Weekend Plan

Ok, this may only make sense to me. Since I'm on a fixed budget for this camper and really only have so much room, I need to make some compromises. That's one way to look at it, I suppose. The better way to see it is to say that I need to work smarter rather than throw money at a problem. So I sketched up this new version of the jig that I plan to use when assembling the ribs for the camper.



The big red rectangle is a 4x8 sheet of 3/4" thick plywood. The other red rectangles are 2x4s. I essentially want to box the external limits of the ribs to limit the maximum overall width and height of the camper. This will ensure that the sides and top: the exterior skin of the camper, will lay properly and uniformly. The smallest red boxes are also lengths of 2x4 place in a way that will set the placement of key items in the overall assembly.

So there’s a blue and green version of the rib. The plan is to assemble the ribs in halves, starting with the bottom (blue) half. The megagussets will be squared against the long 2x4s and the frame pieced together up to the lumber sections just prior to the round gussets. The frame is then flipped (once the glue dries) so that the top (green) half can be squared against the 2x4s. The small red 2x4 blocks are there to positively locate the top half construction to the existing bottom half.- that is, when flipped, the megagussets will butt up against the blocks and the top half will be assembled. This ensures the maximum overall height. The flaw in this is that it doesn’t take into account any variation in width among the megagussets. So I guess it’s good they’re all cut with a pattern cutter on my router.

It’s like I planned it.

So this weekend trip to the Home Depot will be for some 2x4 and the 1x3 framing lumber. I’m hoping to scavenge some 7/4 in plywood at work so that I can cut them down to 2” wide strips so I don’t have to buy 14 8’ lengths of that 1x3 (1x3 is actually .75 x 2.75 requiring some table sawing). I’m still tossing and turning over my glue options. Gorilla glue and the like is every bit as strong as epoxy as long as it’s all well clamped prior to it curing. My big issue is that I’m hard-wired to overbuild and overtighten tolerances. I’m doing this like it’s my job. I mean, come on – who brings calipers to the lumber yard or measures with a 36” machinist scale graduated in 1/100s of an inch?

This person (thumbs @ me).