Jeep Camper – 2000 XJ Conversion
The fourth episode of the Pop Top Builder Series continues into what almost became the end of the Jeep Camper project.
Some major mishaps and screwballs brought what seemed like irreparable damage to the fiberglass camper top. I had certainly bit off more than I could chew this go around.
Tune in to this episode to see just how everything crashed and burned – and the next steps to salvage the camper build.
Be sure to subscribe for more details on the full build as it comes to life!
Pop-Top Builder Series – Episode 4 Details:
- Fiberglass Moldmaking
- Things I wish I would’ve known before making a Jeep Camper Top
- Difficulty of making a homemade camper top
- Continued: Jeep Cherokee Camper Conversion
Subscribe For Episode 5 – Dropping Soon!
Pop Top Builder Series: Episode 3 – Design & Prep
Pop Top Builder Series: Episode 2 – Design & Prep
Pop Top Builder Series: Episode 1 – Design & Prep
More Details, Content & Connections:
Read More – DIY Pop-Top: Westfalia Retrofit
Read More – DIY Pop-Top: Finished Mold & Part (Fiberglass)
Homemade Camper: Questions & Answers:
Questions on the Pop Top Builder Series Process?
Comment Below!
Pop-Top Builder Series: Episode 4 Transcript
Last go around to the Builder series, we left off with a finished fiberglass plug: The exact part to be reproduced
Look at that shine!
Things were finally reaching a turning point in the build, but everything was about to go south.
The plug had been perfected and polished into one slick mix of materials.
Ready to be engraved in time with a proper fiberglass mold.
What seemed like a heavy dose of handiwork up to this point was nothing next to the problem solving to come.
I dabbled in body work, sprayed paint and mixed resin just fine up to this point, but truly underestimated the beast that gelcoat can be.
The next chapter of the build became one problem after another.
The old: One step forward, two steps back.
How did this happen?
Inexperience.
With no real step by step instructions, and an attempt to scale down production grade processes into the hands of a single worker….
Some snags were bound to happen.
So – back to this hot mess of a screw up.
Gelcoat is a sprayable resin topcoat: It mixes and covers like paint but hardens with a polyester molecular structure.
That makes it and the underlying fiberglass and resin mesh together as one.
The first mishap was underestimating the viscosity of gelcoat.
It runs thick.
Molasses thick.
The other catch: it kicks, or hardens, in under 10 minutes: unlike any paint out there.
10 minutes into spraying a clogged gelcoat mist through a hardware store paint gun – and I was done for.
The gelcoat kicked inside the gun, which headed straight for the trash.
Never mind that loss. The real pain was now the gelcoat fogged mold that stood in front of me.
Working with all these chemicals meant revolving around time and temperature set times.
You have a narrow window to lay your gelcoat and an immediate first ply of fiberglass for a flawless lamination.
Killing my largest size spray gun meant it would be at least a few days before I could get an even larger tipped replacement in.
One that could hopefully handle the Gelcoat.
In short, this meant the failed fog of gelcoat that was on the mold in front of me needed stripped off before anything.
Gelcoat does kick in a matter of minutes, but it never fully hardens
without the completed chemical reaction of the first ply of glass and resin.
This meant preparing for a long night of peeling, scraping and dabbing off all that I could.
At least that thick layer of mold release would keep the mirror surface of the camper plug intact. Right??
Yeah… That didn’t work out either.
To lay this scrap of a project on even thicker – by the time I had started scraping off the failed gelcoat, it hit me:
Something was now off with the mold release. My last line of defense against ruining the project for good.
The PVA mold release went on splotchy at best. A mistake I later figured out and can share as its own story. At the end of this long, never ending day of screwballs, screw ups and damage control, I had a half-kicked fog of gelcoat burned into the surface of my plug.
The same plug that was a pristine finish just the day before. It came down to two choices: either scrap the project entirely or start from square one of surface prep.
I’d take a breather, research everything that had failed in depth, even talk with some fiberglass gurus at the local supply.
We’d see just what could be done…
This far – all I knew was I’d certainly bit off more than I could chew.
Related Content:
DIY Pop-Top – Finished Redesign (Fiberglass Mold & Production)
