The Poet Creek Express - Foamie Hybrid

[Ned B]

Good to hear you’re getting back in the swing of things KC!


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[Atomic77]

I did a little more on the fridge lid on Friday, but the temps here are still too cold for epoxy; it was about 45 deg F all day. (We had a light dusting of snow yesterday and are expecting more again tonight.)

So I just used TB2 to laminate the foam down to the panel and get the rest of the rim frame attached to the other two corners. Took one picture of gravity and spring clamps hiding most of the part; which didn't seem to be worth downloading from the balky camera. (Maybe next time I will see how my new action camera does for still shots?)

I waffled around a bit trying to decide what I could do while the glue dried, but being as it was too cold for epoxy, and I wanted to give the foam-to-wood glue-up plenty of time (especially in the cold), I didn't get much further.

I surveyed the aft street side of the camper again from my little staging (camper box still laying on the curb side) and decided to try and fill a relatively large area that feels like an air bubble. It's about the diameter of a coffee cup that pushes down and springs back under sanding pressure. Drilled two small holes the size of my syringe tip, one fill and one vent, but didn't mix any epoxy yet.

Need some consistently warmer weather, above 50 deg F, to get back into epoxy work.

I'm glad tho hear about progress! I'm starting to pick up momentum! Hope you can too! Btw... you wouldn't believe the temps I've mixed epoxy in! Extremes in both directions!

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[Flatworm]

Nice to see you getting moving again KC.

Don't complain about the cold too much - it's 30C here, around 85F and I'm looking forward to some cool weather. Actually, we get less than ten frosts most years so not all that cold.

[KCStudly]

Thanks guys. Sort of like the groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, I came out of my hiding spot, got pummeled by snow, and am holed up again... at least until the weather breaks again. We will see what the weekend brings. (I suppose I should check the forecast. )

[linuxmanxxx]

Thanks guys. Sort of like the groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, I came out of my hiding spot, got pummeled by snow, and am holed up again... at least until the weather breaks again. We will see what the weekend brings. (I suppose I should check the forecast. )

I'm in Idaho it's actually nice here. About 50 high today.

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[KCStudly]

Yeah, spring is about here. And my pool game has become stagnant, so I have no excuses; lost a squeaker last night, had my opponent against the ropes hill-hill and scratched on the 8.

Not sure if continued practice will help. Kind of like my golf game, I try and try, but only get so good. Kind of like my camper; I try and try and only get rid of so many warts.

Que sera sera.

Snow flake clusters yesterday were coming down the size of cookies. Warm enough that they didn't stick well into the evening, but things got super slushy when things cooled off.

Kind of funny now, but <start rant> pissed me off at the time; my house is located on a quiet little keyhole loop, so the town doesn't plow it out right away. When I came home last night from league, the main roads weren't that bad, but when I got to my street it hadn't been plowed for some time; about 3 inches of super slushy wet snow. So it would pack and turn to ice immediately. My street runs down hill a bit in front of the house, more so in front of the driveway, and the driveway runs down even steeper from there. When I pulled up and turned away from the driveway to back in, then put it into reverse, she didn't back up, just skidded the back end over, perfectly perpendicular right in the middle of the road, directly in front of the Ford (remember we have a double wide driveway). I couldn't go forward and I certainly couldn't go back into the Ford. So I had to park in the middle of the road sideways, hoping the plow truck actually wouldn't show up, while I shoveled out the road around and under the Jeep (remember that the front driveshaft is still out, so no 4-wheeldrive).

That gave me enough traction to turn back up the hill (thanks to the short wheelbase), spinning and revving and shooting rooster tails, having to go all the way back out my road and on down the hill to get to a place where I could be confident in turning around; then back up the hill, a little slipping, back into my road, to park up in front of the yard in the road so that I "could" (as if it was a privilege, like paying taxes to have my road plowed) shovel out the road in front of my driveway so that I could have the privilege of actually backing in to the drive; which, by the way, I didn't have to bother shoveling until the morning. They didn't plow again until about 4:30am. <end rant>

But at least it will be daylight savings time (spring forward) this weekend, and the days are getting longer. Hell, when I shoveled out the mail box this evening when I got home from work there was a frozen earthworm under the pile; weather is topsy turvy; thawing ground is a sure sign of spring.

[KCStudly]

Here is the fridge lid from the other day with field foam under some gravity clamps, with the cutout from my side door window acting as a load spreader/buffer piece. I figured if there was any squeeze out and the foam got glued to it that it would be easy enough to separate. The spring clamps are holding the last two sides of the frame.


Bringing us to today, here I have removed the clamps and, using the bandsaw, rough trimmed the frame where it was overhanging the ply base. This will make it easier for the flush trim router bit to get the job done in one pass.



I figured the larger area of the router table would be more stable for the depth of cut, so I set that up with the fence backed off enough.


Here is a close-up after the cut.


Unfortunately I am still rusty with my skills (use them or lose them) and let the piece lift up off the table while making one of the corners. Eeyore.


Next, when I ripped the frame pieces I hadn’t checked the table saw over well enough and someone hadn’t squared the blade up to the table very well after a bevel cut; plus it was a tad higher than the foam in most places; so I hit it with the palm plane to bring everything flat and flush.



Time for a test fit. It hangs over everywhere about 1/16, which I am kind of okay with, but thinking about it that will only get larger with the addition of FG.


Here’s a better look at how the hinge pin is shaped. You can also see that the lid outer edge is currently wider than the groove in the pin. I could make the lid narrower, but I kind of like the idea of being able to grab under the edge enough to lift it, rather than having to add a handle. Also, that would expose the vertical edge of the sheet metal shell, so I think I will offset the hinge tabs instead.



I took a few measurements and came up with this design. I may change it so that the slot exits out the back instead of the bottom (easier to make). I think as long as the bottom of the horizontal portion of the slot is above the center of the pin, it will still stay on the pin unless intentionally removed.


Lastly, despite the cold, only getting up to 46-48 deg F running the big kero heater, I mixed up a small single pump batch of epoxy with a loose slurry of fairing filler to smear over the foam. This was a technique that was recommended when I was trying to fair out the foam on the roof of the camper, but was having trouble making as many dings and sanding flaws as I was trying to eliminate. By doing this it filled in a few dings, gouges and the seams between the foam pieces; plus it will make a hard shell that should be easy to sand smooth.


So, the worst part of this was that there must have been a plug in the nozzle of the hardener pump. When I pushed it down nothing came out at first, then it went pop and squirted a stream straight out, hitting my t-shirt smack dab in the middle of my chest extending down to my belly.

Fortunately, I keep an over shirt in the loft, so I changed quickly. Later, at the house I put a bunch of dish soap on it, rinsed it under cold water (as recommended by West) and stuck it in the washer with my other work clothes. Hopefully it will be saved.

My point of sharing all of this is that this is part of dealing with epoxy. I knew it when I made the decision to go down this path, but it is more about how I am feeling completely out of place after taking time off. I can really appreciate how much “learning curve”, repetitive motor skills, and organizational habits I had developed… and have lost due to taking time off.

[Bruue1]

Thats a cool score on that old ARB. Looks neat. I bet it will look great all painted up with the new lid. The thing looks like a beast.

I always wanted a little 12v compressor cooler in the back of our SUV. They are expensive. Free is the right price.

If you are putting it in your tow vehicle I am curious:
Does it have an automatic shut off for low voltage detector like the new ones?
If not are you going to get a second battery isolated with a solenoid to prevent draining your starting battery?
Have you checked the amp draw? I wonder what the run cycles will be...

I'm sure you have already thought all of this through. I'm just curious to know what your plans are. I had a small Bethany Pickupper that I wired up with a battery bank. It was a hack job, probably horribly unsafe. But it worked great. Instead of shore power or solar I just ran some thick gauge wire from the engine charging system to the battery bank. I had an electric solenoid in the circuit wired to close when the car was running and open when the car electrical system was turned off. The batteries would charge right up to full with just a few minutes of idling my truck. The solenoid kept my truck camper from draining the engine starting battery. No matter how low I ran the batteries in the camper my starting battery was always at full charge. Just my little story. I'd hate to be stuck somewhere with a dead battery.

A Lithium charging pack/jump start battery like the Noco Genius wouln't be a bad idea either.

Sweet cooler, I can't wait to see it shiny and new. Turning old stuff into new stuff. It will probably run for longer than a new one purchased today.

[KCStudly]

Thanks for the comments and advice. Frankly I hadn't given it that much thought yet, except I had planned on including a relay to disconnect the camper battery, via the 7-prong trailer connector accessory jack, when the TV was off.

The Jeep does have a good spot for a second battery under the hood, so that is an option for the fridge, but my thought for the Poet Creek trip was to pre-make and freeze a bunch of one pot meals; pack them in the fridge with it set to maintain freeze for the trip out; and then transfer items to the ice chest to thaw (and help keep less perishable items in the cooler cold). Depending on how much room we need in the fridge, any left over space can be used to keep or make ice for the other cooler, and/or for beverages. I figure during the road trip it will keep fine overnight with the fridge off; and the solar panels and/or side trips will help during the days in camp. The overnight lows in the mountains are pretty cold, even in the summer, so that doesn't hurt either.

I'm pretty sure I am not going to attempt a full restoration on the shell. The rust is pretty significant, flaky all the way thru in a couple of spots. I might hit it with a power wire brush, slap a little filler on it and give it a 20 ft rattle can spray job, but I definitely will not be going overboard on it; no major disassembly and no metal work/welding repairs. Think Jeep trail fridge, not show-n-shine.

[Ned B]

Huge cheers from Syracuse!


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[KCStudly]

Thanks for the enthusiastic support, Ned!

I made the trek to the shop today hoping to be able to do a fiber filled repair on that miss-cut corner, and perhaps bevel and fill the bottom edges; but the fairing coat was still tacky. Too cold, didn't cure all the way yet. On some areas of the seams between the frame and foam, and the foam butt joints the filler had sunk down in leaving low spots and/or voids; so I decided to try another fairing coat, betting that the gumminess was still active w/o an amine blush to interfere.

Hell, for the amount of time and material I have in this so far, I probably should have taken Larry's advice and just bought a new replacement.

Anyway, I mixed another small batch of fairing filler and spread it on; this time leaving it in the cup a bit longer until I felt a little bit of warmth, and then, once spread, I went over it good with a hair dryer set on high heat (milder than a heat gun). This brought some bubbles up from some of the seams, which I popped using a bamboo skewer, then refilled.

I suppose I should have switched over to the fast hardener yesterday, but I hadn't, so used more of the slow again today (West says not to mix in process).

I suppose it will kick... eventually. Hopefully the hair dryer did the trick.

[linuxmanxxx]

Thanks for the enthusiastic support, Ned!

I made the trek to the shop today hoping to be able to do a fiber filled repair on that miss-cut corner, and perhaps bevel and fill the bottom edges; but the fairing coat was still tacky. Too cold, didn't cure all the way yet. On some areas of the seams between the frame and foam, and the foam butt joints the filler had sunk down in leaving low spots and/or voids; so I decided to try another fairing coat, betting that the gumminess was still active w/o an amine blush to interfere.

Hell, for the amount of time and material I have in this so far, I probably should have taken Larry's advice and just bought a new replacement.

Anyway, I mixed another small batch of fairing filler and spread it on; this time leaving it in the cup a bit longer until I felt a little bit of warmth, and then, once spread, I went over it good with a hair dryer set on high heat (milder than a heat gun). This brought some bubbles up from some of the seams, which I popped using a bamboo skewer, then refilled.

I suppose I should have switched over to the fast hardener yesterday, but I hadn't, so used more of the slow again today (West says not to mix in process).

I suppose it will kick... eventually. Hopefully the hair dryer did the trick.

Was in Boise today closer to your end target. Beautiful country and first time ever in Idaho.

Finish up because the longer you take to bring that camper out here is a disservice to this area seeing your creation.

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[KCStudly]

Thanks Linux, I appreciate your encouragement.

No excuses about the weather yesterday, or today, so got a little bit done.

So one of the things I have been doing instead of camper work is playing pool. I think I mentioned that I have joined the APA league. We (Cue Cutters) are currently in 2nd place in our division. Allow me to divert for a few moments. When I got married near some 20 years ago I pretty much stopped going out and playing pool, but have recently dragged my old cue out and have gotten my skills back. My playing cue is a Meucci M4 from the early ‘90’s; it is older than some of the players on my team, LOL. That being said, the original tip had been worked down to where there wasn’t much left of it. I have never replaced a cue tip before, but with input from videos on the internet I felt like I could do it myself. I bought a few water buffalo hide tips (the current trend toward laminated pig's hide tips does not appeal to me due to the voids left when shaping the laminations), besides, the old school tips cost about 1/10th that of the laminated ones.

No turning back, sliced the old tip off, prepared the ferrule, scuffed the new tip, masked with painter’s tape, used gel CA to glue it on, scuffed the excess down with the small sanding block and fine 320 grit (the finest paper I had on hand), burnished with paper towel and a dollar bill, and it came out nice.


With some finer paper I could take all of the scuff marks out of the ferrule, but it is a working cue with a few dings and dents anyway, so I’m not that worried about it.

The dark inlays don’t really show unless you look under direct light. They are actually cobalt blue surrounded by black with burled maple and rock maple shaft.




The ferrules and collars appear to be ivory, but based on the stylized ‘M’ script it is later than 1990, so must certainly be faux ivory… I hope.

Anyway, enough distraction.

Here is the rear corner of the fridge lid where the perimeter frame joinery was less than perfect. I needed to fill the end of the side rail to be flush with the back rail. Used 403 filled 3 minute epoxy to build out the shortage.


Here it is after rough sanding back and another round of filler to fill any voids that wouldn’t be taken away by the radius top or flocked bottom edges.


Another small batch of 3-min epoxy with flock filler to fill that oops I had with the router on the rounded front edge.


Sanded back.


Set up the router table and rounded over the top edge of the lid by 1/4 inch radius to allow for the FG cloth to wrap, leaving the rear edge sharp.



Then I switched over to the beveling bit and knocked the corner off the bottom edge to accept the epoxy flocked edge.



I had saved some of the strips of scrap 5mm ply that I had previously used as temporary dams for flocking the edges of my doors and door jambs, so I reused those here. They even still had the packing tape release layer on them and screw holes every 4 or so inches. By aligning them proud of the frame edge, when I fill the bevel with the chunky flock filled epoxy there will be a little excess to sand back, avoiding pock mark voids that might otherwise result from the well thickened flock.



Since I already had these strips, and they were already covered with packing tape, rather than fitting them coarsely and trimming them back with the rabbeting bit, I just went by feel and screwed them down a bit proud, thus allowing me to reuse the existing tape. So on the corners, I just used a sharpie marker to make a stand off mark, and trimmed outside the line using the vertical bandsaw.


I re-taped the cut edges with more packing tape.

Here is the underside of the lid with the temporary flock dam screwed in place.


Here is the beveled edge to be filled.


Here I have mixed up a 2 squirt batch of epoxy, filled with 3 heaping teaspoons full of 403 filler (a bit thick) and used a squared off tongue depressor stir stick to paddle the ‘thick’ into the bevelled edge.


Rather than dragging the flock along the bevel, the technique seemed to be to first fill along the bevel, then drag straight from the rounded edge toward the dam in a perpendicular motion. This helped remove excess filler from the wood frame and seemed to help minimize the jagged pock mark low spots that seemed to form from dragging sideways along the bevel. Looks a bit sloppy, but better to over fill and sand back, than to have to fill again.

[KCStudly]

Sorry, no pics, but another fabulous Easter dinner at mom's. Pastel plaid table cloth with Easter themed center piece; crystal wine glasses with real silverware; depression era individual glass candy dishes filled with Easter colored M&M's; appetizer platter with shredded string cheese, Greek olives, and artichoke hearts rolled in cream cheese, feta, Parmesan, and parsley with lemon juice; boneless leg of lamb marinate and grilled on a rotisserie spit to perfection; marinated and grilled whole chicken breast (for those who didn't want lamb); steamed asparagus with a tarragon cream sauce; taboulli salad with tomatoes, parsley, mint, etc.; orzo salad with cubed sweet pea pods, baby green peas, toasted almond slices, and parsley; Graber olives; and mint sauce. Chris and we brought red wine; Chris brought an Italian fruit cake (white cake, white frosting, strawberries and peaches), and Aunt Sandra brought fresh raspberries, black berries, and fresh whipped cream.

Holy cow it was good!

[Atomic77]

Sorry KC, I've been so immersed in my own build I've neglected to read others. I'm glad you have made some more progress! Looking forward to seeing more! Sounds like you had a great Easter. Mom and Dad just got home from wintering in FL and we're celebrating our Easter on Sunday. Keep up the great work!