jollymandro
New member
After combing through Expedition Portal for a number of years and using the wealth of information from other members as major design inspiration, I have finally decided to sit down and upload the result of my own build. This is a summary of the build I undertook three years ago to construct a custom wood camper for my 2011, 2wd Toyota Tacoma. I hope this build thread can shed some light on the lessons learned during the process and help others in their own builds. I had a ton of fun building this hunk of firewood and hope someone out there can learn from the mistakes I made.
Goal: Create lightweight camper that is sleek, functional and rugged
Building materials: I drew up a version of what I wanted to make, then started measuring and cutting wood. I used a combination of redwood, doug fir and pine wood to frame the camper, with 5/8" ply for siding, salvaged glass slider windows on the sides, and 3/8" acrylic for the port holes and rear doors. All wood joints were glued and screwed using either liquid nails or sika flex construction adhesive and exterior screws. The corners of the plywood were routered with a 1/2" roundover bit then fiberglassed and resined. The whole thing was painted using a high quality exterior acrylic paint. for the roof, I used a saber saw to cut a slight curve into six 1"x8" pine roof joists installed every 16". I then installed 1"x4" pine boards perpendicular to the joists, layed down 8mil plastic sheeting, and then attached galvanized sheet metal using roofing screws with a neprene washer. The camper has 6 anchor points: one in each corner using a heavy duty bracket fastened with lag bolts to the wood frame and anchored to the truck bed frame using 880lb rated turn buckles and the native toyota torx bolts through the chassis. Each bed rail has a modified aluminum C-clamp that attaches to the factory channel in the bed rail.
Goal: Create lightweight camper that is sleek, functional and rugged
Building materials: I drew up a version of what I wanted to make, then started measuring and cutting wood. I used a combination of redwood, doug fir and pine wood to frame the camper, with 5/8" ply for siding, salvaged glass slider windows on the sides, and 3/8" acrylic for the port holes and rear doors. All wood joints were glued and screwed using either liquid nails or sika flex construction adhesive and exterior screws. The corners of the plywood were routered with a 1/2" roundover bit then fiberglassed and resined. The whole thing was painted using a high quality exterior acrylic paint. for the roof, I used a saber saw to cut a slight curve into six 1"x8" pine roof joists installed every 16". I then installed 1"x4" pine boards perpendicular to the joists, layed down 8mil plastic sheeting, and then attached galvanized sheet metal using roofing screws with a neprene washer. The camper has 6 anchor points: one in each corner using a heavy duty bracket fastened with lag bolts to the wood frame and anchored to the truck bed frame using 880lb rated turn buckles and the native toyota torx bolts through the chassis. Each bed rail has a modified aluminum C-clamp that attaches to the factory channel in the bed rail.
Attachments
-
IMG_1223.jpg2.8 MB · Views: 169
-
IMG_1224.jpg206 KB · Views: 162
-
IMG_1225.jpg179.6 KB · Views: 141
-
IMG_1226.jpg183.3 KB · Views: 139
-
IMG_1228.jpg221.1 KB · Views: 138
-
IMG_1229.jpg150.7 KB · Views: 143
-
IMG_1232.jpg180.7 KB · Views: 138
-
IMG_1233.jpg145.3 KB · Views: 143
-
IMG_1238.jpg179 KB · Views: 147
Last edited: