I know it’s been a while, work has unfortunately been terribly crazy, and I’ve been nursing an mcl injury back to health, but.. I got some more progress on the PUP!
Where we last left off, I was trying to figure out what to do regarding the outer skin of the top. I debated fiberglass, new aluminum sheathing , reusing the old sheathing, or something else.
Well, while on a camping trip, I ran into a guy, and while we were talking, he introduced me to the idea of PMF; poor man’s fiberglass. I was a little apprehensive initially, but after doing much research, it turns out that canvas and glue is a traditional way that ships were created. We had our winner for the solution!!
I went to the store, picked up 3 gallons of Titebond III glue, a 12”x15” drop canvas, and a few other odds and ends, paint tray kit, scrapers, silicone, etc.
We started off by laying out the canvas on top of the camper and making sure it would fit.
Afterwords we cut off some of the excess, while still leaving approximately 6-8 inches passed the edge of the sides.
We applied a layer of the glue, pouring it very liberally across the camper, then applied the canvas. We folded over the half that was glued with the half was not and glued the second half down as well. Afterwards, we poured a liberal amount of glue and used plastic scrapers to spread it evenly. Note that we did not glue the sides yet at this point. We did one half of the camper, making sure to remove all wrinkles before preceding to the other half.
We then cut out the section for the fan and glued that down as well.
We glued the sides and followed the same steps. When we cut the corners, we folded the flaps over each other. Unfortunately there was an accident with one of the the corners, and we ripped the canvas but we used the excess we cut off to patch it underneath. I didn’t take pictures of this, but I can tomorrow.
This is after two coats were applied and cured. You can see the sides smooth as well, and the corner with the patch underneath the front right corner of the top (left side of the image). We were starting ti feel confident about this process at this point.
We followed up by cutting the excess of the canvas off and glueing it underneath the wood of the top. The aluminum trim pieces that have the seal on them sit over this part so I’m not too worried about water. It will be siliconed and sealed with the roof coating I already purchased.
We also tackled the door. There was any damage in the wood of the door, but we used my buddy’s parts camper’s door and it happened to fix perfectly.
I’ll take some more pictures tomorrow as we continue on with this project. We’re making a big push to finish it up and get out there camping before the season is over. Stay tuned for more!!
Where we last left off, I was trying to figure out what to do regarding the outer skin of the top. I debated fiberglass, new aluminum sheathing , reusing the old sheathing, or something else.
Well, while on a camping trip, I ran into a guy, and while we were talking, he introduced me to the idea of PMF; poor man’s fiberglass. I was a little apprehensive initially, but after doing much research, it turns out that canvas and glue is a traditional way that ships were created. We had our winner for the solution!!
I went to the store, picked up 3 gallons of Titebond III glue, a 12”x15” drop canvas, and a few other odds and ends, paint tray kit, scrapers, silicone, etc.
We started off by laying out the canvas on top of the camper and making sure it would fit.
Afterwords we cut off some of the excess, while still leaving approximately 6-8 inches passed the edge of the sides.
We applied a layer of the glue, pouring it very liberally across the camper, then applied the canvas. We folded over the half that was glued with the half was not and glued the second half down as well. Afterwards, we poured a liberal amount of glue and used plastic scrapers to spread it evenly. Note that we did not glue the sides yet at this point. We did one half of the camper, making sure to remove all wrinkles before preceding to the other half.
We then cut out the section for the fan and glued that down as well.
We glued the sides and followed the same steps. When we cut the corners, we folded the flaps over each other. Unfortunately there was an accident with one of the the corners, and we ripped the canvas but we used the excess we cut off to patch it underneath. I didn’t take pictures of this, but I can tomorrow.
This is after two coats were applied and cured. You can see the sides smooth as well, and the corner with the patch underneath the front right corner of the top (left side of the image). We were starting ti feel confident about this process at this point.
We followed up by cutting the excess of the canvas off and glueing it underneath the wood of the top. The aluminum trim pieces that have the seal on them sit over this part so I’m not too worried about water. It will be siliconed and sealed with the roof coating I already purchased.
We also tackled the door. There was any damage in the wood of the door, but we used my buddy’s parts camper’s door and it happened to fix perfectly.
I’ll take some more pictures tomorrow as we continue on with this project. We’re making a big push to finish it up and get out there camping before the season is over. Stay tuned for more!!
