Bigfoot (old vs new)

AH_AK wrote:

I am curious about the finish of the cutouts. You'd think they'd glass the cross section and use threaded inserts for the fasteners. I am just thinking about what I do for the mounting holes of my skis to prevent water from getting into the core. I either glue in the screws if it is meant to be permanent, or, use threaded inserts that are glued in if non permanent. Sounds to me like all the through-hull attachments/ flanges are just screwed into the hull (hopefully into wood frame too for reinforcement). It'd sure be a pain to upgrade everything, but better to do it all at once than piecemeal as it fails IMO.

They could have built it with proper cored construction like a boat, but they don't - too expensive probably. Many of the large cutouts have wood surrounding them, but many also do not. For example in the roof of my 10.4, the Heki skylight over the bed has wood surrounding the hole, but the just as large skylight over the shower does not, nor does the refrigerator vent. Since they are using essentially contact cement for the lamination, even where wood is used it easily delaminates from the fiberglass. There are large wood blocks replacing the foam core in some areas, like where the jacks are attached and on my 10.4 where the table was screwed to the wall. It is not easy to retrofit a wood surround to an opening, because the shell and paneling are contaminated with contact cement and will not hold epoxy or some other adhesive well (though I have done this in one instance).

The propane compartment that Adamis shows is particularly bad, as the door goes across the joint between top and bottom shells. The sides are angled (drafted) so they can be removed from the molds, you are trying to seal a flat surface to a bent one. I think one issue Bigfoot has is that they use the same molds for several different floor plans, which pushes the doors and hatches around - otherwise they could have proper molded features to accept the doors and hatches.

On many of the openings, I've taken to reinstalling them with no screws. If the flanges fit well and surfaces are prepared carefully, using a marine polyurethane or polyether sealant, the screws are unnecessary and simply cause problems.

Every once in awhile I think I'd like to talk Bigfoot into selling me just the fiberglass molded parts, and let me finish it out. It might be cheaper than starting from scratch as they already have the molds, and you could build a far better product.