This is kind of crazy looking back now, but I realized i had built a flatbed and the following project in a meer three days. I understand this project is not a direct 3G Tacoma thing, but it played such an important role on this flatbed adventure, that I think its justifiable enough to share here. Especially considering, everyone else in their rooftop tents were freezing their hind ends through the night, while my daughter, dog and myself were working to keep from getting too hot as the dog started going into a pant the first night, prompting me to let more cold air in.
Anyway, imagine a Yeti cooler large enough to sleep in. Thats what i was after. So i started with some 3/4" x 4 pine and basically built a frame where i glued, pre drilled, and screwed 8 pieces together before doing a 45 degree cut on the chop saw.
I should have taken into account the foam thickness here and actually made it so the finished interior dimensions were 6' long. But hey, mistakes are how we evolve.
Now i installed 1 1/2" foam board in the floor
Then i figured height out that would work and started building my walls using 1.5" pink panther foam board. Again, looking back i should have cut in some sort of dovetail joints into the foam corners to add structural integrity and help with glue up. Again, you live and learn. I used spray foam for glue up and i was not disappointed one bit in the end!! Its crazy how well this worked.
Getting this far didnt take very long. Spray foam set up quickly and before I knew it, I was quickly moving on to going through two gallons of Titebond wood glue for the exterior shell for the poormans fiberglassing. I was already impressed at the structural integrity but the poor mans fiberglass method worked so well!!! It added a structural and a protective barrier that ended up taking some beating on the trail that only scratched off some paint, but did not dent the thing.
Once the poormans fiberglass was done i glued on some door framing with PL300 and caulked in the edges as well as added a vent front and rear utilizing plastic home floor registers and deflectors.
Of course, going with the theme of green for now, i painted with Sherwin Williams latex outdoor house paint as the wood glue is water soluble and requires the paint to fully water proof.
