Mike, I gutted the front part of my 5er shortly after we bought it and did the loft modification that's mentioned fairly early in the thread.
I'm what you might call an experienced handyman and craftsman who has done pretty much everything from construction framing to
electrical work, piping gas, and building furniture, but I did most of my
Scamp with a fairly modest set of tools. My
Scamp loft modifications were done with standard hand tools plus a saber saw (I like my Home Depot Ryobi Cordless), power drill (also a Ryobi cordless), circular saw (which wasn't used a lot), a palm sander, and a heavy duty staple gun (to secure the clothes line cord that holds the punched aluminium door panels in place). I also used my power miter saw a fair bit, but a hand-saw miter box or careful use of a hand-saw and 90-degree guide-block would work almost as well.
Oh, yes, and clamps. Lots and lots of cheap Harbor Freight pinch clamps. (
1-3/4" Nylon Spring Clamp )
The tool I use most, though, is my mind, thinking the entire project through and building it in my head, followed by cardboard, a utility knife, and scissors, which I used to make mock-up cabinets and decks that conformed to the curves of my
Scamp.
As for time spent, working perhaps 10-15 hours a week I gutted our trailer loft in early March and had it back in usable, though not complete shape (see
http://www.fiberglassrv.com/forums/f...html#post82079 ) for the Northern Oregon Gathering in late April and fairly complete shape in time for the Oregon Gathering in July (
http://www.fiberglassrv.com/forums/f...html#post95167 ).
Can you do it, yourself? Well, you have a template for how to do it from the posts I wrote in starting in March 2007 and a rough set of plans for my mods toward the end of the Loft thread. If you review the plans, use your head, ask questions when you're not sure what to do or need advice, and have both patience and a willingness to re-do things when they don't come out right, you most certainly can.