saDgit's flat-faced pop-top

[saDgit]

Nah, we slept feet first - too claustrophobic the other way round we thought - but I doubt we ever looked very elegant getting in and out of bed. Fortunately there was never anybody else there to see.

[saDgit]

Here's the problem - chopped strand mat doesn't like to go round 90 degree angles which is why it's often recommended to form a radiused corner for it to go over rather than a right-angled one wherever possible. The reason is that the mat is made, as its name implies, from a random layer of chopped glassfibre strands which are temporarily bonded together with an emulsion. (I don't know what "an emulsion" means, I just read that.) This holds the mat together but also makes it resistant to bending until it is saturated. If you fold the dry mat and run your hand along it it will bend but it won't crease and it won't hold the fold. When the mat is laid on wet resin and saturated with more resin, the emulsion is dissolved and the glassfibre strands are left suspended in the resin which is what gives the resulting composite its strength. At that point, until the resin cures, the mat is quite flexible but it's also impossible to move.

On my camper the the small vertical 'stand' around the hole in the roof is what's going to keep the rain out and the inside dry so I had to be able to glassfibre it but I really didn't want a radiused corner between that and the flat of the roof. Or, at least, I wanted the radius to be as near zero as possible. So somehow I had to find a way of getting the dry mat to hold a crease.

Here's the answer - treat the mat like any other fabric and iron it. I didn't know whether or not this would work but it seemed to me there was little to lose and so I went in search of an iron. And kudos to me for knowing that we still had one somewhere at the back of the kitchen cupboard. Clare (Mrs saDgit) thought we'd got rid of it years ago. Mind you it doesn't get used much. We bought our place in France 11 years ago and the iron's still got a UK plug on it! We figure that if we stand out because our clothes aren't ironed we've probably gone to the wrong place.


Anyway I discovered that by folding the mat over and then ironing along the crease, just with the edge of the iron, the emulsion disappears (presumably melts?), the fibres soften and the crease holds. So I was able to make lengths of dry, angled mat ready to lay into the corners once I'd brushed resin onto them.


And it worked a treat.


I've only done this with a dry iron and it worked well. I don't know if you sprayed the mat first with water, or even used steam, whether it would be better, worse or the same. I doubt whether the temperature of the iron is critical but the 'cotton' setting worked for me. You do have to remember that, because the emulsion has gone from along the crease, the mat is weaker there and has to be handled with care. On the plus side, because the emusion has gone from along the crease, the fibres are softer and will soak up the resin much more willingly and so it's easy to push the mat right into the corner.

I don't think the process left any residue on the iron but if your silk shirt ends up stiffer than usual, or your wife's dress sparkles with tiny shards of glassfibre, I'm afraid you're on your own!

[zildjian]

I think that falls broadly into the dishwasher/degreaser category of things listed to cause marital disharmony, on the plus side it saves Claire a trip to 'new look' and you'd do well to keep that little gem handy if I were you


(you can have that gratis)

[Phoenixsp1]

Great idea Martin, I'll remember that one.

[saDgit]

Laying up the glassfibre on the roof of the camper is taking me longer than I thought it would. I'm sure that's mostly down to my inexperience but I also seem to be spending lots of time waiting for resin mixes to go off so that I can reuse mixing buckets, or sand off high spots, or whatever. Hopefully in the end the result will mean that it's been time well spent.

I've tried not to waste the time though because I only have four more weeks on the project before I have to wrap it up for the summer . So while I've been waiting I've glued the front and luton floor panels in place, holding them with a kind of Heath Robinson combination of clamps, blocks and ratchet straps while the glue cures.


I've also started to fill the curved roof panels with the XPS insulation - a time consuming job, kerfing the reverse, but curiously satisfying and it looks so good it seems like a shame to cover it!

[saDgit]

I've never heard of Pullman campers before but that familiar curved roofline caught my eye. Shame I didn't go for that sliding canopy as well though! Although I'm not sure that it's demountable (at least not in this model), hanging the kitchen on the back door under the canopy (Australian camper style) leaves loads of layout options in the camper body. I like it! Better start again.

[TrueDink]

Modern take on the space problem. A T5 Doubleback.

[saDgit]

Hooray! Skinned at last. That's the last piece of the outer skin glued and held in place today by the usual collection of clamps, blocks and ratchet straps.


With all of the skin now in place, complete with holes for windows and hatches, and the roof 'glassed and finished it begins to look as though it may even be a camper one day!


Don't hold your breath though, there's still a way to go. Next job is to move towards getting all the sides sealed and partially varnished before I have to pack it in for the summer in a couple of weeks time. That means coats of epoxy sealant with lots of sanding, and then coats of yacht varnish with lots of sanding, and then lots of sanding, and lots of s ... and then that'll be it until sometime in the back end (possibly October, maybe November) when we'll be back here and I can carry on, probably with more varnish and sanding!

[Phoenixsp1]

Great work Martin, I really like the curved roof. Why do you have to stop work till later in the year, if you don't mind me asking?

[saDgit]

Why do you have to stop work till later in the year, if you don't mind me asking?

Just our regular annual migration Clive - winter/spring somewhere warm and preferably sunny (in recent years that's meant Provence since we bought a house there), summer/autumn back to the UK in the motorhome usually working the fruit season (June-October) to keep ourselves fit and supplement our pensions. No complaints!