a way to waterproof this section. Cut the plywood back along the top of the fender and put aluminum flashing on the back side. Then silicon around the edges.

[ardan]

Now come the time to raise the walls. They are about 150 pounds a piece so it was quite a load to lift and place them on the trailer. They ended up fitting perfectly. The plywood was cut to allow about a 1 inch lip on the bottom to help waterproof water coming up from the road. We placed some temporary braces to hold the walls in place till we were ready to put in the final bracing. To make it easier we build the walls on one trailer and rolled it up to the other so we didn't have to carry the walls far.

[ardan]

Hi All,

A couple of months ago I was keeping a detail journal, but there seemed to be very little interest so I stopped making entries. We did however keep working on the trailer and it is now finished with it's first trip completed. I am placing one final post in the hopes our ideas may help others as other's ideas help us.







He hit or was very close on our goals...
1. Less than 2500 pounds (came in at 2600 pounds, counting Bed, water heaters, frig etc.)
2. Budget of 6k came in at a total of $6400, that includes everything from paint to taxes.[/color]
3. Queen Size Bed YES!
4. Bathroom with Shower YES!
5. FGC - Fat Guy Compliant (I am somewhat jumbo size) YES! shower, toliet, bed, floor could easlier handle 350 Pounds (I am not that big, just in case...)
6. Completely covered with Canvas (Poor Man's Fiberglass) YES!
7. Cabin area will be 6'6" by 14' YES! actually 14' 5" by 6'6"

We just completed our first trip and everything went great!!!!!

Thanks for all the ideas and help...

[BigRay]

Ouch, I feel the jab. I was watching your post. I like what you have created, shows a lot of imagination and hard work. Mine was built completely "off line" and I still have to post the build. I did not want any input for 2 reasons. I thought it might not get finished (bad health) and I like doing things my way (stubborn) and did not want to change my weird plans. Let me give praise to all of the wonderful people on this site that have given input. Had they not shared their thoughts and experiences many like me would not have been inspired to build. Yours will help others I am sure.

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[flbikejunkie]

Nice job!

[pchast]

[aggie79]

Fantastic! I was one of those "in the background lurkers". Wonderful job!

[ardan]

Thanks for the feedback.....

[Wolfgang92025]

Nice looking trailer

[steve cowan]

Good to see it finished.I was following on here and your web blog but hadn't seen any updates.Great job on the camper.

[Hit-n-Miss]

Very nice. Never seen walls done that way.


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[hedg12]

I love your build - it hits most of the high points for what I want.
Just curious - how big is the bathroom?