WOW, I love this thread – it seems to generate a debate or discussion on all kinds of different topics! So far, I think we’ve covered environmentalism, diesel engines, frame mounts and now adhesives!

The 3M tape sounds cool, and I’ll be sure to try it on some (near) future application. In the mean time the degabond seems to have held up very well so far.

We had a good meeting with the guys at Michiana Laminated Products last week. They are building all the cabinetry for inside the unit so I’m very excited to have that part started. Matt Sutter from MLP has been very helpful so far, and I think they’re as eager as I am to get started. It’s certainly a “different” project for them I think.

Here’s roughly what the interior is going to look like now:

There’s a lot in there, but almost everything has at least two purposes:
– The bathroom door also seals the cab from the camper.
– One of the pantry doors also creates the “master bedroom”
– The entry stairs contain storage cabinets for shoes. etc.

CABINETS

We’ve settled on Plyboo – a bamboo based board, for all of the ‘furniture’. It looks beautiful, is incredibly strong and comes from fast growing / sustainable bamboo wood.

COUNTERS

The countertops are going to be black colored Richlite – which is made from paper and ‘friendly’ resin. – can’t wait to see them.

TOILET

We’ve also settled on the Airhead composting toilet. This one I am frankly a little nevous about, but I’ve done a bunch of research on sailing forums and people seem to be pretty happy with them. The original plan was to use a diesel fired incinerator toilet (like this eberspacher one) but it turns out that they are just too big and in the end didn’t seem to be worth the sacrifice.

The Airhead on the otherhand is quite small, and composts all solid waste back into harmless soil compost. Geoffrey Trott (the inventor) has been very helpful in designing our ‘special needs’ and we’re going for a two-container solution with a solar powered vent on the roof to dry out the materials. Hopefully there won’t be any odors and the system should work as promised. Stay tuned.

The Airhead Composting Toilet

CUSTOM MATTRESS

Finally, we got our three custom mattresses. I had hoped to avoid having to go down the custom route, but in the end the beds needed to be odd-sizes to fit the floor plan. We found Rocky Mountain Mattress that specialize in making odd-size beds for RV’s and really tall people I guess. They were also incredibly helpful and rushed out the mattresses to us (for free) in time for us to have them the day before we left on the U.P. Adventure.

The mattresses have a 4″ memory foam on top of internal springs, and I’ve got to say they are more comfortable than the mattress on my bed at home. (I think I should switch!)

It was a bit expensive going the custom route, but a lot cheaper than redesigning our entire frame length to fit around industry-standard mattresses.

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be finalizing the pop-up cabover roof, and the electrical system. Stay tuned!