my truck camper

[KCStudly]

Fair enough, and thanks for the explanation.

It makes sense in context. I have to tell you, tho, that I am in about the same position. I had no real prior experience before starting my build and now that I am at the external body working stage... it is still bodywork. There really is no way around it. If you want a smooth fair surface to paint, you will have to do body work, filler, sand, sand, sand and more sanding. There's really no way around it if you want a smooth finish.

[Philip]

Fair enough, and thanks for the explanation.

It makes sense in context. I have to tell you, tho, that I am in about the same position. I had no real prior experience before starting my build and now that I am at the external body working stage... it is still bodywork. There really is no way around it. If you want a smooth fair surface to paint, you will have to do body work, filler, sand, sand, sand and more sanding. There's really no way around it if you want a smooth finish.

Oh I know that. I just want the first layer as close to workable as I can. I have all the body sanders needed to do body work and a large compressor. Auto body work I have experience in and I see this job as the same thing. Start with a good base. It doesn't matter if its metal or glass.

Yesterday I got about half of the unfinished side done. I'll work on the rest today.

[Philip]

I went as far as I could today on doing the corner layups. I ran out of epoxy on the next to last bay. The bay with the glass tape in the pic is the one I have left to do.



I have more epoxy ordered. Should be here in a couple of days. I guess I'll find something else to amuse myself with till it comes in.

[Philip]

Today I made the table I am going to use for cutting ply and foam. Still need a couple of items finished. I'll do that tomorrow.





Sorry about the second pic. I didn't feel like walking back out to the office to resnap it.

[Philip]

Today I finished the two items on the fold down table. Then I put the hot wire cutter on it.



In this pic it shows how I am adjusting and holding the hot wire cutter in place for width of cuts. There is a 1x2 screwed to the bottom of the center board the cutter rests on. I need to stiffen the cutter up a little. It had a little to much side flex to my liking. If you notice in the next pic I had a T squre slide clamp in between the upper and lower section to control the flex some.



This pic shows where I knocked off today. If you notice the pile of debris on the far corner of the frame work. That is the remains of my adjustable power supply. Gotta do something about that tomorrow.

[KCStudly]

Your foam looks to be a little thicker than your pockets are deep. You should be able to skim cut them fair using the hot knife, if not, be sure to block sand them flush before skinning. The foam will not crush enough to get a good glue bond with the wood.

[Philip]

The glass work I did is holding the panels up just a little. I do plan on doing some sanding. When I get a power source going for the hot cutter I had planed on trying that first. I can always use the belt sander also.

[KCStudly]

[Philip]

I took a couple of days off waiting for the parts to redo my power supply for the hot cutter. So on Saturday I made up an adjustable hot cutter to use on the panels.





Then yesterday I decided to try my battery charger like OP827 mentioned he used. It worked good enough to get the rest of the foam cut and layed down on Sunday. I skinned off the top of about half the panels. (This pic was today after I had finished off all the panels).




Today I finished off the rest of the panels. Then made a run to the local lumber yard to get more 3/8"s ply. I installed that. Then had to make a run to HD for a router bit and some other lumber. After that run I routed off the excess ply from the deck.

[KCStudly]

Looking good!

[OP827]

Philip, the hot wire foam cutting flash with wood looks pretty good and flat from here.
I may steel the idea for the future. Anything you recommend I should be watching for when doing the cut, any lessons learned?
Thanks,
Oleg

[Philip]

Philip, the hot wire foam cutting flash with wood looks pretty good and flat from here.
I may steel the idea for the future. Anything you recommend I should be watching for when doing the cut, any lessons learned?
Thanks,
Oleg

You need to maintain a steady speed threw the cut. If you slow down it will leave a divot. If you look at the foam in the pic any dark lines in it was a slow down point.

A good power supply helps. My charger only supplied 12 volts with maybe one amp. There wasn't enough resistance to fully turn on my charger. It was only giving me voltage and no amperage. So it was slow cutting. My power supply that died was giving me three amp's.

Rig a spring up on the cutter wire to hold tension. I didn't on that adjustable setup I made. NI-chrome wires stretches a lot when hot even at the low amp's I was feeding it. With the wire tight at the start of the cut. By the end of a cut the center of the wire was about 2" behind in the center of the span. A larger power source would have helped there. If I slowed down to keep the wire straight it caused divots on the outer edges.

It was a flush cut with top of wood. On the alumin ears I added to the clamp. I put a notch just deep enough in the rounded corner to just hold the wire in position. I'll get a better pic of the working end tomorrow. I wasn't quite done with it when I took that one.

[noseoil]

Looking very nice. Should be a good camper when it's finished! I like the planning & workmanship, first rate.

[Philip]

OP here is the close up pic's of the cutter. At the position I have the wire notched in. You need to hold the clamp at a 45 degree angle to the foam your cutting.



In this pic you can see I just wrapped the Ni-chrome around that machine screw. The clip is just to keep the end from unwinding.

[Philip]

Now onto yesterday and todays work.

I started on the end wall. I got most of it framed in yesterday. This morning I finished it off.





Then I started cutting foam to fit into the spaces. When I got the upper section foamed. I threw down epoxy and weighted them down.



After the epoxy had set I did the other half of the wall. I didn't have enough jugs to do all three sections at once.