Finally, a month after bringing home the Tufport I've started building the bed platform. Two bouts with 2 viruses laid me low. Hopefully that's over now and I can do more than work and rest and activities of daily living. If not, I will do what I can. Even so, during that month, I finalized the design of the bed, bought the lumber and found all my tools (after a recent move many of them had hidden away on me). I took the camper back to Tufport because there were leaks. They discovered that the silicone sealant was defective. Fixed now.
Ever Changing Plans
I've settled on this bed design that I found on Bob Wells' blog. It is a sliding pull out bed that will compress into a couch in the day time. This means the table will not be part of a built in dinette. I will use a small folding camp table and folding camp chairs during the daytime. They will fold up and be stored (haven't decided how) at night. The bed will be at the height of the wings that go over the sides of the pickup truck. The wings will complete the length of the bed.
I've decided that I will make this build as easy on myself as possible so as to be able to finish it by mid-December. Once I live with it for a while I'll decide what works and what needs to be changed.
Building in the living room
While it rains and rains in Vancouver I'm sawing, drilling and planing inside. Probably just as well I couldn't go camping in the rainiest October on record.
I like your accuracy and attitude. Certainly becoming you follower :-)
ReplyDeleteMay I suggest you to consider PVA tubes of different diameters for frame as LIGHT weight solution?...
Also, take a look this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucf2FVIdr1Q - Light weight furniture from foam. (...would like to be helpful.)
How are you planning to insulate the rig? (I am from North Canada.)
Once again, thanks for an idea (did know about this Company before).
BTW, what did you name "Canadian modifications"?
Glad I found your Blog.
Good luck in your build.
thank you John!
ReplyDeletethank you for the PVC tube construction idea, I have used them for making fairing mounts for my recumbent in the past. I'll think about it again for this build. Lightness is important for the small Tacoma weight capacity.
I will check out the foam furniture link.
I was thinking of some sort of foam insulation. When I mentioned styrofoam slab to Tufport, they said that it tends to disintegrate from the vibration after the truck goes down rough logging roads. They use reflectix, but I think that is not the best use of that material. I may use closed cell foam from sleeping mats, cut to fit in between the wood strips I had them install. The interior finish will probably be a stiff plastic sheet material that they showed me. I don't know the name of it, and probably won't have time to do the insulation until next fall as I have a couple of long trips that I'm planning.
Tufport has been a very good company to work with, for all the modifications I asked for.
Canadian pricing is a lot higher for Four Wheel Campers, they explain it on this page:
http://fourwheelcampers.ca/price%20diff.htm
Cheers,
Ming
Very nice build. I have a couple questions.
ReplyDelete- bed design - I like the collapsing pull-out bed design too. Will it pull out from back of cab since you said the dinette is out? What is the total fistance for sleeping side to side.
- insulation - it looks like the fiberglass shell is a single thickness from inside to outside. You mention wood strips and putting insulation between them. I didn't see the wooden strips. Are they inside the fiberglass? If you put insulation on inside what plans do you have to frame out the windows as they seem flush to the wall?
Thanks and keep up your posts.
Brent
Thank you Brent!
ReplyDeleteYes, the bed will pull out from the back of the cab. The area by the door will be shelves and a counter for kitchen work. The bed will be 52" wide when pulled out, around 30" when collapsed into couch mode. Unfortunately the window at the cab end will be covered by the back of the couch unless it's pulled down and stacked on top of the bottom piece in "day bed" configuration. That will leave a tiny area for a small, low chair and small side table that someone can sit at while the other person stands at the "kitchen" counter for cooking.
Side to side bed dimension is 6 feet, so can accommodate sleepers up to 5'6" tall.
Yes, the wood strips are glassed into the wall, so they just show up as linear bumps on the white wall, hard to see in the photos. I asked for the windows to be wood framed as well, so that I could install curtain rods and insulate. Tufport was very good at working with me to give me precisely what I asked for.
This is why I am glad that I bought new, they did a lot of custom work for free: extra wood framing, they made the camper longer – 6.5ft instead of their usual 6ft, and they effectively insulated the top part of it for me. Normally, they use conduit to stiffen the roof, but for me they used a 1/2 inch thick cardboard honeycomb that gets soaked in the resin they use for fiberglassing. They lined the entire top half of the camper this way, leaving only the walls from the top of the windows down as uninsulated single layer fiberglass. So I only have to insulate the walls, and I will probably only get to it next year. I plan to get some sort of foam, 1/2 or 3/4 inch, cut pieces to fit between the wood framing, and screw on some thin plastic wallboard that they showed me at the factory. Apparently I can find that plastic at the hardware store.