dakonthemountain: Thanks for commenting. I can appreciate the "skill variance" statement, because I have felt that way often in my life as I watch others at what they do well. I do want to say however, as I've had the good fortune to work on this very frequently, and in a comfortable work area, those and other facts contribute to a "skill building" condition. I think when one compares what I'm doing now to what went on very early, there's a noticeable difference. Of course that's why I saved this front cap and all it's angles until last. I've been kind of scared of it to be frank!
I've also done major work (incrementally increasing in difficulty) on three homes for close to three decades (because DW and I are both cheap). :) I mean we don't like spending if we can find stuff, and do stuff ourselves. That has contributed to our capabilities too. I guess I'm trying to say, anybody can do this stuff if they are able to put in the time over many years to get there, and if they have enough interest. And even now, I often make simple mistakes.
But thanks, not only for your vote of confidence, but also for saying so. It helps energize me because I'm a closet writer too, and I need positive feedback to keep producing. I think I'd do this project to completion anyway, but there have been times I've considered dropping the reports. Why continue something that is not only unappreciated, but perhaps viewed as "sheesh, here we go again!"? And that's what the mind makes up in the absence of encouragement, recognition, etc. ;)
Yesterday's work was to fine tune the front wall cap dimensions. After the steaming (that's the first time I've ever tried THAT!) and letting the wood fibers dry out overnight, I tried to square things up (another conundrum, what with nothing on this piece being square), but then I ran a pencil around the inside of the roof round to make some final marks on the new board. Once down on the bench all I could see were several old pencil marks, now with the new marks too and I couldn't tell the difference.
So I found a good size pencil eraser and went to work. Once the pencil marks were gone, back up went the board, a fresh re-squaring (re-rounding?), another few pencil marks - and back down on the bench it came.
Now I could see where to cut. But I noticed the passenger side was very few and very minor cuts, and the driver side had up to maybe 1/4" to remove on most of it! Visually the camper front looked right, but I wanted to make sure I was keeping the board symmetrical because the rounded roof could be slightly pressed one way or another to fit the wall cap.
There's nothing much to see in this next picture, but I just wanted to break up the narrative a bit.
So I measured up from each bottom corner and made a mark every six inches around the wall and roof line to about the mid width of the window cut outs. Then I verified the exact center-line of the bottom edge of the board. From that center-line point, I stretched a string from it to each side, at each same height (6" both sides, 12 inch both sides, etc.) and compared the distances left and right to where the cut marks were indicated in pencil. These distances were close enough (no more than 3/16" in a couple places and often lesser) so I went with the marks as shown, cutting on one side of the line for one side and the other side of the line for the other side to compensate slightly back toward symetrical.
While the board had been up on the camper, I had also mentally noted how my graduated angle cut looked, board to camper, and made a couple of notes for a different angle to use on the fine tune cut (again about 8 degrees on the vertical sides, increasing and rounding into 17 degrees along the top).
Again using the saber saw, I fine tune cut the board and then raised it back up for test fit. With slight manipulation it slid right into place, tight enough, but with slight space for gimp and manipulation. Down it came.
ticki2 mentioned yesterday about the roof reshaping and new escape hatch opening. As with anything, there are a number of ways to do things. His idea is good, but I think the only way I could have made that work was to sort of build a tower to mount the cover on, keeping the exact roof shape and dimension as original, but building a framing for the new opening that had enough height to create a flat upper framing, and that short tower would then need metal flashing of some sort. I just couldn't figure out a good way to do that without opening up a new potential water leak source on the roof, so I chose to flatten. As he said, there may be aluminum skin issues as I try to fit the different shaped roofs.
But upon further reflection afterward, I got thinking, maybe he was referring to the "front wall cap" aluminum skin? I located the piece and laid it out. And doing so, I discovered a previously un-mentioned consideration, that of the clearance light holes. They now appear to be right along the new roof line!
But it's kind of hard to see exact fit at this time as the aluminum spans the whole front cap surface, including the ends of the roof ribs. Then the rounded roof metal wraps around the roof and wall surface and FOLDS OVER the corner, thereafter covered by aluminum corner trim. It looks like it'll work at this time, but again, we shall see, and we'll just have to be flexible and adapt to whatever comes our way. :)
Then I got two coats of primer on both sides, including the fold cut. To help retain the board fold angle, there are support boards underneath.
