The Astroliner

[Vedette]

I was attracted to your build by the name!
Very impressed by what I have seen so far!
I can appreciate your skill level and am amazed by the wood work done by builders on this Forum.
Having no woodworking skills myself, my builds are much different. As a street rod builder by trade, my builds are "all" steel.
Do have a board with three holes in it as a wine rack in Miss Piggy though.
Keep up the Great Work!
I look forward to following your progress.
Good Roads
Brian & Sandi

[Atomic77]

Thanks for the kudos! Honestly I'm not much of a woodworker. Welding the frame, paintwork and carbon fiber work is much more my area. I too am impressed from the skill set of the wood Craftsman on here. But I'm learning as I go!

[Atomic77]

I made a little progress this weekend finishing up the foam insulation. I'm to a point where I'm going to need some extra hands. I didn't cut the wheel openings when I built the walls so now I'm at a point where I'm ready to stand them up on the frame and figure out exactly where they go. I may be at a stand still until I can get some help!

[KCStudly]

If you can lift them and move them by yourself, you should be able to place temporary cleats, blocks and/or angle brackets/knees that would allow you to place and temporarily hold/clamp until you can get some screws started. In fact, these techniques are highly recommended even if you have help; it is a lot easier to pre-measure and locate smaller blocks, which in turn make it much easier to hold the awkward wall in the correct position when it comes time to mount. It worked for me.

[working on it]

If you can lift them and move them by yourself, you should be able to place temporary cleats, blocks and/or angle brackets/knees that would allow you to place and temporarily hold/clamp until you can get some screws started. In fact, these techniques are highly recommended even if you have help; it is a lot easier to pre-measure and locate smaller blocks, which in turn make it much easier to hold the awkward wall in the correct position when it comes time to mount. It worked for me.

I installed my front wall first...it was the smallest, yet most firmly-mountable piece of the superstructure, so it was the logical first upright to go on. Then, after the glue had set, I verified its squareness, and I used that piece to square up the rear bulkhead while the glue on it. I used long furring strips to maintain their "set". However, they sat that way for over a week, and the furring strips warped, and twisted the rear bulkhead position out of square. Had to correct by using ratchet straps and staples when the sidewalls were being attached. Lesson learned: make sure your braces are strong enough to do their job!

[Atomic77]

I plan on using similar techniques but they are still too large without help. They aren't so heavy as they are awkward. They are 7' tall and 14' long. Just awkward for one person to handle.

[KCStudly]

I gotcha now. Didn't realize how big they were.

[Atomic77]

KC I didn't plan on one this big. But my girlfriend got involved and here we are! I do think the size will be nice though.

[dales133]

great build Micheal, my mother just sent me a book of restored retro caravans from new zealand and your design would fit right in.
my design will be quite different but id love to make a retro standy one day.
keep up the good work.

[Atomic77]

great build Micheal, my mother just sent me a book of restored retro caravans from new zealand and your design would fit right in.
my design will be quite different but id love to make a retro standy one day.
keep up the good work.

Now that's a book I would love to read! Thank you for your comments. Sometimes it feels like I've bitten off more than I can chew... so it's really nice to have fellow forum friends to cheer us on!

[dales133]

i hear you on the bitten off more than you can chew thing, down here in aussie parts are different or hard to find and trying to do a quality build on a reasonable budgets hart when its $700 a door!

[Atomic77]

i hear you on the bitten off more than you can chew thing, down here in aussie parts are different or hard to find and trying to do a quality build on a reasonable budgets hart when its $700 a door!

Yes, I understand. Budget is the thing that holds up my project more often than not.

[Atomic77]

Well I haven't accomplished much lately I guess. But I was able to get some help today. It took three of us to get the walls up and hold them there to make a few marks and take a couple measurements. It was fun to see the walls up and get a feel for the size of the cabin! We're hoping to get Filon sometime around the first of next month. I'm really looking forward to vacuum bonding the walls.

[dales133]

I like that profile.how does the vacuum bonding work?

[Atomic77]

Thank you. Basically we will make a giant plastic bag to put the walls in. We will coat the wood exterior in epoxy then lay down the Filon. Seal up the bag, add a vacuum pump to suck out all the air which forms a vacuum clamp until the epoxy kicks. Kind of oversimplified but that's the jest of it anyway.