The last time I slept on the ground was 10 years ago at the 150th Chickamauga re-enactment, hips and back don't like it.
Same here, also the last time I slept on the ground, I woke up with a scorpion sharing my sleeping bag!



The last time I slept on the ground was 10 years ago at the 150th Chickamauga re-enactment, hips and back don't like it.
Yeah, here in the South, we have at least 3 types of rattlers, Eastern Diamondback, Timber and Pygmy, Cottonmouths, several varieties of Coral snakes and away from the coast you can add Copperheads. Oh yeah, scorpions too, got stung about 20 years ago, like a red hot ember, ouch!Same here, also the last time I slept on the ground, I woke up with a scorpion sharing my sleeping bag!I guess it could‘ve been worse, coulda been a rattlesnake, Arizona don’t you know!
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We have a cottage or more a cabin where we spend days away from home. Nothing fancy but comfortable in 3 seasons. We talked about selling it and maybe trying the motor home thing (not a big a$$ one, but more the size of a van or a bit bigger). We talked ourselves out of it for now and decided if we wanted to try it, we’d rent one. Parking, maintenance, insurance make rental an attractive short term option for us.My dad and I had an old Rockwood class "C" which we used while racing and it was worth it for that. The wife and I thought about getting another beater M/H, but unless you can store it in an almost airtight facility, you will inherit critters of all kinds that like to live in comfort too. Plus, unless you are using it on a regular basis, every trip requires days of little fixes to the varied systems, especially on older units. The last time I slept on the ground was 10 years ago at the 150th Chickamauga re-enactment, hips and back don't like it.
Flox is short for flocked cotton. It's cotton that's been chopped up into very fine fibers. Makes for a very strong joint.
Well, how about that. All this time I was unaware that potted hough was pronounced the same as a famous Dutch painter.Luv it! I believe that is how N Americans mispronounce van Gogh?
Apologies for digression, in England, people tend to say van Goff and in Scotland van Goch, like loch.
Here's how the Dutch say it: https://www.google.com/search?q=van...#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:4be0b696,vid:F4evx1oXZCE
For smaller jobs a dirt cheap stippling brush can be made from a piece of rope, single doubled or tripled as needed. Wrap a handle-sized length of it with insulation tape, then cut an end clean across about an inch from the end of the wrapped portion. Tease it out a bit and get it working.To make a stippling brush, cut about half of the hairs off the brush. What's left is a fairly stiff brush... perfect for forcing the cloth into the joint.
Happy Birthday Jim! Loving the van thread!
Is the flocked cotton better than fiberglass powder?, I believe it's called cavasil or something like that, nasty stuff.So..."tabbing in." It's a term used more in the boating world, but the actual practice is used in aviation and other fields, including vans. It just means joining something to the main fiberglass part, such as a plywood bulkhead to the hull of a sailboat.... or van top in this case.
The first thing you need to do is add a filet to the corner where the parts meet. Fiberglass cloth will not bend into a 90° corner, it refuses to. It wants a gentle curved corner. I'm using "flox" to make the filet... mainly 'cause I have a metric crapload left over from my airplane days.
Flox is short for flocked cotton. It's cotton that's been chopped up into very fine fibers. Makes for a very strong joint.
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You mix your epoxy and hardener in a cup just as you normally would, then you start adding flox until you have the consistency of peanut butter. You then work that into the corner and round it off into a nice filet. I use a large popsicle stick to shape it.
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Let that cure up for a day or so and sand off any rough edges, then apply several layers of fiberglass cloth over the joint. My TLAR engineering calculations said to use 5-6 layers of 6 oz cloth cut into 5-6" wide strips.
Here's a little trick for y'all that makes working with fiberglass much less messy. Take some plastic sheeting... 3mil in this case and cut out 2 sheets slightly larger than the glass cloth you need to wet out. Lay one out flat and lay your cloth on that...
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Mix up enough resin to wet the cloth out and pour it down the middle of the cloth. Lay the second layer of plastic over that, then use a squeegee (Bondo applicator in this case) to move the resin around to saturate the cloth enough so that the weave disappears.
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Industry standards for epoxy resin say that a 60/40 mix is ideal. That is, 60% cloth to 40% resin by weight... 50/50 being acceptable. Here's an easy way to ball park it.... Use the squeegee to move as much resin "out" of the cloth until you start seeing the white weave again. Make a mental note of what it took and squeegee the resin back over the cloth until the weave just disappears again. That will get you between your 40 and 50% ratio. Work the entire wetout in that fashion until you're happy with it.
Now you can use a pair of scissors or a razor blade to cut the cloth into the desired strips.
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Up until now my hands were completely free of resin. I put some latex gloves on at this point, so using the camera was out of the question...
You take your strips and separate the plastic. The cloth will always have a tendency to favor one side of the plastic. Peel the other away from it and press it into the corner joint. Once it starts to stick, start peeling the other layer of plastic away from it and use a stippling brush to force the cloth into the joint.
To make a stippling brush, cut about half of the hairs off the brush. What's left is a fairly stiff brush... perfect for forcing the cloth into the joint.
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Add one layer at a time until the layup contains the number of layers you need. Let that cure overnight, sand the high spots off and Bob's your uncle. A joint that's as strong as the plywood you joined to the top (in this case).
I'm using West Epoxy with a slow hardener, so it will need to set up overnight before I can sand it.
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Unfortunately, I didn't have enough epoxy to do both sides of both sheets of plywood. I'll finish it when more arrives.
Cabosil. Similar. Cabosil is a thickening agent. It's the opposite of paint "thinner." It thickens the resin so it doesn't slide off vertical surfaces.Is the flocked cotton better than fiberglass powder?, I believe it's called cavasil or something like that, nasty stuff.