complete DIY camper build from a ratty old popup start to finish !

hi everybody in this video I am going to show you how I built this camper completely from scratch start to finish every detail so find yourself a comfy chair relax and I hope you enjoy the last time this pop-up camper was used was 2013 in the spring of 2014 I popped it up and it was destroyed by mice it's been a project on my mind for a long time I just didn't know how I wanted to do it now that I finally figured it out here is its transformation from being a worthless pile of junk to a nice little camper that we're going to enjoy for a long time I'm Gonna Keep the stove I'm gonna take some cleaning now originally I had thought I might just pop the camper up and build a wall between the bottom and the roof I kind of decided that wasn't the way I wanted to go and honestly after tearing this thing apart I'm really happy I didn't look at how flimsy that is all it is is four corner braces and an aluminum top rail it's junk I might use the same stove that came out of it and that's got this quick connect fitting so I'll save this the rest I'll probably scrap [Music] for my floor I use three quarter inch marine grade plywood that should last just as long as a camper and a quarter over [Music] three and a half [Music] I had planned to glue everything and I forgot to put the glue on so I just lifted it up and ran a nice feed of glue all the way around most of the floor I fastened from the bottom with stainless steel screws but some of the floor you couldn't get past the frame so I had to drill a big enough hole to sink the screw head into the wood and run soft tappers from the top [Music] this time I remembered the glue ahead of time a lot easier that way [Music] a couple of clamps really makes it a lot easier to keep that plywood in place when you're trying to run screws in from the bottom side [Music] this sheet of plywood will bridge the gap on the long seam it makes a huge difference in the stiffness of the floor foreign so that I could figure out where I want to put my window this feels pretty good perfect window about three inches higher than this table stand what about 32 inch with my window height before I get started framing anything I like to figure out where my doors and windows are going to go I'll mark that on the floor then I'll note the height for the windows on the floor as well that way I don't have to figure it out multiple times [Music] for the framing of the camper I use two by twos for the studs in the wall and two by threes for the corners for the ceiling I had planned to use two by threes but I changed my mind and went with two by fours I also changed my mind on the front wall I think it gets a lot of wind resistance from being towed down the road and I felt that maybe two by fours would be a better choice also it gives a little more wood for those angled boards from the shorter portion of the front wall to the roof to screw to [Music] one thing I think is very important is if you're using Small Lumber like two by twos you definitely need to pre-drill every single hole because as soon as you start splitting that Lumber you're making it weaker and it's not going to last as long [Music] I'm not sure how regular campers are built but I framed my windows in just like you would a house I did later in the video change that top two by two out to a 2x4 so that it would have more strength especially because I had a stud on top of it fasten down my walls I pre-drilled all the holes ran a nice bead of construction adhesive then screwed it down with two inch screws those go into the plywood but don't hit the steel frame below after the camper is totally sighted I run two inch screws up through the bottom so I'll drill a small hole in the steel frame and then run stainless steel screws through the frame through the plywood into the bottom plate that way the walls are really well fastened to the trailer I didn't get a shot of gluing this corner but I glued every corner lined it up really nice and then screwed them tight this is awesome it was really cool at this point to start seeing how it was going to look it's hard to picture how much room you're going to have in a 10 foot 4 by 7 foot box which honestly was a lot more than I expected here's that front wall like I said I decided to go with two by fours to make it a little stronger actually it was kind of nice too it gave me a little more room for wiring because all the wires coming into the camper came from there and they all converge there to go to the inverter that goes underneath of the front seat at the table foreign [Applause] foreign close it and go right now sounds good to me here I'm adding a window that I forgot to put in it's not really that hard lay it out just like a regular window make a couple cuts and put some boards in and good to go [Music] thank you now onto the roof the first thing I'm going to do is figure out these angle cut boards that finish my front wall once I've got one made I'll use that board as a template to make all the rest of them I'll cut them all out just kind of lay them up there make sure they look right Charlie stand right under the saw come on [Music] [Music] now at this point I've got all my front wall angle boards sitting there in place but none of them are screwed down because unfortunately it won't fit out of the garage with the roof on I'm building it kind of as a modular type frame I'm not screwing any of it down to the camper walls but I'm screwing it all together and then I'll just lay it on the floor wheel the camper out and put it together and you might think why go through all that trouble to build it tear it apart and then put it back together later and that's mainly because of rain I'm not breaking any speed Records building this camper so if I can build as much inside as possible before I'm ready to actually get the roof on I won't have to deal with tarps and trying to keep it dry and out of the weather nearly as much as I would otherwise foreign [Music] I was pretty happy even this 2x4 frame wasn't very heavy once I had the frame up there I clamped it down and made sure the walls were even with the edge of the frame I screwed one frame completely down then screwed the other frame to the first frame and pulled it nice and tight before anchoring it to the walls all right to fill the gaps between the front angle boards to make up the front corner I had to cut that board at an angle and screw it in place that way the front will have something to nail to all the way across as well as the roof this doesn't have a whole lot holding it down so I'm going to box in the wheel wells these two by eight and then I'll sheet it with some paneling or something but what I think I'll do is I'll screw this 2x8 this way and then I'll run some screws down along the edge and I'll make a box so hopefully that will support this better yet I'm ready to start sheeting the camper first thing I'm going to do is make a rough template for cutting out this wheel well now I'll get a measurement from the back of the camper to the edge of the template so I know where to put the template on my sheeting it was close but still needed a little trimming [Music] I'm not sure if manufactured campers are glued on the sheeting well I'm going to glue and stable every sheet the sheeting I'm using is quarter inch luon I know they're stronger and better materials you could use but you have to keep in mind this was a pop-up camper and the tag on the axle states that it is good for 2200 pounds and I definitely want to keep it under that weight [Music] for the roof I used quarter inch plywood it's a little heavier than Luan but it's much much harder to break than Luan once I had it up there I was glad I used it the roof felt nice and stiff to walk on [Music] I almost made a mistake of just cutting out the window openings which would have been really bad considering they're curved on the corners and that would have love big holes I just traced the window out cut it that way [Music] I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do with the siding here I'll probably try to follow this but I'm not sure if there's a trim piece I don't recall seeing a trim piece cover something like this so what I'm going to do for now we're on a nice bead of silicone along it [Music] I had to call around a lot but I was able to find some actual camper siding at an RV Surplus Store first thing you'll notice is definitely a lot different with camper siding than regular house siding is you start at the top you staple it all the way across the top hold it down kind of flat so that it doesn't have any Bubbles and staple the bottom side and the next piece below it slides up into a channel on the upper sheet then you staple the bottom side of that sheet I was told to use wide crown staples but I couldn't find a wide Crown stapled gun in town so what I'm using is narrow crown staples one inch long and I'm putting about three or four on each stud another thing that seemed really important make sure your siding sheets are all the way to the ends of your camper the siding sheets that come up to them from the other direction and sure they go right to the siding that you've already put on that way your corner joint is really small and easy to cover with putty tape for the most part it's pretty simple process I think it's easiest to mark your window Cuts like this it's a lot like house siding only in reverse start from the top work your way down the trim piece for the bottom that I used slides into the siding just like the other ones so what you do is you rip your very last sheet of siding down to the width that you need to fill that Gap honestly one thing you'll notice if you've watched any of my other videos is that I always point out things I would have done differently although this siding looks nice if I had it to do over I would have gotten a flat siding mainly because windows and doors would be a lot easier to install and guarantee an excellent seal to protect the corners of the rubber roofing I was told to use the fiberglass mesh drywall tape put it on the top and wrap it down around the side a little bit that's supposed to protect the rubber roofing from any rough Corners I did do some sanding on my Corners as an added precaution but it's supposed to work really well now I'm not an expert on rubber roofs in fact I've never installed a rubber roof in my life I'm going off of instructions that were written down for me by a really helpful guy at the camper Surplus place what he told me was layout your entire sheet of rubber roofing over top of the camper and then fold half of it back roll out your adhesive for that half and then lay that half down once that house laid down pull the other half back make sure that when you pull the other half back you see the adhesive from the first half otherwise you're going to have a big void where there's no glue and if there's no glue it's not going to be stuck down in that spot and that could really cause a problem once all your adhesive is out lay the rest of the rubber roofing down and squeegee every single air bubble out it helps to get down kind of eye level with the top of the roof to see those air bubbles I notice at first it seemed like I was doing pretty good and then I got down low and noticed there's quite a few air bubbles left so definitely make sure you get those out any air bubble is going to be a void and if there's a void that's not going to be stuck down all right to finish the rubber roofing on the edges you cut it couple inches long pull it down tight fold it over and staple it make sure that that fold is small enough that your trim piece will cover it then you put your trim piece on later and do some caulking foreign [Music] [Music] this piece is for the front of the camper the top one inch has to sit on top of the rubber roof and get nailed through it I need to bend this first one inch to match this angle that I matched on the roof I'm going to try to do this one by hand and you know not mess it up too bad and a little bit at a time pretty close on that bend I'm gonna go with that so the way it was explained to me you fold this rubber back on the roof you tack it down the siding goes over the rubber you tack that down and this piece goes down screw this down and you seal it up with lap sealant [Music] this siding is aluminum it's really easy to bend bending it evenly is where the trick comes in I'm not sure if I can do it myself without a break or if I'm going to need to take it somebody that has a break let's see what I can do first [Music] to make a semi-even Bend I clamped the sheet down with a 2x4 on top of it I put the edge of my workbench right where I wanted the bend to be and I slowly worked a Bend into the sheet it actually worked pretty well [Music] [Music] [Music] for my last piece of siding I wanted a really nice tight fit around this wheel well so I used the compass to make a template scribed a line cut it out and it turned out a really good tight fitting piece of siding foreign now that all the siding's on it's time to install the corner and gutter trim I use putty tape on the corner underneath of all the trim I don't know if there's a good way to put this stuff on it seems like the paper sticks really bad to the putty tape so it took some time another thing I noticed was you really want to have your Trim in the right spot when you push it down because as soon as it touches that putty tape it really sticks and it wants to peel it back off if you try to move it [Music] this trim piece is going to cover the front siding where it overlaps the rubber rough I use putty tape on the bottom I'm going to make sure it covers that seam perfectly screw it down once it's screwed down I'm going to let the putty tape ooze out a little bit scrape it out and then I'm going to use lap sealant on the rubber roof side and lap sealant on the front side you want to be careful not to strip out any screws so I put them all in then went back through and tightened them slightly foreign I installed the putty tape directly to the back of the gutter trim it made it a lot easier to get the paper off maybe that would be a better way to do the corner trim as well [Music] foreign finish off your trim you use screw cover it goes inside that channel and covers all the screws keeps the water out looks nice pretty easy to put in when I got to the door opening I cut the siding down and bent it over basically using it as a piece of flashing once it was bent over I scored it with my knife and broke it so that it wasn't sticking past the threshold and the vinyl and the door could both sit on top of it I thought I'd go simple with my floor and just get some vinyl that doesn't require being glued down so I just laid it in cut it to fit smoothed out all the wrinkles and stapled the edges [Music] camping after I finished the floor I ran some wires for lights this wire is a 14 gauge stranded two conductor black red I think I purchased it on Amazon my lights will all be 12 volt LEDs this wire will also be ran for One USB outlet [Music] these marker lights have a foam seal but it wasn't thick enough to fill the low spot in the siding so I added some Putty tape to them oh [Music] these small wires run from the tail lights in the back up to the blinker marker lights on the front these wires tie the grounds together and one drops down to the frame to ground both blinker lights there's no particular reason I used those colors that's just what wires I had left that were long enough this is for the light switch [Music] [Music] um I installed one AC outlet and that's mainly to run a coffee pot I decided to take a quick break from wiring and install the door before it rained I put a piece of putty tape in every low spot honestly I probably should have used two pieces in every low spot but I also ran putty tape all the way around the nail flange on the door once it's in I used some inch and a quarter by quarter inch screws I'm stapling my insulation to the Inside Edge of the board that way I can glue my paneling directly to the ceiling [Music] [Applause] I tied some string to each one of the wires hanging out of the ceiling for the lights that way we could feed the string through the paneling before we even picked it up and we'd be able to get a hold of the wire easier I use a staple gun to hang all the sheets because it's easier to shoot a staple and hold a shoot up than it is to drive a nail but after I was done stapling the mop I went through and nailed them all off with paneling nails they're little bitty ring Shanks so they should hold pretty good plus everything is glued all the ceiling panels are glued all the wall panels are glued and all the exterior wall panels are glued these wires will all go underneath the seat for the kitchen table and they will tie into the inverter from the old pop-up camper I bought these little LED Puck lights online they're super easy to wire up and they just slide in with a spring keeper you'll notice I'm wearing black to white that's because these lights use black for positive white for negative and my black is negative and I use red for positive [Music] pretty easy way to work around these wires with this foam board insulation I cut the insulation right in line with the wire cut out a little Groove in the top of the bottom sheet pack the wire down in the groove and then stick the next sheet over top of it this keeps the wire from having any stress on it from being shoved one way or the other by the insulation thank you foreign [Music] s for the kitchen table it's nothing really fancy and most of it's being built out of leftover lumber from framing the camera [Music] thank you before anchoring this bench down I cut two equal spacers so that I didn't have to worry about taking multiple measurements my slide out couch bed is going to go behind this bench therefore I'm building a removable backrest so I've made some simple pockets for it to slide into foreign [Music] this cabinet should be big enough for a broom maybe a small trash can it couldn't be any wider because the bed is basically going to go from wall to wall once it's slid out it's a queen size three folding mattress [Music] oh my lights were triggered I found this exterior light online it was the perfect width to go between two ribs on the siding came in a two pack I only needed one I had to make my own table tab for this I decided to use a half inch plywood then cover that with ungroup flooring that was left over from doing the last cabin build for my first piece I glued it clamped it and screwed it to the plywood that way it wouldn't be able to move while I was pounding the other pieces together foreign [Music] for each piece I've ran some glue in the tongue Drew area and then I put some glue on the plywood once I had all the cherry on I clamped it lengthwise to pull the boards a little tighter together and then I clamped it the other way to hold them to the plywood once I had the clamps on I flipped it over and ran screws in every single board to make sure that they were pulled tight to the plywood find the center to figure out where I was going to mount the table stand to the table I found Center each Direction made center lines then I made center lines on the table Mount itself line up the center lines should be perfectly in the center of the table foreign foreign [Applause] that should work I'll eventually put a trim piece around the edge of this table to cover the plywood but for now that'll work so I need to get onto some other projects [Music] using this Cherry slab for my countertop for the stove right now it's three inches thick so it needs to be a lot thinner I need to Shorter down I'm going to make it three feet long and I need to flatten it so I've got a lot of work to do to this slab [Music] all right [Music] you can buy or build a flattening table to flatten thick slabs like these it uses a pin router and it would be a lot faster than a hand planer but you can also do it with a hand planer it just takes a lot more time and patience in fact this took me two and a half to three hours but I did take it from three inches thick to an inch and a half thick foreign [Music] um I'm using this curved piece more for function than looks although I do like the way it looks I needed a place to mount a shelf bracket where there wasn't a stud I plan to either use a DC cooler or possibly a camper fridge of some sort underneath this therefore I didn't build a base cabinet [Music] these couple shelf brackets really did a good job of making this countertop sturdy [Music] [Music] I was pretty happy with how well the old stovetop cleaned up and it looks so nice in that cherry countertop every kitchen area needs some kind of cupboards this is going to hold some spices cooking spray a couple pans and some spatulas nothing fancy it's got to have light on the bottom too [Music] oh [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] I couldn't find a single propane tank holder so I improvised [Music] hey it still works stuff's called MCL it's used for steel roofs in The Valleys I have no idea what camper companies use to seal their Windows some kind of foam I called to see if I could get some and that they didn't have any in stock I should ask what they used and see if I could buy somewhere online some kind of camper place I think a thinner phone would work just fine thinner weather sealant or maybe even putty tape if you had flat siding but my siding's got those ribs on it so it needs something thick enough to fill the low spots this stuff's pretty thick I'm making sure that where it meets together is on the bottom side top side it's one continuous run [Music] these windows are not easy to install by yourself but it is doable I use some clamps that always helps as far as the M seal the foam that I used for it friend of mine stopped by and he casts a little doubt on it so I I may end up having to trim it back and caulk around it or I may end up having to pull the windows out and try to find a better foam but so far there hasn't been any leaks but it also hasn't rained a lot and I haven't towed it anywhere in the rain that's where you really come into some problems with that driving force of the wind being towed down the road foreign thing about getting your windows from the Surplus place is it seems like they normally don't have the right size rings for all their windows and you end up having to take bigger rings and cutting them down to use for your smaller windows in fact one of the windows I had to cut two rings down to make the right size this should be all the lumber or nearly all the lumber I need for my slide out couch bed for one end of this I used one by fours to screw to for the other end I used two by fours because that end will be in the center once I had it later I squared it up and screwed Four Corners with multiple screws so that it couldn't come out of square I use spacers at each end between each board it's just quarter inch luon that I use the reason for this is so once it's screwed down the boards have a small Gap that way they don't rub on each other when you're trying to pull the couch out into a bed and of course made sure I drilled pilot holes and everything most slide out beds you see they fold lengthwise side to side so there's two cushions this one folds three times therefore the slide out isn't long enough so I had to figure out how to support the last couple feet of the bed for this I made a Shelf at the same height as the bench that the bed goes on and then I put these little slide outs to support this which will hinge up and sit on top of the slide out it'll fill the last two feet and let me have an entire bed pull this out [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] super comfortable then you got a light or your computer you can just reach up you need to get up in the night I built the cupboard doors out of leftover flooring and pieces of glue on before I stain them I mounted everything to make sure it fit that way I could sand it before staining it if it needed to be sanded all right [Music] last cupboard door I'm gonna call that a wrap there are a few things I need to do still I need to get the wheel bearings packed and make sure they're in good shape I need to get new tires on it trailer sat a long time I also want to get a heat Source in here and some kind of fridge those will come in another video down the road but for now I'm pretty happy with it it was a bit of a process and a huge learning process considering most of it I had to figure out on my own but I'm very happy with the results I hope you guys enjoyed this video and I hope to see you next time for now I'm going camping [Music]

Channel: black spruce

Views: 2,264,279

Keywords: DIY camper, DIY travel Trailer, Van Life, camping, off grid, bush craft, tear drop, Camper, how to

Id: 1tD0yWlObOg

Length: 43min 40sec (2620 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 10 2023