Conch Fritter Woodie - Finally gets its topsides painted!

[S. Heisley]

Beautiful, just beautiful! Keep up the good work!

[daveesl77]

Sharon, your build is so cool. It was one of the designs I really considered copying when I first considered this project. I really appreciate your comments and support ( as well as so many others). I will also say again, if anyone sees anything they think I'm doing wrong or doesn't make sense, please say so! Won't hurt my feelings at all.

dave

[S. Heisley]

Thank you, Dave.

[daveesl77]

Just too tired and the weather is crappy, so no photos again today (yeah I know, no pics I didn't do the work :-) ) Springtime in Florida, 90 F high, 80% humidity, raging afternoon thunderstorms...wait that is what summer is supposed to be, not April!

Got all of the insulation installed yesterday. Today got the exterior skins cut and ready for lamination tomorrow. If it goes well, then hopefully by Friday I'll be putting on the EPDM on the top and maybe vertical cedar and aluminum by Sunday on the face and back. Plan is to then go back to the galley cabinet system and hopefully get it all working and ready for installation next week. Still have to build the hatch for the galley access, but I'm waffling between doing a normal hatch type opening or maybe doing one of my crazy things and possibly having each galley component be attached to it's own outer seal, kind of link a drawer front. Not too sure on how I'd do that so the hatch idea is winning the battle right now, but curved, aluminum drawer type fronts would be cool (as long as they don't leak that is). However, the curve is top down curve inward, not the other way around like normal hatches. It is just that I've got these nice, big sheets of aluminum I really want to use and they were free. One goes on the front as a rock guard, another on the rear for the galley. But should the rear be a single piece hatch or a 3or 4 piece drawer fronts? hmmmm...

Wifey wants me to get to the point where she can paint. Yes, we changed from wood interior to painted walls. With all the cedar outside, more wood on the inside would be too much we think. She wants to do a mural that takes over the entire interior, she's a pretty good artist. Conch Fritter, Florida Keys, we met on my sailboat...yeah you get the idea on the mural.

dave

[daveesl77]

I did not get to do pics of the insulation inside the skin area, but it was pretty standard. 1.5" laminated foam boards glued between the spars and onto the interior skin. Exterior skin then glued down. This thing is now so solid! Curves are amazing things, eh?

Outer skin gets fully covered. Front/rear areas will be coated with canvas/tb2/sealer then covered with vertical cedar strips. Bottom 18" will be covered with an aluminum sheet for rock guard. 10 linear feet of roof area will be covered by 60mil white EPDM rubber. IF and when I build another, I've learned a valuable lesson in this. I'd first layout the inner skin and spars on my garage floor, glue up, then install as a unit.



Interior rear. All ply is being covered by Plas Tex or a mural. The opening at the base is where the slide-in galley goes under the bed frame. I really hate this ply, but it works ok as a base.



Interior front. All ply is being covered by Plas Tex front/ceiling/back and a mural on walls.



Today we'll put up the Plas Tex, fingers crossed on this working out ok. We'll probably put on the EPDM in the next couple of days.

dave

[KCStudly]

You're going to have something really special there when you are done (... 95% done, anyway; they're never really done).

[daveesl77]

Thank you so much for your encouragement KC, it really means a lot to me. I consider you a true artist.

On the build front put in the first sheet of plas tex on the inside major curve (front). Went with solvent based contact cement, since I'm kind of used to it and did not want future problems. This stuff is so flexible when I tried to do it as a flat sheet, it was just too "wobbly" to work, so laid it back down, got out the wax paper and rolled it up. Went on like a breeze just rolling it out from bottom to top, following the curves. Gave myself a bit of play on each side (as per the product sheet) for expansion, but I don't think that'll be a problem since it was 90f when I installed it. The trailer walls are essentially perfectly square to the curved skins, so no problems with being skewed. We'll put the rest of it on tomorrow since we now know the trick to installing. This stuff is kind of like a stiff, thick vinyl. The wife is really happy with it. We plan on trimming the corners with hemp rope, so that will hide the 3/16" gap on the sides.

Almost done but the finishin'

dave

[daveesl77]

Finally got around to taking the HF documentation down to DMV to get the tags and title. Florida cost, initial total was $46, it will then be $14 per year afterwards. Weird part is that we had the choice of either a motorcycle sized plate or regular size. I took regular, but couldn't figure out the motorcycle option.

All the "Plas Tex" (also called Polywall) is installed and I really like this stuff so far. I left the recommended gaps between sheets, which is fine because that is where I'm running my surface mount wire channels and duct work. Those will be wood. Also got my interior top bracing finished and ready to build in the primary ventilation duct work. Didn't do pics on this stuff, as you can't really see anything. The cool part about those pieces is that they are essentially the identical curve as the outer wall, so as I was bringing them into the trailer we got to see what the "wings" will look like (kind-of) and they will be slick! Also got the bed rails installed and the forward cabinet side sections cut. Thank you HD for those 1 x 12 x 12' clear pine boards that were supposedly "culls".

Tomorrow I round over the outer skin edges and install the EPDM on the top roof section. Actually it is 10' long, so it wraps from downward curve to downward curve. I may or may not get to doing the canvas waterproofing on the lower front/rear areas tomorrow. If not, then I'll be cutting down my aluminum sheets for the front rock guard and some other stuff.

dave

[daveesl77]

Finally got around to uploading a couple of pics. Installed the EPDM and PMF (Poor Man's Fiberglas)

Today I took down the giant tarp/canopy rig (also called my temporary build shelter) so I could install the EPDM on the roof. Canvas/TB2/Paint covering is on the front and rear, EPDM across the top.

Front and rear canvas glued on and 1st coat of paint. EPDM laying on top getting hot and ready for installation.



EPDM glued down, initial trim cuts on all facing material cut. I used the latex adhesive with the EPDM, as advised here and WOW it is easy to do with that!

There will be several wood trim pieces running across and then I'm hoping to steam bend the outer trim boards. Haven't steam bent wood in about 30+ years, so hopefully I remember how to do it. If not, then I'm about to wreck some expensive hardwood. Aluminum sheet runs across the base of the front section as a rock guard.



Got the first paint coat sanded and a second coat put on today. Tomorrow I'll sand it down again and put on a 3rd. Will probably have 4 coats when done. Fingers cross that the latex adhesive on the EPDM is cured by tomorrow so I can bend in the overlap and adhere.

This is the first time the trailer has been out in the sun, but it is now covered back up again. Next up is the door trim and wiley windows.

dave

[KCStudly]

Looking better and better all the time! Really coming along fast now.

[Atomic77]

You're building a beautiful piece! Nice work.

[daveesl77]

Cut out the basic parts of two of the "wiley windows", those that will be behind the cloud windows. I'm playing around with some ideas on these, so no pics until I finalize what I want to do. I will probably start gluing them up tomorrow.

For my door windows I'm thinking about possibly trying to make a collapsible wiley. The idea is to make the side mounts able to fold up so they take up almost no interior room unless the window is in the tilt open position. I'm thinking about using 1/4" ply for the base structure, then covering that with something like EPDM so when open out it is completely waterproof.

dave

[daveesl77]

Started playing around with some trim designs and ideas. Testing out the look of Conch Fritter's "wings". These are just leaned up to see how they look, not varnished, attached or anything yet. On the front curve we're putting a kind of small circle inside another curve that will follow the roof line.

This one trim design adds 15 mph to the top speed and increases gas mileage by 21.3%





dave

[Atomic77]

i'm digging the wings!

[OP827]

...

This one trim design adds 15 mph to the top speed and increases gas mileage by 21.3%





dave

you are joking, right? But I agree it looks cool.