Foamie hybrid with ribs and wheelchair accessibility...

[GPW]

QUOTE: “ But.... it's not a ballroom” …. Exactly … !!!

[Redneck Packrat]

Saturdays tend to be pretty good days for getting stuff done. FINALLY remembered to take a ladder with me so I got the top rounded off and smoothed. First, roughed it into place with one of those sharp-as-hell snap blade knives:


Get in a hurry with it and it will booger up and make a rough cut...


But over all, it did knock it down in bigger chunks than using a rasp from the get-go.


I sure am glad that they weren't trying to piggyback off of the YELLOW panther. I wouldn't want to be making yellow snow



Found an a/c that I actually forgot I had. Plugged it in and it blows cold and plenty So I measured it and cut a hole in the right hand side of the camper for it




It's up off the floor enough to get a good strip of canvas along the outside bottom of the foam wall, to bind it to the floor continuously front-to-back. I will build a little platform for it to set on inside, and I'm thinking about using some wall-hung sink brackets on the outside of the wall, down on the wood part, and build some sort of removable support for it. Depends on where the compressor winds up setting, whether I need to do that. If it's heavy enough on the stay-flat tendency and not on the tip-out tendency, then I might not mess with it, since I'm planning to make it removable for transport and just haul it under the foot of the bed. Leaving the option open to put drawer slides on it and just slide it in and out. For now, though, it's gonna set on a platform that is not glued to the floor, so I can modify it later if I get the wild hair to do it.

Time for a handful of peanuts and a water. Roxie decided I had something interesting. Came to investigate. It was not meat, so she went back to her main duty of holding the slab down under the trailer so it doesn't float away


I've procrastinated long enough. Time to glue everything and maybe get some canvas on some part of this contraption. Bottom up and back forward, so the laps can withstand gravity and forward motion in their repellence of rainwater.... so I started with the narrow side of the back, to the right of the door. I'm planning at least a 4-6" wrap-around every place I have an overlap. Is this just overkill, or is there some valid reason to NOT overlap so much? Anyway, I took some lengths of the cut-off seam (yeah, I just cut the stinkin' seams out. I know, I know, not thrifty but I'll find some uses for 'em....and I did!) and after poking a couple of 16d casing nails into the foam, through the loose canvas, I hooked the seam "rope" to 'em. Found a piece of 3/4 PVC a bit wider than this piece of canvas, and rolled the canvas up onto it then used the "ropes" to tie it off...





Brushed on TB2 diluted with water thusly: 8 oz TB2 and 4 oz water. Kinda sloppy and runny. Especially for a vertical application. But I used it as-is and it stuck nicely and smoothed out well...



For the smoothing instrument, I'm using the middle size putty knife/spreader/whatever they call it, out of a 3-pack from HF or Wallyworld. Smooths without grabbing with the corners if I get it a little cockeyed. I've had 'em a while, can't remember where they came from, but it was one of those two places. (Between Walmart and HF, if it wasn't for those two stores I'd be sitting around naked, starving, with no tools to do anything with! )


Counterintuitive, maybe, but I did the top half last. Worked out okay. I just let it lay back against itself and painted the backside of the canvas first. It stuck without pulling itself off the bottom half. Then I worked my way upwards painting the wall and smoothing it upwards. Then over the top and drug the tool across the corner sideways, perpendicular to the corner. Managed to squeeze out a bit of glue, which I quickly, before it dripped off the brush most of the time , managed to get back into the canvas on the next swipe.

Ran out of watered-down glue, made the next batch 10 oz TB2 and about 2 oz of water. Thicker, uses more TB2, but it stayed in the brush well enough that I wasn't slinging it all over the shop





And that, folks, is where it's gonna set until sometime early next week

[depatty]

Looks good!

[featherliteCT1]

Gosh you do good work!

[Redneck Packrat]

Thank you. I just hate fixing stuff, especially if it was because I didn't do my best when I did it in the first place

I've seen a lot of things I'd have done differently, but nothing that's worth scrapping this one and starting over. Maybe if I build another one (and I really might if someone wants one after seeing this in action, because I'm having a blast doing this!) then I'll incorporate the improvements I've thought of. Mainly in the processes and in the order I'm doing things. But this one won't be getting away from us unless the wife decides she really likes it but wants ABC or XYZ and I can't make it work in this one. So yeah, I'm planning on having this thing a long time, and I'm building accordingly

[Redneck Packrat]

Okay, first off, it was the Wally world that has the cheap plastic putty knife set. 1.97 for the 3-pack. They do a beautiful job of smoothing canvas without snagging, and the glue just peels right off of 'em.


Today's gonna be a little short on pics. I was gluing canvas solo, and didn't want to glue my phone to anything....like the inside of my pocket....or the table I was setting it on.... I did manage to glue my drawers to my shorts at the waistband about halfway through the side wall, though. Wasn't thinking and hitched 'em up with wet sloppy gluey hands, then gambled on getting to the sink before the glue set. Lost the gamble. Pants were glued to boxers, boxers were glued to ....ME Oh well, they stayed put for the time being (No, no pics of THAT )

6x9 drop cloth I picked up at WM a few weeks ago. No seams! It went on the curb side wall...


Cut the center chunk out of the a/c hole and cut it back to the hole edges, kinda like you see the window hole above, and wrapped them both around with glue. On the a/c hole, there's gonna be a 2x something inside this, pics later, so I rolled it on inside about a half inch for more shear resistance. Plus, it'll be clamped and Liquid Nailed in between the foam and the 2x something also. Anything to bind the edges down On the window, the trim ring is going to cover it, so I did pretty-much the same, and wrapped the canvas around the inside a little bit as well...



Those exposed triangular pieces at the corners (and curves in the window hole) are going to be covered with a strip of canvas glued down, since my trim rings are sized for a 1 1/2" thick wall and are gonna leave about 2" exposed between them and the window. I'll just get longer screws and make it work. Screws will be exposed, but that's not the end of the world. Probably paint that gap flat black...That seems to make stuff disappear nicely.

Had a little piece big enough to do the rest of the back wall, left over from the reinforcing strips I put inside a few weeks ago. It draped well from the roof and covered the rest of the back nicely, so I glued it on


Remember that hole for the a/c? Well, it's got an inhabitant now!




Yeah, it does have a gap at the top. Notice in the first pic of that trio, the bottom of the outside of the a/c has what looks like a sump on it. Only way to get it in the hole from the inside is to have the hole 13 1/2" high, even though where it sits, the a/c is 12" tall. I could slide it in from the outside but I'm using the brackets the accordion thingys slip into to hold the thing in place, and they've gotta sit against the sides of the hole. I pulled it back out to show the furring in of the foam hole to fit the a/c.

First off, when I cut out the hole, I cut it an inch wider and taller than what I needed for the a/c. This will give me a lip for the foam plug to set up against when the a/c unit is not in the hole. Bottom and top are 2x4 pieces cut to span the width of the hole, and I started at the bottom, putting that horizontal piece 1/2" higher than the foam cut. Then I stood two 13 1/2" (same height as the a/c) on that one and screwed them to the two ribs I put the a/c between. They are ripped pieces of 2x4, ripped to 5/8" each, as the hole wound up being 1 1/4" wider than the a/c can, due to the width between the ribs. Top piece was laid in to rest on the two ripped side pieces. A 2x2 left a gap that looked funny, so I tried a 2x4. It was a gnat's whisker too wide, so I ripped the width of the saw blade off of it and it fit snugly up against the window sill, and left no goofy little gap...



The cutout from this hole will be the "plug" for the hole. I must've gotten it pretty square, it works upside down too



I've got several different ideas floating around in my head on how to anchor that plug after I get it wrapped in canvas. Probably whichever has revolved around to the front of my mind when I get to doing it, will be the way I go. I'm thinking either a bolt through the center of it with a wing nut, and a board spanning the inside to hold it in. Or.... a 2x2 glued to the inside of it full-height (or width...or both) with rotating thumb latches that'll keep it from pushing out. I'll probably have a screen door handle on it inside to pull it tightly to the weather stripping while latching it either way I go. Have I mentioned before that I over-build stuff?

[GPW]

Looking GOOD !!!

[Redneck Packrat]

Still frustrated. #1 Rule Of Avoiding Frustration When Building A Camper: When you discover that your 'alternate' method for doing something is NOT working, DO NOT CONTINUE COMPOUNDING YOUR MISTAKE

Ok, now that that's off my chest. Started off good today. Went to Lowe's and picked up another gallon of TB2. Since their 9x12 drop cloth was within five bucks of HF, I grabbed one and gave it a good pawing and felt no seams. Rather than venture into the city on a Friday, I just took the bird in hand. Got out to the shop and there was a seam. Two 4.5 x 12 pieces sewed together. Now, since I was gonna cut this into two 6x9 pieces, that means I had a seam across the short distance of both of them. Upshot is, I now have a streetside wall and a front wall with vertical seams on them. Oh well. That's not the worst problem in the world.

So I laid it out.... side wall first....before cutting. The whole tarp was laying on the ground under the wall until I cut it off long enough to wrap under that 2x6 at the base of the wall... (you can see the seam about halfway down the side, bigger'n shi...nola )


Cut the bottom off of it and moved it out of the way for now. It's gonna be the drape for the front wall of the trailer, and wrap around to catch the naked fronts of the walls... so here's the cut job....


Me and my 16d casing nails for pins.... every foot or so along the top....


Folded it up, then again, where I had 1/4 of the wall covered with 4 layers of canvas....held it in place with clothespins....


I just held that out of the way and smeared TB2, thinned at the rate of 14 oz TB2 and 3 oz water, on the wall. It was a little thicker and holding better without sagging, so I just sprayed the backside of the canvas with a spray bottle of water and it APPEARED to go on nicely. Did this all the way down...


First, keep in mind that I do the strange method of doing the last 6" on top last. Seems to be working okay on the other wall and the back. That way I don't have to pull the "pins" out of the top until after it's dried overnight. The blotchiness on the wall I attributed to my uneven spraybottle techniques and the extreme heat today (102 thermometer in the barn) because it *appeared* to be sticking nicely. I did stick some pins in around the window opening because there was a bit of wind pushing out the canvas covering the window opening. *(Why I didn't just cut the damn window opening out, I'll never know....but hindsight's 20/20 )


Roxie flaked on me about then, so I decided to run to town, mainly just to get cooled off and dried out. 45 mph down the shoulder of the road with the wing window open fully is a nice change from 102 and no fan because of it blowing canvas around.


I got back and .... BUBBLES ALL OVER THAT WALL!!!

Appears, now that I think about it, there was a pretty decent breeze, which I got no benefit from because I was on the lee side of the camper, and when I left it to go to town, it was enough wind to un-stick the canvas from the foam....and I was gone long enough that the TB2 wasn't tacky any more. If I'd have cut out that window opening, the air would've had somewhere to go besides between the canvas and the foam. Alternately, if I'd have draped the front canvas, thus blocking the wind from coming in the front window, it would've prevented the wind from pushing out on the side wall.

So this is where I doubled down on my stupidity. I had read somewhere about using 50/50 TB2 as a top-coat pushed into the weave of the canvas. So, I had the bright idea of mixing up a batch at 50/50 and top-coating the wall, using my putty knife to push it into the weave. Might've pushed it in, but it had zero effect on the bubbling. So, wasted about a quart and half of TB2 with that experiment.

No, there's no pics of this whole redo thing. I was TICKED at myself and getting tickeder (is that a word? ) as I realized I had wasted materials and time instead of just pulling it down and starting over, which I finally did. Pulled the top half down and re-glued it with the 14:3 mix and putty-knifed it upwards, it stuck like a kitten to a wool shirt. Then lifted its skirt up and did the same thing from the middle down. THEN I realized I hadn't been taking pics, and snapped a few....




Earlier, while I was waiting to see if that 50/50 mix would stick the screwed-up side down, I put some reinforcement/covering "straps" in the big curbside window's top corners...



Also, while waiting on that (failed) glue salvage job, I went ahead and started on the front wall. Pinned up the canvas and did the top half of it. I couldn't go around the corners, whether the failed salvage gluing worked or not, because I wanted to have the front layer overlapping the sides and really wanted both sides dry dry before re-wetting the glue to stick the front sheet on. So I lined it up where I had an overlap on each side and glued the front of the trailer only.




And that's where it got left for today. Made a pile of notes re electric routing and locations, and after I get the walls and top on, possibly while waiting for whatever part to dry, I'm going to start running the wires. Planning on the 110 shore/gen power entering at the streetside rear corner, going through a small 2-space breaker panel, to: an outlet on a 15A breaker there for a battery charger, then another circuit on its own 15A breaker, down under trailer in EMT to come up under the foot of the front bed beside the a/c. That is the only shore/gen only power points I'm planning on.

Inverter 110 will start at the same place as the shore/gen, since that's where the battery(ies) will be, with a 1500W (I think--it's a gimme from my brother, haven't studied it closely but I know it's >400 but <1500) inverter within a foot of the batteries to minimize DC voltage drop on its way to the inverter. Plugged into the inverter will be the supply to an outlet on the back wall of the trailer outside, for a drop cord with a light should we want more than just the porch light...or possibly a light string....who knows.... Two more plugs on the inverter AC will be one at each end of the front bed, with the only essential one being at the foot, for power for the bed-raising motor. Planning on a 19" tv (+/-) on the other side of that duplex. Very light load for the inverter. Plus, with that one shore/gen outlet for the charger, there is the option of unplugging the inverter system from the inverter and into the second hole of that duplex outlet, to run *everything* from shore/gen when or while it's available. Also, having the plug on the back wall means I can plug the charger in and run it off the inverter if I don't have shore power and don't want the noise

The inverter DC supply is going to have a cutoff solenoid relay on it, 70A (might be two 35A relays in parallel) controlled from the same location as the power bed. Reasoning is, I don't want to have the inverter idling all night with its "ghost" load just so my better half can adjust the bed when she wants/needs. She can simply flip on the switch to power the inverter, make whatever use of the bed lifter she needs, then turn the inverter back off. I realize I could just go into the inverter and make its power switch remote, but don't want to dig into it if I can do it this way.

12V DC: 40A circuit breaker direct off the battery to a fuse bar with 4 separate circuits: One each to a pair of USB outlets and a cigar lighter outlet, one set near each bed, and another set the same on the wall opposite the longitudinal bed, for whatever might want it. Third circuit for a dome light in the center of the ceiling and a porch light on the back over the entry door. Fourth circuit for fan in the roof vent.

That's about it for the electrical, unless I get fancy and put in a means to power the running lights as a "just in case" something happens to the TV's trailer circuitry.

Oh, yeah, I'll also run a set of appropriately-sized wires up to the ceiling and probably on through under the flange of the roof vent, for future solar panels. In that case, for about half the year, we'll be independent of the need for shore power Question: Does anybody yet have experience with HF's new 100W solar kit? From what I've read, it's 4x25W panels, as opposed to the previous 45W setup with 3x15W panels. If it is any good, it'd be a helluva good bargain at $150.

Just one other thing....about plugging the inverter into the back wall.... Just seeing who all is really reading and who's just looking at pictures

[featherliteCT1]

Nice recovery from the bubbles!


I bought the Harbor Freight solar panel kit before I knew much about solar power. However, I do not use the kit. The charge controller will ruin my batteries. The amorphous solar panels are not awful but are not the best.

The HF panels are expensive. A 15 watt panel alone costs $65, which is $4.33 per watt.

My Renogy 100 watt monocrystalline panels cost $135, which is $1.35 per watt.

The 100 watt polycrystalline panels cost $110, which is $1.10 per watt.

https://www.renogy.com/products/compone ... ar-panels/


Below is a link to some strong criticism of the HF kit.


https://www.solarpaneltalk.com/forum/of ... it-warning

[Redneck Packrat]

First, thanks CT for your link to Renogy. I've bookmarked it and when I get to that point, and if they're still around, I'll probably be buying their "starter" setup.

Today was a good, but short, day.

Glued down the front canvas and the wrap around the left side. If I hadn't screwed up that wall yesterday I'd of had PLENTY of glue to do both wraps around to the sides Oh well.... another 19 and change at Lowes for another gallon.... I was gonna have to anyway, for glue for the top, so it's not the end of the world...

Front finished except for the skirt....


On the left wrap, I started smearing the meager amount of glue I had on the foam, and realized I never filled in one of the craters in the wall. (This one was not up on the angled compound cut seam, but where the table saw took a big bite out of the end of a cut.) I had layered some caulk in there a couple times but it was still about a half inch deep in places. Yeah, I forgot about it when I got into the last can of Great Stuff. So, I filled it with what was in the caulk gun. Liquid Nails...


Then I pulled the canvas over it and smooshed it around with my hand to make sure I had the right amount of it in there to fill the void. Peeled it back and it appears to be about right after a couple times of adding a little bit....


So, I finished the glue on the foam and backside of the canvas and scraped it onto the wall, pulling towards the rear as I worked my way down, to be sure the overlap onto the side panel was staying (semi) straight. The Liquid Nails glob is sorta visible, but if you're not looking for it, probably not *that* noticeable....



I think the corner turned out okay.
The top six inches, I'll pull the pins out and glue it up next time. Among other reasons, I ran out of glue

I have been wanting to get the bed electrical stuff put together for days, just on account of 'cause, so that was next thing to have happen.

I'll start with a narrative of what I did, starting back before I even bought any foam, since the whole thing is a shelter for a comfortable bed-away-from-home for my wife and is useless, or at least no more useful than an air mattress on the ground in a tent, to her without the power head lift. The linear actuator has a 110v motor on it, and 4 wires coming from it. I had zero paperwork on the thing, but enough knowledge to be dangerous if not deadly The motor did still have its nameplate on it, and that's how I discovered it was a 110v motor, and max .75A draw, if I remember correctly. Four wires: red, black, white, and green with a yellow stripe.


Now, AC convention is that white is neutral and green is ground, with red and black used for the juice. I suspected that this was wired such, and the white and green were what they *ought to be* and the red and black were the up and down feeds. So I took my clamp on ammeter and on the ohms setting, I checked across each combination and to the metal housing of the motor. Red and black were open to the housing, open to the green wire, and showing something but not dead short to the white wire. White was showing open to ground and to the housing. Green was dead short to housing and open to all other three. Kinda confirmed my theory without a "hold my beer and watch THIS" moment

So, I found an old lamp cord with a polarized plug. The wider prong of the plug is the neutral, goes into the wider slot of the duplex (duh! ) Also, the cord itself, one of the conductors of the siamese wiring has ribs running down the insulation, so you can tell which is the neutral when you get to the far end. I twisted the neutral to the white and the other to the red, then the black, and plugged it into an extension cord No, turns out no Black extended the actuator (raised the head) and red retracted it (lowered the bed). Now we're getting somewhere!

So, I wanted the bed to be able to be plugged in to a normal duplex, and needed the controls remotely-located up near the head of the bed. That involved three paths for electricity to the head of the bed: The hot wire to the switch, and the load wires coming back from the two choices the switch has. I also wanted the switch to have a center off and return to center (off) when she let go of it, instead of having to switch it back there. I found at Grainger a single-pole-double-throw, momentary-on switch for a reasonable price and mounted it into an outdoor surface box with a blank cover drilled for the switch. I didn't get a good pic of that, but you can see it in the video I'll attempt to put at the bottom of this post.

I had an 80 foot extension cord that had done battle (and lost) with the lawnmower, so there was my wiring to run the remote switch. The juice comes into the bed wiring from the plug, runs up an 8' piece of the extension cord to the remote switch, then back down to the bed motor pigtail, through the motor and out the neutral side of the plug. Got that all soldered, heat shrunked, liquid taped, and taped.




Then I plugged that into an extension cord and checked the bedframe, remote box, and pretty much everything metal.... no zaps, no ants!
Pushed the switch UP, and the bed went .... UP! Pushed it down, bed went down. No ants anywhere while it was raising/lowering, too!


https://youtu.be/RoypDbcSz9A

[GPW]

Really coming along now …

[Redneck Packrat]

Okay... sorry for the drouth of posts, but real life got in the way, besides it's been hotter than the inside of a friggin' KILN around here

Over the last couple weeks, in between other stuff, I've gotten the canvas stretched out over the whole outer shell and a coat of paint over the bottom half of it.

Got the windows in over this last weekend, I used Loctite Instant Grab adhesive caulk to stick them down. I hope they don't have to come back out. They'll get another bead of something paintable over top of that, just to smooth out the transition from the wall to the window frame, but that'll happen after the Loctite dries/cures.

Having problems with getting pics off my phone. The USB cable to the phone must have some sort of connectivity problem, as it's not keeping good enough connection to charge the phone and definitely not enough to transfer a pic. I did message my wife a few pics and then saved 'em when I got on computer, they follow....

BTW, wife hates that color, so at least the oops made a good primer

[featherliteCT1]

Wow! And that picture window looks beautiful!

[swoody126]

Bill, here's hoping you & yours are safe

sw

[featherliteCT1]

Bill, here's hoping you & yours are safe

sw

Me too!