Just wondering...

[Scott H.]

Guys,

While looking for parts and ideas to fix some problems on my real enclosed camper, I stumbled on this site: www.glen-l.com They have plans for a couple of different boats and almost every type of camper I have seen (Van Conversions, pop-ups, enclosed, 5th wheel, and truck inserts). It looks like it's mostly a boat building place on the main page, but the camper / RV plans are on the side navigation bar. They also have pictures of actual builds from their plans to look at if anyone is needing some inspiration on a build.

I have an aftermarket Enclosed Camper kit similar to the actual one I own already, but I haven't seen a pop up or a true slide in camper for a pickup in scale yet. The one the Model King is offering is a complete bed replacement, not the style I am referring to here.

The question I have is how hard it would be to scale the plans down to 1/24th scale and get them to look right?

Just wondering aloud I guess,

-Scott H.

[Art Anderson]

Guys,

While looking for parts and ideas to fix some problems on my real enclosed camper, I stumbled on this site: www.glen-l.com They have plans for a couple of different boats and almost every type of camper I have seen (Van Conversions, pop-ups, enclosed, 5th wheel, and truck inserts). It looks like it's mostly a boat building place on the main page, but the camper / RV plans are on the side navigation bar. They also have pictures of actual builds from their plans to look at if anyone is needing some inspiration on a build.

I have an aftermarket Enclosed Camper kit similar to the actual one I own already, but I haven't seen a pop up or a true slide in camper for a pickup in scale yet. The one the Model King is offering is a complete bed replacement, not the style I am referring to here.

The question I have is how hard it would be to scale the plans down to 1/24th scale and get them to look right?

Just wondering aloud I guess,

-Scott H.

Scott,

Slide in truck campers, from a scratchbuilding point of view, should be some of the easiest projects out there to do, given that they tend to be slab-sided boxes, or a series of box sections, with mostly square corners, except for the roll of the roof at the front on most of them.

The question I would have is this: Given that the VAST majority of model pickup truck kits are in 1/25 scale, why a camper for one in 1/24 (at the moment, the only close to modern pickup truck kits that are factory stock in 24th scale, are the Monogram '92 Ford pickups from about 15-16 yrs ago)?

Oh I know, the "engineers" in the group are going to take me to task for this, but 25th scale is far easier to work with, as a 1/25th scale inch is EXACTLY .040", or only VERY slightly larger than 1mm (25.4mm equals an inch in 1:1, divide that by 25, and I challenge anyone to maintain that TINY decimal of 1mm when working in styrene with razor saw, Xacto knives, needle files and sandpaper! It's just not that necessary to worry about that tiny bit.

Any plans you get for building your own camper surely aren't going to be full size--who among us has even a garage floor large enough to even unroll one sheet, let alone read them spread out on the floor, walking or crawling on them? No, those plans in all likelihood will be in scale themselves, with full-size dimensions called out wherever they are needed. For that matter, you could simply slap a measuring tape on your own 1:1 camper, take lots of pics of it (with digital cameras, those pics don't cost a cent, unless you print them off, and even then, only a few pennies a pic). Just simply convert the known dimensions of the real one to 1/25 scale (mount on a 25th scale truck model), and get yourself a stainless steel metric rule, and an inexpensive metric dial caliper. That's all you need to scale down either from pics and measurements of your camper, or from the dimensions given of the homebuilt for which plans were obtained. While you might have to adjust a few dimensions (primarily the lower part of the camper, the narrower floor box that has to fit between the wheel wells of the pickup box come to mind here), little if any further modification to any dimensions would be necessary.

Give this some thought, then give it a try. Remember though, Confucius said "Better to measure many times, cut only once"!

Art

[Scott H.]

Art,

Thanks for the reply. You answered several of my questions I had bouncing around in my empty head. I was thinking the plans would be in some sort of scale and was just wondering how hard it would be to convert them down to the size we usually work with. I now have a better idea on what I need to do. I have the aftermarket clear camper kit that was available years ago and was just wondering about a slide in or a pop up trailer to go with it in a campground diorama if I get that ambitious later. I'm already looking at the Model King reissue camper to combine with an old Ford Van body I have floating around in my parts box.

The 1/24th statement was just a generalization, it was the first one that popped into my mind while typing. I fully agree with you that 1/25th would be mathematically easier to convert from 1 to 1 and is the scale I usually work with.

Believe it or not I already have been taking digital pictures while working on my camper so I can remember where everything came from when it's time for reassembly. I hadn't even thought about using them for building my scale camper. I'll definitely be using them for more than a reminder of where things went now! I'm just hoping that once I get done replacing the floor in the real one, I even want to look at another camper. I'm fully beginning to understand why the price was steep when I checked on having it done!

Thanks again,

-Scott H.