My Camper Shell Build

After much searching I could not find a camper shell for my new truck that I liked.  I did not want a huge slide in camper and I also did not want a small shell/cap.  The price of either of these choices also did not make me very happy.  So, I decided that I could quickly make one myself.  Boy was I deluding myself.

I downloaded the measurements for my truck bed from the RAM web site and sat down to design my camper.  The first trouble I ran into was that the bed of a 6.5' RAM is not square. With my plans in hand I sat about the task of building it.  I went down to the local lumber yard and purchased my first load of wood for the project.  I decided to use pressure treated wood for the bottom supports and Cedar for the frame.

I took the bottom two 2x8 pressure treated boards out to my truck and clamped them onto my truck bed to be sure they were positioned correctly then screwed temporary board across them to hold them in place. Then took them back into the garage and started cutting, screwing, and glueing my camper frame together.

I used long #10 deck screws to hold the lumber in place along with lots and lots of glue.

Once I had the frame roughed together I used cheep 3/8" plywood to cover it with.  This will be a mistake.  I should have splurged for more expensive wood.

The back piece of plywood is 3/4".

You can see all of the knot holes and defects in the cheep plywood.  All of these would need to be filled.  I cheeped out again and used regular Bondo instead of the fancy wood version as it was much more expensive.

I spent several weeks applying then sanding Bondo.  Then I applied a wood filler to the entire structure.  I then spent several more weeks filling, sanding, primer painting and repeating.  Every time I thought I had it nice and smooth, the grain of the cheep plywood would stand up again.  I think I ended up with about 12 coats of primer on the camper.  Then I applied some nice boat top deck gloss white paint to the outside.

In between coats of paint I started on the inside.  I used 1.5" foam sheets that I construction glued between the frame members.

After a bit of shopping I found I did not like any of the wood paneling I was finding at the lumber yard.  I thought about using the cheep laminate flooring or some fancy tongue and grove cedar.  But, the price started to go way up.  So, I purchased some more 2x4 cedar and had at it with my saw cutting into thin strips that I could glue to the inside.  I found that construction glue would not work for this as the moisture content would warp the thin slats even after they were sealed.  Good old contact cement wound up working just fine.

Once this was done I was ready to install the camper toper vent(Amazon), windows(eBay), and door. The door I had custom built at https://www.challengerdoor.com.  The sales rep Stacy was very patient and took good care of me. Awesome door!

I wired in some USB ports with built in DC-DC converters at the front and back of the camper to power lights and other electronics.  I found a 7way trailer connector on Amazon with a break out box to access the wiring.  Found some cheep LED lights bars to augment the trucks rear lights.

Finally I was ready to mount it on my truck with a set of Murphy camper jacks.  I removed the tailgate of my truck and hoisted it onto my truck.  It went on nice and smoot.  I used 8 clamps to attach it to the bed of my truck.  It fit perfect.  Then disaster struck.  I was cleaning the windows and closed one a bit too hard and it shattered.  So, I order up another window from eBay and was just going to swap out the broken part.  But, the window would not come out of the new frame once it was assembled. It was too wide.  It should have come out after removing the spacers at the top and bottom but, the window was 1/8" too big to come out.  So, I had to remove the entire old frame and put in the new one.  The old one did not want to come out.  I could not even get a knife blade in-between the camper side and the window.  After much prying I was able to get it out.  Along with a lot of paint and wood.  Again the cheep wood failed me leaving large chunks ripped off the side. I had to take the camper back off the truck and go back to the sanding and Bondo phase. :(  Then repainting the side with three more coats of paint.

On the plus side my decal kits arrived and having the camper off of the truck made installing these much easier.

After watching several YouTube videos on how to apply vinyl decals I went for it.  It was fairly straight forward.  Then back onto the truck the camper went.

I made a couple of plywood boards to lay across the back for a bed.  I placed several long strips across the bottom to make it stiffer.  This will give me about 6' 5" of bed space.  I found a nice 6" foam mattress on Amazon in a twin size that fits perfect.

I have some fun fabric for the curtains.  I will update this when I have them finished.

This was a much bigger project than I had anticipated.  If I were to do it again I would learn how to do fiberglass and put a coating of epoxy on the outside.  I would also have purchased better plywood for the outside skin. It is sealed up very well as it is.  I used several coats of the RV seal coat paint that they put on the roof of RVs on the top and around any seams that I felt may be compromised when driving down the road on a stormy night.  All in all I am very happy with the results.  My budget was to stay under $2000.  I have not added it up yet but, I think I did.  The most expensive parts were the door and windows.  The Door was not too bad of a price but, the shipping was very expensive. Same with the windows. I started the project in January and finished in May.

Now, let's go camping!

Finally finished.

I have been working on a quilt forever that was just suppose to be a small experiment.  I had sandwiched two cheep pieces of fabric and some batting together and pinned it.  This took 20min. Then I was going to go crazy quilting all over the place. Two and a half months later I have finally finished it.

As you can see, I got just a bit carried away.  The front is a simple white el-cheapo fabric from Joan's bargain bin. The back was some left over pink satin.  I thought that a flower of life in the center would be fun to do.  So, I set up my machine and went to town sewing circles.  Then I decided that some small seed of life circles would be fun around the larger flower.  So, more circles. Circles, circles and more circles.  After a week or two staring at the work in progress, I started a field of intersecting arcs or waves behind the flower and seeds.  Then the flower and seeds were drifting on waves of intersecting arcs.  A couple more weeks went by studying the result of this and I finally came up with a plan for the boarder. So, I started cutting fabric and folding it into small triangles. Triangles, triangles, and more triangles.  Then finally it was finished.  Well, almost.  The plan had been to not pre-wash the fabrics, use different types of fabric for the top and bottom, then wash it when finished in hot water so that it would crumple up.  So, into the washing machine the whole thing went.  I watched with the lid open into the washing machine, with worry, fear, hope, and extreme anxiety as my two and a half month project was being twisted and swirled about in the machine.  After what seemed like hours the washer buzzed, on to the drier the project went.

What a relief, the quilt had survived!

Now I just need to find a wall to hang it on. :)

Quilting

Ok, someone tell me why women are the majority of people who quilt!  Nothing about it are stereotypical women things.  There is a lot of math involved.  Fun geometry type math. High tech computer controlled machines. Lots of pushing and pulling.

Now, I can see why women like the end result.  But, it seems like the building part is more of a stereotypicaly man type job to me.

Significance of ancient Indian buildings and petroglyphs

I made an interesting observation the other day. I was watching the PBS program on the Chaka Canyon Indian ruins. They were showing how many of the buildings were aligned to the solar cycles and lunar cycles. They also talked about how the moons orbit was off by several degrees to the rotation of the earth. This caused a cyclic patter that takes 18.5 years to complete. Many of the buildings are aligned in the Chaka canyon area to mark where in this cycle the moon is. They also showed how the Spiral pattern that is found on many rocks is also a marker of where in this long lunar cycle they are. Usually combined with this spiral pattern are petroglyphs depicting different animals. I was curious about were we currently were in this long lunar cycle. So, I went to the internet and did a search. What I found was very surprising. What my search brought up were links to farmer’s almanacs, weather, bass fishing, and hunting sites. Apparently, the gravitational pull the moon has on the earth and were the moon is overhead, changes the tidal patterns, which affects the weather patterns. Animals and plants are very sensitive to these patterns. The farmers almanacs tell the farmers when the best time to plant and what crops to plant. It also indicates whether the growing season will be wet, dry, long, short, even what temperature ranges to expect. The bass sites indicated when the bass would be biting based on the lunar cycles. The hunting sites indicated when the game animals would be moving and were they would be based on the lunar cycles. This is exactly the type of information that a group of people living in such a harsh environment would need to survive. They would need to know where and when game would be. They would need to know when and what to plant. The buildings and petroglyphs were not places of worship. They were scientific observation points. The spirals on rock with different animals marked around them were simply indicating when the herds of game would be in the area for hunting. The big buildings aligned with the cycles were used to plan the growing season for their crops. Of course, since the Indians have a great reverence for the planet and nature, I can see how they would plan fun celebrations with dancing and songs of praise based on the changing cycles.

One of the people I visited with today told me a fun joke;

A man walks into a church and notices that there is a large golden pillar with a golden phone attached to it. A sign next to the phone indicates that the phone is a direct line to heaven and that calls are $2000 each. Dismayed by the price he goes to another church and low and behold he finds the same golden pillar and same golden phone but, the price is still $2000 per call. After finding many of these phones in all the churches he visits with the same $2000 price he gives up looking. One day he is visiting in Ireland and when he goes to church on Sunday he finds that they also have the same golden pillar and the same golden phone. He is very puzzled by the sign. This sign indicates that a direct call to heaven is only 25cents. So, he finds the Pasteur and asks him why the call is only 25cents when everywhere else it is $2000. The Pasteur replies, "Here in Ireland it is a local call."

The person who told me this joke today was a very delightful elderly woman with bright red hair. She also had the most wonderful Irish accent when she told this joke.

It is always fun to meet new people and share a small moment chatting. These small moments are the jewels you get every day. Don't miss out on them.

Fun Talk

Elder Bednar of the Mormon Church recently gave a speech to a youth group on the perils of social networking on the web and the creation of avatars in the virtual world. In my opinion he could have been just a bit stronger in his admonitions.

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://broadcast.lds.org/ces/2009/May/CES_2009_05_00_BednarDA__108662_eng_.mp3&h=63591608add01cb841b28b960f2a4f6d

My view of this is that we need to act in all worlds as a moral and enlightened being. If we hope or desire to be a good person at our core, we need to be a good person even when in private when no one is watching. Our minds are a completely awesome system, building new neural pathways when we have new experiences and reinforcing pathways when repeating activities and experiences. The pathways in the brain are the same whether we experience the activity in the real world or some other virtual world.

Many of the emotional ills that we see people having are a result of conflicting pathways in their brains. In one world they must follow one set of rules, in another world there are no rules. It is inevitable that once the pathways are built and reinforced in one world, these behaviors will bleed over into the other worlds.

We must always behave as a moral being. Which ever world we find ourselves in.

Where is Love?

Let go of the pretend world of hate, fear, hunger, and the hustle and bustle of the current social paradigm. Embrace a world filled with love and possibilities.

I was speaking with a friend about relationships and love the other day. He had a very pessimistic view. He felt the only reason that a couple is together is based on what is in it for them. How much money does he have? How well will my carnal desires be fulfilled? Along with a variety of angles that need to be played against each other in order to have your needs fulfilled.

In my world; a couple is together because they actually desire each other, they actually love each other regardless of what the other person says or does, considers how their actions will affect their partner, a relationship where it is ok to disagree, a relationship where fear is vacant, money and power have no baring on the relationship.

I have been told many times that I am living in a fantasy world and that I need to wake up and join the REAL world. The reality is that they have it backwards. Unfortunately, a large number of minds have embraced this backwards view. There is no reason for us to buy into this cold dark reality when there is an alternative. Your perception of YOUR reality is YOUR reality. Make it one of love, hope, and peace. It is your choice.