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Soooooo, I kinda hate the CLC roof vent setup. It’s nice that it accommodates off-the-shelf RV vents… but that’s not really what I want. I am more interested in having a large openable skylight. So I ordered this sexy marine deck hatch and I’m going to figure out how to make it work. It’s the largest and most minimalistic one I could find.
External dimensions (inches): 20.5 x 20.5 x 0.9
Cut-out dimensions (inches): 18.5 x 18.5
Time to clean and re-organize the shop!
Lots of progress this weekend! I glassed the starboard side Saturday morning. Then on Sunday morning I cleaned up the shop and reorganized my layout a bit to make easier access to the other side of the shell. In the evening, I was able to get the port side glassed.
A couple lessons learned: first, working and cutting the fiberglass cloth gets silica fibers eeeeeverywhere. It’s almost as bad as working with fiberglass insulation. Wear a respirator. Second, putting a sturdy plastic toolbox under the very middle of the camper shell gives it something to pivot on. This made it easy to tilt back and forth and get up on my little sawhorses. Finally, if you tilt it far enough, you won’t need to tape down the cloth.
I’m super pleased to have the main glassing done. Now it’s time to buy a miniature circular saw and cut huge holes in my work.
……… I’m terrified again.
Thank you for the kind words! Only thing I did that wasn’t in the instructions is scrape and scrape and scrape with an epoxy spreader until absolutely no more epoxy could squeeze out of the glass. Result: no bubbles, no puddles, and no runs. 😎
All sanded and filled…
Don’t want any drips inside….
Completed the first big fiberglass step… which was my first big fiberglass project ever. I was kinda terrified, but it went smoothly. My stress level now is significantly lower than before I started.
Filleted and glassed all the interior floor-to-shell seams. This time I pre-saturated my strips of fiberglass tape and applied them already wet. This was soooo much easier and safer than saturating it in place. I should have taken this advice sooner.
Next, I get to remove the construction frame!
Prepped and flipped! Taped the spots where thickened epoxy may squish out. I also sanded the area under the galley and I’m glad I did. I should have given it another coat of epoxy but I was SUPER eager to get this thing flipped over. It is both larger inside and smaller outside than I was anticipating. I am very pleased. 🙂
Epoxied the under-galley area. Sanded the floor. Lifted the floor into place. Trimmed the floor. Screwed the floor into place. Finally ready to flip this thing over.
I was left with some gaps in the forward corners. Those will just get taped on this side and then filled with thickened epoxy from the other side. The whole thing will be encased in fiberglass, so I’m not worried.
Not the best finish, but acceptable. I’m using rollers intended for non-sticky paint. They tend to introduce little bubbles in the sticky epoxy where they would leave a nice smooth finish with a latex paint. Still much to learn about epoxy. I’ll definitely be ordering some rollers rated for epoxy.
Laid up the galley flat this weekend. Thanks to my dad for routing the stiffeners for me! I then took those and aggressively rounded the cabin-facing end on my little disc sander. They’re just stuck down with wood glue which should be stronger than the wood itself, so that’s fine.
I ended up figuring out how to get the galley flat jammed into place without any trimming. There was even a bit of a gap on the starboard side. This sucked up a lot of thickened epoxy from my fillet, so I came back later and added more after the first batch had mostly hardened. I imagine I’ll have a bit of a mess when I get access to the other side.
As all the new fillets were curing, I finally unpacked the floor panels. So heavy! I should get that put together this week and installed next weekend. Stay tuned!
I’m going to have issues getting the galley flat into position. It gets stuck here. Any recommendations?
Much better on the fillets this time. Still had issues with my un-thickened epoxy setting too quickly, but that’s just because I was mixing too much at once and wasn’t keeping the environment warm enough. It started gelling and I didn’t get full saturation right above the door. That’s when I went and mixed a fresh batch. Later, I will come back and sand that down more to do some re-glassing. More lessons learned.
Onward to the port side!
