Itching to cut FRP…
Now I had two nice awning doors that would open and close, but no latch to hold them closed. I considered various sorts of drawer locks and latches, but eventually hit upon something both stronger and simpler. I didn’t really want to lock the doors shut because I figured that would only encourage some idiot with a pry bar to try and break the lock. Besides, I was going to close up the walls behind those doors so once they damaged the doors getting them open they still wouldn’t be able to get into the box. I ended up using captured ¼-20 Stainless steel bolts through the aluminum frame of the door and into heavy duty nuts that are welded to brackets and bolted into the frame opening. These latching bolts have large black plastic triangular hand holds (or knobs) that you can use to screw them in or out without tools. You just close the doors and screw them in about 6 turns to clamp the door shut nice and tight. Any thief can unscrew them and open my awnings, but that’s it.
The next step was to close the walls behind the awning doors. All the FRP that came out of the shelves and interior display box now started going back into the truck. I had to cut away all the edges with the rivet holes and square everything up nice and neat. I didn’t have pieces big enough to do it all in one piece, or two pieces for the two doors, so I had to piece it all together with but joints and lap joint backers. That amounted to lots of cutting FRP with a skill saw and some with the table saw.
That’s when I discovered that cutting FRP is nasty work. Not only do you have the normal piles of sawdust but lots of little tiny glass fibers sticking to every sweaty body part and burrowing their way in. It’s itchy, and messy, and probably not good for your lungs. I assume the folks who do this for a living have better protective clothing and tools with high volume dust collectors, etc. All I have is the determination to get stuff done, and that worked, right up to the point where the neighbors started complaining.
That led to apologies and promises not to cut any more on my driveway. Fortunately I don’t have much if any more FRP to cut, but now I have to be extra careful with even regular wood lest I incur their wrath. The table saw now stays inside the garage, where it doesn’t really fit, or I have to drag it all the way over to the side yard as far from the neighbors as possible. Oh well, I guess I will have to go buy some car wash gift certificates and keep apologizing. At least they haven’t tried to shut me down altogether.
These inner wall pieces bolted mostly to steel flanges that were already part of the truck. I got lucky on that one. I was able to drill and tap the flanges and then mount the panels with machine screws. I needed to make small pockets for the gas struts and telescoping props as well. Once the structure was completed, it was ready for caulking. I love caulking (not).
All the individual FRP panels were lightly beveled with an auto body disk sander. That way when they butted together there was a small triangular groove at the joint. There were also a few holes in the recycled FRP that I couldn’t cut around, and a few deeply set countersunk screw heads as part of the mounting. I used GE Max 5000 Siliconized Acrylic Caulk for windows and doors. The caulk was forced into the joints between FRP panels and then forced in further and scraped flat with a plastic squeegee. This left the caulk smooth and flush with the FRP surface, but of course it shrank as it dried, leaving a bit of a channel, similar to grout between tiles. Corners, edges, and nooks and crannies were all caulked as well. In many places I couldn’t get the caulking gun in directly so I was left to putting it on my finger and pressing it into place.
The net effect was not visually unpleasant. The white caulk and white FRP matched fairly well. The recycled FRP from the shelves had survived many miles with dirty greasy stuff grinding into it as the truck bounced along, so no amount of cleaning was going to get it perfectly white, but FRP is pretty tough stuff, and it doesn’t look too bad. Mind you, this is all on an exterior wall that is only visible when the awning doors are open.
Ultimately those awning doors probably cost me 2” to 3” of interior space though some of that will be used for extra insulation. It remains to be seen whether I will use or appreciate them. I would not have bothered with them if they weren’t already there.
All of this was a month and a half of evenings and weekends. It’s a good thing I am on a 2 ½ year schedule or I would never make it at this rate.
To be continued…
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