Monday, April 8, 2013

Design and building of Entrance Door

I looked high and low for available camper entrance doors for sale but could not find an affordable choice for purchase during that time.  Furthermore, I simply did not have necessary time to search the countryside in an effort to locate a more reasonably priced version.  So, I simply decided to make my own entrance door. 

I took a piece of 3/4" good grade plywood and coated the exterior side really well with 2-3 coats of thin set epoxy which cured a waterproof exterior shell on the sheet.  Placed a piece of Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic (FRP) on the exterior of the door.  Then made my sealing flanges for the door out of 4" wide fiberglass cloth, that after cure, would be mounted to the outward edge of my door.  It worked fairly well.  Not the 'most professional looking and certainly not the most aesthetically pleasing' one you have ever seen but it does the job for now.

Thin fiberboard strips cut to appropriate size and wrapped in wax paper to allow me to drape wet fiberglass cloth over the ledges.  The idea was that the wax paper would prevent the polyester resin from bonding to the fiberboard and the 1/4" variation in height would create an offset in the cloth thereby creating a 1/4" area to accept weatherstripping so door would shut tight and seal out rain. 

 Mounting piano hinge and outward edge flanges.
 Roll out caulk placed upon hinge line and then hinge fastened.

Door installed and interior insulated.

Interior Electrical System Rough-In

As you might have discovered this posting is somewhat out of order considering there are earlier posts showing the camper already sitting on my truck, which is true.  The interior has been completed in regards to paint, shower, wiring...all I need now is the fresh water tank.  So, yes it is sitting on the truck with interior complete for the most part.  

This part of the build was just not uploaded within the appropriate timeframe, that's all.  little behind guys!

The interior work came at a time when I was extremely busy with other business ventures.  Lots of the construction occurred within crunches 'for time' thus I simply snapped away with the photos and did not have the time to upload and blog during that busy time.  So here we are now!

As you recall from the earlier phases of construction, the entire camper is Nida Core honeycomb panels except for the rear wall.  (the reason why? i chose wood)

I insulated the rear wall with residential construction foam approximately 1" thick which will be wrapped with some form of paneling on the interior.

Black SJ cord fastened in place is a 5-6', 6 conductor pigtail plugged into 6 port receptacle feeding parking lights, left turn, right turn and brakes.  The fifth and sixth contact was chosen out of the receptacle to feed my rear backup light which is operated from a switch in the truck cab.

Placed horizontal strips of wooden reinforcement in this region where one's back would rest when sitting on the bench, to prevent bowing and damage to the thin wall paneling.

 Insulation going up in wall region where shower stall will be installed, notice the sloped seat in this region.  The seat was sloped to allow for water drainage when taking showers.
 Insulation in place in door before interior panel side was installed. Also can see some of the incipient stages of inlet power installation going on in the background.