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Well, I got the rest of the headliner in. It is quite challenging and the cramped quarters don’t help much. I did remember a technique that I have used for laminate work and contact cement that really helped. If, after the contact cement has TOTALLY dried on the camper shell and the headliner, cover the glued surface of the headliner (every square inch) with a sheet of newspaper and leave some protruding out an inch or so. Then you can fit the piece of headliner into the spot it belongs and carefully line up the critical edges-the newspaper will not stick to either surface. Once it is in place and you are happy with how everything is, tilt the headliner back just enough to start slowly pulling out the newspaper. As you pull it out, apply pressure to the newspaper free areas to get them to stick. Continue pulling the newspaper out until that panel is secure. Go slow and careful and it works quite well.
I gluded one camper panel and the corresponding headliners at a time and went slow. I also dry fit the pieces with the newspaper in place to get a feel for issues I might have before I committed to the glue.
I did discover that the 2 “L” pieces that fit around the top hatch were a bit skimmpy-the trim piece may not be big enough to cover the remaining gap. I think I can patch it and I doubt it will ever be noticed.
Best of luck!The router fence works great for the straight edges, and going slow on the curves without the fence works pretty well. Some touch up with sand paper softens some of the imperfect lines that are inevitable. Because I’m building the teardrop in one bay of a 3 car garage in central New York, heat is my big challenge (2.7F yesterday am). I put my 6 brooder lights with 75 watt bulbs (as per “shop tips”) inside the camper. That keeps the interior easily over 60 degrees. With a table set up to lay out just the side pieces (for one door side only) that I previously eased the edges of, I heated up the garage with the kerosene space heater and got the temp up to 70. I have to shut down the heater to keep from blowing the garage up-very dense fumes from that cement-glad I have a good respirator! I then put one coat of contact cement on all the liner pieces and a coat on the one interior side. I discovered it took 3 coats of contact cement on the foam to get good adhesion. I crawled in and installed the one side-managed to get them all on okay with only one spot not quite as nice as I would have liked it. That contact cement is totally unforgiving! I am not looking forward to doing all the front and overhead pieces. It sure does look nice though-really makes the door sill, door and bulkhead stand out. We’re heading for a stretch of fairly warm weather so I’ll tackle the rest in the next few days. I’ll send a pict if I can figure out how to do that.
SOMDTD,
I too am at the headliner stage. I was hesitant to use the router on the foam, but set up the router table and used a 1/2″ roundover bit with the bearing guide at the top of it. The bearing guide and the router table fence allow you to set it up so the foam can’t get sucked in too far. It worked fine although some of the small points have been a challenge. The general rounded edge is smooth. I do think it is a result of a new bit and the 25000 rpm of the router. 3000 rpm will just chop up that edge, not make it smooth-time for a new router.
I’m concerned about using that contact cement-very unforgiving! I’ll keep you posted.
