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apologies for my earlier post. I had brain fade.
yes–you should epoxy the inside while the shell is still in the mold. you can tilt the mold to the side and on its ends to reach the entirety of the inside of the shell.
what I was thinking about in my earlier post was VARNISHING the inside, which I did after the floor was in and the camper was right-side up.
I would respectfully disagree with artistic Adam, and I would cut the doors out before epoxying the inside. yes, depending on the saw you use to cut the doors out, there might be some minor tearout, but getting in and out of the camper before the doors are cut is an exercise!
as for minimizing tearout–I bought a Dremel ultra-saw. it is designed like a miniature old-school Skil worm-drive circular saw. the blade (actually its more like an abrasive disk) is mounted forward and you can easily see the cut as you are making it. plus, you can set the front of the shoe on the work, and then carefully plunge the blade into the wood. I was able to hit the cut line dead-on on all the cuts. it makes a lot of fine dust so wear your dust mask.
I wouldn’t try to over-engineer the galley hatch lift system (speaking as an engineer who always likes to over-engineer everything). CLC supplies 20# pistons. I and many others have discovered that in cooler temps, the 20# pistons don’t exert quite enough force (as predicted by the ideal gas law, with pressure proportional to temperature in a fixed volume) so I replaced one of the 20#-ers with a 30# piston. that solved the problem.
this is one of the mysteries of the TD build. there are a couple of other threads that address this. there is something about the geometry of the gallery flat relative to the sides that prevents it from going into its location without a lot of force.
when I was dry fitting it, ONE time it slipped into place but I couldn’t reproduce that phenomenon. so, I sanded about 1/16 off each side, which permitted me to get it into place, but then there was a 1/16″ gap on both sides!! go figure!
the good news is that after applying the fillets, top and bottom, the oversized gap was filled and all was well.
ken
I used the northern tool 5×8 aluminum trailer. IIRC, the shipping weight (including wheels/tires) was about 150 lb. I estimate my TD weighs about 350 including a battery, so the total wt is about 500lb. the northern tools trailer is very well built. and, being aluminum, it’s easy to cut the members to length with a powered jig saw. it’s about 10 inches too long (again, IIRC from last summer). to get the tongue weight right, I mounted the TD at the front of the trailer frame, and cut the excess off the back end of the frame. it was easy to drill new holes in the members to accomodate the rearmost cross-member at the new location.
as was said above, you don’t need to worry about a “chassis ground”.
I would suggest buying one of these:
it may be a little overkill, but it’s what I used.
it has a connection at the bottom to which to connect the positive post of your battery. then you use blade fuses to distribute power to whatever you are installing–LED lights, USB outlets, 12V power outlets, etc.
it has a connection at the top to which you connect the negative post of your battery, and then there are terminals to attach the negative lead to whatever you are installing. (this is equivalent to the negative “bus bar” mentioned in a previous post).
I used 16 gauge wires, which are capable of 10 amps. the only items that really need 10 amp capacity are the 12V cigarette lighter-style outlets, but using the same wire throughout simplifies things. you should be able to find 16 gauge speaker wire on amazon or at one of the big box stores.
I agree with rovineye and abrightwell. it’s all about the watts, not the voltage. plus, anytime you do a conversion (from 12v to 5 v, from 12v dc to 120v ac etc) there is an inherent loss of energy. stick to 12v led lights etc and you’ll be fine.
if you plan on taking a TV along, there are some smallish LED tv’s (21-23″) that are 12v and come with 120v to 12v power supplies, like you use with your laptop. go to your favorite big box store and look at the backs of the small tv’s. I’ve checked recently and Samsung and LG tv’s are mostly 19v, but some of the off-brand small tv’s re 12v. I have a couple of 23″ LED tvs and they are rated at only 22 watts. you can then build a cord with a cigarette lighter plug on one end and the right size power jack on the other end. that would eliminate the inherent loss when using an inverter to convert battery power to 120v AC. of course, if you’re camping where you have shore power, not an issue.
I agree with abrightwell that you will have enough fiberglass cloth if you follow the recommended process in the manual.
as for temperature–I started my build last spring and I heated my workshop to 65. I discovered that at that temp the resin and hardener don’t flow too well from the pumps on the bottles, so overnight I kept the bottles in the house. if you can’t do that (maybe your workshop is remote) then you could fill a small rubbermaid tub with warm water and warm the bottles up that way.
if you decide to forgo the velcro method, I would strongly suggest using 3M spray adhesive “77” (maroon can). I used it. it is tacky enough to hold the headliner in place, but not nearly as strong as contact cement, so you can remove a panel without damaging it if you want to install wiring, etc. IIRC it only took one large can, which I bought at Michael’s with a 40% off coupon.
the CLC headliner material appears to be the same material as the lock-together high density foam padding used on the floor in workout rooms, etc. Costco has this for about $10 per 6 2x2ft squares. the flooring material is a bit thinner, but if I had it to do over again I would have saved about $300 and used the flooring material. I was not impressed with the pre-cutting of the material by CLC. yes, there will be slight variations in the construction the shell from builder to builder, but even given that there was too much trimming and fitting required, given what we paid.
