Superlegerra -ish 5x9 foamy - First Trip!

[atahoekid]

I had a few months of no work when I had shoulder surgery during the middle of my build. It is a great time to contemplate next steps. You'll come back refreshed and energized. One week will fly by!!!

[lthomas987]

I got back into town Friday, to discover my TV had developed a click not start issue. So that and car shopping for my partner's new car ate most of my Saturday. Laundry and flyball practice ate most of today. I did get the second roof section glued down. I didn't get any photos because it was too dark in the garage by the time I got done. I'll try and snap a few on my way out to work in the morning.

I have a bit of a thing to think over now. I have about exactly 8ft of roof/hatch to go. However if I just split it in half I think the hatch opening will be too low and too far back. So I need to decide where the hatch hinge is going and cut the roof pieces and get it glued in place.

Then internal structure building, and door cutting and window cutting. Adding hard points. Canvas.. and I'm almost done! I am thinking about my hatch area some.. and the bottom of the galley seal. Hopefully some day this week I'll be able to take pictures in the light and get the input of this august body. Ya'll are my brains you know.

I did manage to score an old solder gun to use as a foam cutter. I am thinking of following in the steps of allan1 and his foam cutting with a solder gun and ground wire. http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?p=909609#p909609

[The Teardrop Nanny]

See Laura....if you build it (and post pictures ) they WILL come out of the " foamwork ".
Nice to see the progress, especially as it's now into the 3D stage. Hope the windows worked out for you, and wondered what you were up to, so I had to check in and see. IT LOOKS FABULOUS
Joanie
The Teardrop Nanny

[lthomas987]

Well my exile from my trailer is over. I had a lot of time to think. I've been approaching all of this from a sort of agile software development perspective. Making as many tiny tasks out of things as I can so there is always SOMETHING I can do no matter how short the time window I have to work is. (only got 10 minutes? I can test lights in 10 minutes, 30 minutes? sand the drips, got an hour? install that last roof panel) That is what my last list is (a subset of the master list in my head/spreadsheet of tasks that need doing) Some of them are dependent some are not. So I always have something I can be doing if I have time.

Things I know:

• I am going to add 6" wide (3" on the floor and 3" on the wall) bias reinforcing strips to my wall/floor join on the inside and outside of the trailer.
• I have made the bias tubes and am cutting bias strips for attaching the walls to the floor. That's my next forward step.
• I got and tested my lights (using a stray laptop power supply) they all lit up and looked fine.
• I will build the galley main working table/shelf/counter (what do we call that thing?) area out of wood.
• I am going to round over the edges where the top meets the sides. (but probably not til I get closer to canvasing the outside so the final edge stays nice looking)
• For my extremely limited 110 electrical needs (partner's cpap) I am going to use the Super Simple Electrical System from the sticky

Things I am thinking about: I am thinking about next steps and I got myself into a bit of a bind logically.

• I'd like to canvas the inside of the front curve before I put the front shelf/headboard area in. And if I do that I sort of want to put the whole roof on. So hopefully I can do that bit in a single run.
• I have some surplus 1" foam and I am thinking of using that to build the headboard/front shelf instead of using OSB. I think I'll canvas the shelves before I install them.
• What I can't figure out is how to canvas the little sections inside the cabinet on the side walls. Will it be a big deal if these sections are not canvased?
• I am also thinking of making the wall between the galley and the sleeping area from 1" foam . See the aforementioned foam surplus. (A friend had extra and brought it by and said do you want this? and I said YEP! 'cause free foam!!!!!) I will build the galley main working table/shelf area out of wood.
• After a great deal of contemplation I am considering making that main counter surface with a hinge at the back edge of the trailer so it can be flipped out further than the side walls and make a deeper counter.
• The counter will probably require little swing out supports like a drop leaf table, or legs or something.

Things I have actually done recently:

• Trimmed my bamboo skewer assembly pins.
• removed all tape from the glueing/clamping process.
• swept out the inside of the trailer.
• Put the wheels back on again.
• noodled at sanding off glue drips (but not been super effective at it)

Agenda for things to do in the very near future:

Clean glue drips where bias strips are going
Cut bias strips
Rough foam where bias strips are going
Glue in bias strips
Kerf last roof panel
install last roof panel
Make foam cutting jigs
practice with foam cutting on scraps

[KCStudly]

For the inside sides of the cabinets, and the thinner foam at the bulkhead, consider GPW's recommendation to use chip board as a skin material.

You want the bulkhead to be a rigid diaphragm and I bet the chip board sandwich would stiffen that thin foam right up! (I used 3/4 foam with a traditional 1x2 frame and 5 mm ply skins front and rear; and I bet my bulkhead is the heaviest per square foot panel in my camper, including the floor!!! So a good opportunity to save weight there.)

In the cabinets, I would think that the little bit of stiffness afforded by the chip board would make it easier to apply in the confined space, and would protect the foam from damage from cargo going in and out; don't want tell-tale traces of foam dust perpetuating.

[lthomas987]

I wonder if regular poster board would work. It's not quite chipboard.

[GPW]

It doesn’t glue nearly as well as chipboard ... It’s the clay coating on posterboard doesn’t let the glue penetrate the board as much as with the plain uncoated chipboard ... not saying it wouldn’t work , but chipboard would work better (IMHO)

[lthomas987]

Well I didn't find a source of chipboard in town. The art supply place had gone out of business. I will look for another one next week.

In the mean time... I got my last roof panel kerfed. And I started playing with hot wire foam cutting. I went with the solder gun option.


The gun isn't strapped to the board at this point and that is less than ideal. I just only had one bit of metal strapping and it was about an inch short to be useful. But I couldn't resist testing just a little.

I formed the wire to fit around a 3/4" slice of 2x4. Making it a lot like a 1x2 furring strip but I already own some 2x4 and a table saw. So probably I'll make my own for whatever my needs are.


As you might be able to tell from the photos I was just using an offcut of 2" foam from cutting my side walls. I just freehanded two straight channels through the foam.




I cut a couple slots it made a funny squeakng sound as i went and there were some cotton candy like hairs formed. But it was very tidy over all and it held my 2x4 scrap near perfectly. Enough room for a little glue but not much.

[GPW]

That worked well !!!

[kudzu]

Wow! That foam cutter seems to have turned out great. Very cool.

[lthomas987]

Thanks for the nice comments everyone. The foam cutter is just using another builder's prior art. I put a link to his stuff a couple posts back.

So my plan for the day is slightly scrubbed due to torrential rain, high winds, and flash flooding. So I'm not going to go get foam for internal structure.

I am however going to finally glue in my bias strips, at least on the outside.
I am going to make two more different hot foam cutters, one to inlet 1" foam with linen or chipboard on it, another 1" quarter round over.
I am also going to the hardware store to get some metal strapping and a bit more gorilla glue. I can't decide if it is stupid that I keep buying the smaller bottles and finishing them instead of buying a big one. But I have a shelf and screwdriver glued to the pegboard in my garage from a bottle of GG that foamed over and all down the wall one night and I didn't notice (a couple years ago now but I'm never getting that screwdriver free without replacing the pegboard). And it gets thick and unmanageable too. So I am just going to keep buying little bottles.

Also I have to fix the storage shelf that fell on me before my morning caffeine in the utility room and get that room set back to normal. Off I go!

[GPW]

When we buy the little bottles , they always get used up , if we get the big ones , there’s Always some left that manages to go bad ... It’s moisture cured , and that’s all we have here.... Moisture , so it doesn’t last long !!!
LT, You’ve been BUSY !!!

[Shar]

Hey, I will take that warning to heart about the storage of GG! Keep it out of the toolbox.
So far I have used 2 big bottles on this build, and I expect to buy one more big one to finish.
Hope you get lots done and things go smoothly in the next few days!

[lthomas987]

I didn't get as much as I wanted done. I also didn't get many pictures.

I did get some sanding done taking glue lumps off.
I can't find my scissors for cutting my bias tube.
I did get some more foam cutters shaped. So when the time comes i can just move the solder gun from one to the next. It is becoming a nice little collection of tools.
I was going to install my fenders. Or at least fit them so that when the time came to do the final install it would be fast. (I don't want them permanently mounted til I am done wrapping the canvas around the bottom board. But I ran into the fact they fit fine before insulating the bottom of the floor but not after , because I needed that 1" of height. Then it occurred to me I had just made awesome hot foam cutting tools. So I've added that to my agenda. (I might make a custom one for that purpose that takes out a wider slightly deper swath and is closer to the edge of the wood block so I can get right up against things and leave less to chip out by hand. ) Use the hot wire tools to cut insulation out of the bottom of the trailer to leave room for the fenders. A smart person would have just not glued foam in those spots or would have cut out for them first.

[JThompson]

your doing great. I never thought about making a foam cutter. might have to think about that as there will be 1/4 round edge molding needed around the inside.
might ponder that while I try and peal GG off my hands and blue paint off my leg from today