Build an Expensive Camper WAY Cheaper

functional lightweight easy to build and affordable these are my goals for this project I want to have a pop top camper for my truck but even the cheapest ones I found cost like $8,000 which is way too expensive for me and also they don't really sell them where I live down here so I'm going to try to build my own here in my garage essentially we're combining the IDE of a rooftop tent and a truck cap so you get all the benefits of both plus you can fully stand up on the inside and I want to do this all for like uh a quarter of the price of buying a new one I think it'll be easier if I just start building and I'll explain my design and reasoning as we go to begin with I'm marking out 9 mm structural Plywood And I've printed myself this little booklet of all the pieces I need and the measurements from the 3D model that I've made so I can can prep all four sheets worth at the same time all of the cuts are just simple 90° angles so it can all be done by just carefully following the lines with a circular saw of course the circular saw blade won't cut the inside corners without overlap so they need a bit more persuasion these panels are going to become the bread of a construction sandwich I'm making here let me show you the meat that gives this camper it strength is going to be aluminum Hol section beams to join all of these beams together and to fill out the rest of the structure they'll be laminated either side with our plywood panels then those walls can be joined together to create the shell this works so simply because all of the walls are just straight up and down no tapering angles which also gives us maximum internal space I'm going to start with building the sidewalls first as they've got the most going on I chose to use plywood and aluminum because I think they best fit the goals of this project they're relatively cheap easy to get and you only need basic tools and skills to work with them to make space for the aluminum beams to sit in the walls I need to attach some 18 mm playwood strips that I cut earlier the height of these strips is 25 mm which is the same width as the aluminum beams I'm using exterior grade wood glue to bond these strips to the panels then drilling pilot [Music] holes and screwing them [Applause] down because this exterior glue is a little thicker it likes to slide around when you try to clamp it down so seasoning it with a little salt gives it some grip that then dissolves away as the glue sets attaching the strips around the perimeter of the panel is easy CU I can just eyeball Where to drill those holes but for the strips that kind of sit in a bit off the edge I found it easier to drill first through the panel before gluing and clamping then I could drill and screw from the underside knowing that everything was aligned the process was exactly the same for the other panels just gluing and screwing the strips in for the front wall I went a little bit trickier and added some diagonal bracing since this panel doesn't have any aluminum beams in it now the top edge of this tray isn't quite flat which means I had to cut in a slight concave into the bottom edge of the side panels which I did with a jigsaw and then fine tuned with a Stanley number four hand plane I'm now ready to add the aluminum beams into the walls I had the metal SPL cut the longer beams to the exact size I'd need but for these short lengths I had them lift long so I could get an exact fit the cool thing about aluminum and part of the reason I chose to use it is that if you take it slow you can basically use woodworking tools to cut it here I'm using a 62th blade and I'm just slowly pushing through the middle so I don't put too much chip load on with the surfaces already cleaned down with some acetone I'm using heavyduty construction adhesive to stick down to the playwood I did a few tests prior to this and it seemed like the two materials bonded well but I'm also securing it in with self-tapping middle screws this is the main 2.7 M beam going in and it's what will support the caner lever of the bed platform so yeah it got a little bit of extra attention just to make sure it was in properly it was the same process for gluing and screwing for the other beams to top off our wall sandwich the outer panel can now be glued down because this is the exterior facing side of the wall I didn't want screw holes all over it so I found every single clamp I could lay my grubby mitts on and clamped it in place for 24 hours in a perfect world all of the pieces would be completely flushed with each other from the glue up but I used a circular sword to cut these panels so a little clean up with the trim router makes things nice and [Music] tidy before I assemble the walls together I'm reinforcing where the beams are going to be fastened I made these blocks by laminating three pieces of ply together to give me the right thickness adding these blocks will let me screw into the ends of the beams and will also stop them from being crushed when I screw through them you'll see what I mean shortly this is the back wall piece that lines up with the tailgate of the truck and I'm laying out both sides just to make sure I still have enough room to walk around the edges of the garage to connect the walls to each other I'm starting first by drilling a couple of pilot holes and then half sinking some screws these are so when I add the glue I already have the alignment and I can focus on making sure the screws are in properly at all the connection points between the aluminum beams I'm using these heavyduty 125 mm screws which are going into those in blocks I made just before the second side wall goes on exactly the same way the front wall was a little tougher since it didn't have any spots I could easily clamp to so I did the old clamp to a clamp trick and then used ratchet straps to hold it in place while I got the screws in the front edge of the can is also a plywood and aluminum [Music] sandwich and with the last few panels glued in the main structure of the shell is complete and I can move on to assembling the frame of the pop top roof [Applause] now here's a little mistake on my part while I did counter sync these holes to receive the counter syn head of the screw my counter sync wasn't wide enough because there isn't a plywood panel on these beams to let the heads sit completely flush these instead should have been hex head screws because that would have given an even stronger connection now the reason there isn't plywood on the sides of these roof beams isn't just to save weight but it's because I need to be smart about how this roof seals itself from water if we look at a cross-section profile we have the wider top edge of the wall with a raised flange on the inside face and the narrower bottom edge of the roof the Gap created between gives us space for the tent fabric to attach to in a way that doesn't let rain drip down inside the camper when the roof is open I'm spacing the roof and the walls apart the distance of the rubber seals I'll be using and mounting the hinges for the roof along the front edge I just have to watch out for where I put those super long screws through I'm just putting two hinges in for now so I can check everything's working later I put two more across the middle it's pretty well balanced front to back so I have to be careful not to to tip the caner lever over while it's just sitting on these blocks yes the bottom edge of the caner lever is 7 mm structural plywood I'm gluing and screwing it to the underside of the aluminum [Music] beams this needs to hold the weight of people's legs lying on it so I'm reinforcing it with 25 mm w wide 3 mm thick aluminum equal angle that I've riveted together the front edge of which fits into some slots that I cut earlier in the front beam and the back I'm screwing down to the front wall these are going to come out again for paint so I won't bolt them in fully now I left the plywood a little oversized so I'll just trim that up now to reinforce the corners I thought I'd buy some shelf brackets to act as the corner braces but they they're not even Square after I was done ranting about that I just made my own using the extra plywood I had from cutting the side panels the caner lever also gets a jumbo version to brace the load my design has a sliding bed platform so when it's not in use it can retract over the caner lever and give more space in the back but with it out there's 2 m of length and a queen siiz mattress worth of wood again I'm using 7 mm structural plywood and it's reinforced with the same equal angle I'm really challenging myself to build as light as possible so I'm dancing on the edge of what I think will be strong enough it's easy to go too far on the side of caution and overbuild things and that just ends with things being overweight and over budget so I'm building as light as I can but I'm also conscious of leaving an opportunity for reinforcement if that is something that's needed later having just said that the front edge of this does actually need to be pretty sturdy so I'm using 18 mm ply and a piece of reclaimed n Timber I had left over from when I did my last camper van build this needs to hold the weight of people climbing up and down so we'll see if it's strong enough when it's all put together the bed platform will slide along these 18 mm plywood rails not exactly Hightech but I reckon they should do the job let's get this in here all right woo ah so comfortable I guess I should have talked about this sooner but you've already seen a few of the finished shots so you know what's going on this this design has flip up doors on all three sides and while that's just what I've chosen to go with for versatility I hope you can start to imagine what other options you could build in instead like leaving one side as a complete wall for mounting recovery gear or surfboards or even adding in a camper style window instead these doors again are going to use the 25 mm aluminum equal angle this time as a complete frame to add structure later I actually ended up switching out the plywood here with a different material but I did keep these frames the same same to reinforce the corners of the frame I needed to notch out the equal angle which I did using a metal blade on my [Music] jigsaw because of the thickness of the blade the notch is a little fat but that's not important as the small piece of equal angle that is fitted over the top is riveted in [Music] place the hinges then Mount through the door panel and into the aluminum frame in CAD I figured out the pivot locations of the gas struts so that all the doors would open Perfectly at 110° which would lift the edge of the doors high enough that I wouldn't bang my headit on [Music] them [Music] where the gas struts mount into the wood I'm using insert nuts so the ball ends can screw in easily I use 3 mm spaces and a couple of wedges to align the door in position to screw the top half of the hinges [Music] in [Music] then screw the gas struts into the insert nuts that I just put in and see if my computer math actually works in the real world [Music] yes same process for the other two doors and then I had this which was incredibly satisfying to open now boyed with my success with the gas struts on the doors it was time to tackle the Big Gas struts that would open the roof I want to have them bolt into something a bit more meaty than the relatively thin walls of the aluminum beams so I'm making four mounting plates from 18 mm plywood I'm recessing the backside with a forcen a bit so that it can can receive a t- nut which the ball ends of the gas strut will screw into again I use CAD to calculate the ideal position of the struts so that they would hold the roof at a 30° angle which from the research i' done seemed to be what the majority of other campers on the market did that's not scared you at all sure to make sure my computer world and my real world were actually aligned I installed the melting plates with the gas struts attached so that I knew 100% that they were in the right place and while I double check my measurements I'll just leave them clamped in place for now yo I make these YouTube videos for two reasons really firstly I want to provide quality information so that people can learn from my experiences and the same way that watching YouTube in like the mid 2010s really helped me second I want to use my projects to try new things and expand my own skills and it's with that in mind that I'm really excited to try and construct this pop top tent I spent several weeks designing this in CAD before this trying to find a balance between getting the features I wanted but in a way that was able for a beginner or someone like me that had never done this before what I've got here is 600D PVC coated waterproof polyester fabric I bought a bunch of samples in the weeks I spent researching this trying to find the perfect Fabric and while this is certainly not the only kind you could use it fits my budget and seems like it'll do the job using a print out from the 3D model i' made I'm cutting all the pieces I need for the rectangular back wall the the fabric is easy to cut with a rotary cutter but the mesh is so slippery holding it while you cut it is um [Music] challenging I've actually factored in my own potential for error into the design and most of the pieces are being cut oversized and then trimmed to fit so it's not a big deal this is going to be a window panel and it needs Zips running vertically down both sides I'm using YKK number five continuous coil zippers which I rough cut to length then I Mark a 10 mm hem on those edges also if you have any fluffy stray bits of fabric sealing them with some heat sorts them right out which is why professionals use a hot knife cutter on this type of fabric and actually that gives me an idea for using laser cutters to create the hems like any good s right viewer I'm using a double-sided basting tape to stick them down this might seem like cheating but we want to minimize the number of times we poke holes in the fabric with a needle because that's going to make a difference in waterproofness plus this is just easier for a beginner I'm marking a reference on the Zips so I don't lose track of them later and try sew them in backwards or something I'll split them apart for now to make things easier to handle and clip the zip in place so the edge is aligned with the Hem that I [Music] made which you can see on the front side should leave us with a neat reveal first stitches on the fabric I'm not nervous you're nervous I drop the foot move forward a couple of stitches then backwards a couple to lock in the Stitch then sew down the length of the zipper removing the clips as I reach [Music] them that was and as you'd expect I'm not going to be winning the Great British sewing bee anytime soon but we all have to start somewhere the other edge of the window panel is exactly the same stick the Hem clip the zip sew down the [Music] line I've had this sewing machine for a couple of weeks now and I made a lot of small utility bags to try and improve my skills before filming this and I have to say sewing is actually really enjoyable while this sewing machine is called the heavy duty it's really nothing more than a slightly chunky domestic sewing machine so whatever you have access to should work fine with this kind of fabric jumping ahead a little now because it's all the same process I have the Zips attached to each side panel and I've sewn the window mesh onto the top panel these panels need to be sewn together now so again I'm using basting tape to hold these edges in place to get the position right I'm fitting the zippers back on making sure the fabric stays aligned then I can stick tape down to the window mesh and top panel I'm flipping it over so I can draw myself a chalk line to help keep my stitches straight carefully making sure the basting tape doesn't come loose I can stitch the panels together because I need the window panel to unzip away from the main body of the tent as I sew down I'm unzipping it out of the [Music] way same process on the other side except this time I just removed the window panel completely out of the way I was also gradually starting to see an improvement in my stitching that's all the pieces of the back wall sewing up and the window panel is just zipped back on the side walls go together in the exact same way the only difference is that I'm cutting slightly angled rectangles instead of square ones because the two sides are the same I could cut the first piece out flip the piece so that it's mirrored and Trace out the second piece so this process actually went by pretty quick assuming you've got the machine set up properly I found the things that improved my Stitch quality the most was making sure I had a good reference line to follow with the foot of the machine similar to how you need a clean line to make an accurate S cut and the other thing was handling the fabric in such a way that it was easy for the machine to feed especially with larger pieces I had to be careful with how I held them so I didn't put them into the machine squiffy or with too much force I draw parallels with feeding a piece of wood into like a table saw or a band saw it has a lot to do with how you handle it it's not just about the cutting blade itself any who just few observations I've made I've got all three sides sewn up now and because I made them slightly oversized I'm clamping each one in place onto the frame so that I can check that they fit and I got the angles right they seem okay so I'll screwing in the Gest St mounting plates that I left clamped earlier which has only been a few minutes in the video but was actually like a week for me on the edges of the panels I can now put a Mark where they meet the frame then if I draw a line between those marks that's where my joining stitches need to be so I can trim back the excess leaving a bit of a seam allowance and you know the drill by now use basting tape along the seam to hold it in position clip on a few clips and then sew down the [Music] line and with that the sewing of the tent was complete I came up with a simple way to fasten the tent to the frame I made this guide stick with a bunch of holes spaced out along it and used the soldering iron to melt holes all along the bottom and top edges of the tent the tip of the soldering iron melts and pushes the polyester fabric to the edge making a nice sealed hole and I'm using garden edging to make plastic strips that I cut to the same WID as the height of the flange that we spoke about earlier then all I needed to do was line up the plastic strips that I drilled using the same guide stick and screw them down over the tent [Music] fabric for something that I've never done before I'm pretty stoked with how well this came out like it actually looks like a pop top tint because the roof isn't at its final weight yet the gas struts holding them up are actually too strong to let the roof come down so I'm going to whip them off again before I get working on the roof panels yeah damn it ow and now also I can trim back the oversized tent fabric to along the top Edge I chose to use aluminum composite panel for the roof which is a plastic core sandwiched between a super thin aluminum sheet on either side which is waterproof and comes pre-coded with an exterior gray finish I bought two sheets from the supplier one a standard 2.4x 1.2 M and the other a larger 3 MX 1.5 M which I had them cut to size for me this would give me coverage across the whole roof with only one join and off cuts to spare to brace the join and support the center of the larger panel I used another piece of the same equal angle aluminum to span across the middle using some actually 90° corner brackets to go between the beam and the brace I'm using a few wedges to lift the edge of the panel up so I can apply a solid bead of Ms sealant this acts as both an adhesive Bond and a weathertight seal so I'm careful to go around all of the edges and then pressing them flat using this roller that I had from back when I used to double in screen printing I drill pilot holes around the perimeter of each panel and put a blob of sealant into each one that way when I screw in the washer headd mdle screws I'll have a watertight seal okay with the panels on the roof is now at its final weight so it's time to install the gas struts once again and make this pop top pop I made a couple of supports to hold the roof at the correct angle while I attached them back on and now we can see does the roof work that's okay they're actually adjustable they have a valve to let some of the gas out to dial them into the exact strength that you need the catch is though gas only comes out you can't put it back in so we're going to have to do this incrementally and like 20 minutes later we have a pop [Music] top I actually can't wait to show you all this this is great which means we're on the home stretch now everything gets dismantled and prepared for pain all the exterior holes and screw heads get filled with epoxy resin and whatever sawdust was in the dust bag of my mitur and all the interior holes get filled with Bondo all of the edges get shered back with the trim router and all the surfaces get sanded down with 120 grit sandpaper it's at this point you normally put down some fiberglass but I'm going to try an even simpler option I'm using penetrating epoxy sealer which I am very skillful at pouring this stuff is a thinner mix than regular epoxy so it soaks into the pores and fibers of the wood and sets hard because it's so runny I need to apply it in thin coats otherwise it just drips all over the floor over the course of a couple of days I applied about five coats of this inside and out using 120 grit sandpaper again I toothed up the surface so that my top coat of paint would stick to it properly then I brushed and Roll It on exterior primer on all the surfaces after two coats of that had dried I started marking out for the top coat while this is essentially a big box sitting on the back of my truck it doesn't mean it can't have some personal character so I masked in a couple of angles to help break up the visual silhouette a little bit first color to go on is this matte white and I'm following that up with a semigloss black yo yo all right painting done I had extra aluminum composite panel which was just enough to replace all of the doors which I think turned out way better than the plywood would have and it saved me a bunch of time because it's already pre-finished the last thing before getting this camper up onto the truck is to put rubber seals around all of the openings the bottom Edge that sits on the truck gets a double layer side by side and all the doors and roof edges get a single layer paying attention to which way the water will run off with that there was nothing left to do until this camper was up on the back of my truck I reckoned it was light enough for a twers lift and luckily my mate Nick had a free spot in a Saturday avvo to give me a hand now the plan was simple walk it out of the garage spin it around and Chuck it up on the back oh yeah put your corner up and then I'll just we'll just rotate around we lined it up with the edge of the bed it's pretty tight on my [Music] side and it was a perfect fit oh you be funny if I wasn't recording I'm now next we toss the roof on which we managed to to pick up in the wrong position you move to that corner then have the chestle boards in exactly the wrong place but actually considering all of the things that could have just gone wrong it went on pretty easily it it to stop this thing sliding off the back as soon as I pull out of the driveway I need to secure it down to the truck I'm using these tie down locations which are each rated to a couple hundred kilos I made these brackets using a 3 mm steel equal angle drilling holes to match the tie down locations and where they would attach to the camper I'm using the factory bolts on the bottom of the bracket and some roofing screws going into the camper and later I put a bolt in that goes all the way through and I did that on all six of the tie down points you might have noticed that my doors don't have any latches on them and that's because I thought the standard cam lock latches were dumb because you have to lock and unlock them individually and you can't lock them from the inside so I designed my own that also have remote Central locking the idea is that it takes the single linear motion of the actuator splits into opposing directions that shoots a steel rod out each side between the frame of the door and the frame of the camper like this with the steel rod sticks in I also made a 3D printed socket so I could silicone it in place so that water wouldn't find its way in I attached the stainless steel hold down latches so a padlock could be used to lock the roof down and added handles on the doors and the lifting points of the roof the gas struts went back on and the tent was reattached and a new brake light was added I wanted to put a few custom stickers on to really make this my own and while I don't have have a vinyl cutter I do have a box of spare parts and a new laser cutter design I've been working on in the background for a while and sure using a 90 W CO2 laser to cut out a dozen vinyl LS is a bit like using a hurricane blow out a birthday candle but it gets the job done also I'm pretty sure this vinyl is PVC which is a big no no in a laser cutter because of the fumes so I do not recommend you try this at home on your kitchen bench but putting your name on something something that you've worked hard on it's a good [Music] feeling [Music] so now that it's finished let's talk numbers firstly how much does it weigh for context the lightest production models of this style of camper weigh in around 125 to 160 kg I weighed all of the parts as I put them on my truck and mine comes in right around 120 kg so that's a tick for being lightweight the truck barely notices that it's there in fact my fuel economy improved from 9.7 km a lit before it was on to 9.9 fully loaded which means doing the longer road trips while I was testing rather than the short trips to the hardware store I was doing previously make more of a difference than having this camper on the back I've also had a number of rainy days while I've been out testing and so far everything stayed dry on the inside including the tent now for the big question how much does it cost to build remember I was aiming for a quarter of the price of the cheapest production models which are around $8,000 and after adding up all my receipts mine only cost $1,500 so I think that's a pretty good saving if you're handy on the tools if you'd like to build your own or one similar I'll have a page on my website with more information and I'll link to that down in the description if you want to see more from me in the future give this video a like and consider subscribing to the channel that really does help me out because I have a lot more projects that I want to share with you all

Channel: Further Fabrication

Views: 1,074,021

Keywords: DIY pop top, camper, truck camper, camper shell, ute camper, overlander, Homemade, wedge top, vanlife, DIY canopy, roof top tent, rtt, DIY

Id: o1oBiyagdYE

Length: 36min 46sec (2206 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 17 2023