Foamie hybrid with ribs and wheelchair accessibility...

Canvas covered foamies (Thrifty Alternatives...)

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Re: Foamie hybrid with ribs and wheelchair accessibility...

Postby Redneck Packrat » Wed Jul 05, 2017 7:28 pm

GPW wrote:Bill, … Before you cover it , you may want to park it outside in the HOT Texas Sun for a couple days so the foam has a chance to cure/ expand to it’s final size , perhaps getting rid of those waves we find in the new sheets … just a thought ... :thinking:


Good idea, Glen. Come to think of it, probably a good idea to do before skimming anything into the clamp and washer depressions I made in it. I'm hesitant to fill them anyway, since they will slowly expand back out and make lumps :shock: It might hasten their expanding to set it outside for a little while, if the foam doesn't melt! :lol:
Bill
Texas Gulf coast, near Corpus

Working on this, started 5/2017: http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?t=68614

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Re: Foamie hybrid with ribs and wheelchair accessibility...

Postby depatty » Wed Jul 05, 2017 7:35 pm

Looking good! :thumbsup:
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Re: Foamie hybrid with ribs and wheelchair accessibility...

Postby Redneck Packrat » Sat Jul 08, 2017 7:59 pm

Afraid it's not gonna look any better after this post. I forgot my phone today :lol:

I did venture into the city to not one, but two, orange boxes. First the closest filthy dirty cluttered one, which yielded nothing but an empty space where the 2" foam was to be, then on to the other one across town. I think I'll go the extra few miles from now on. It's only dirty, not filthy. :shock:

They had plenty of 2" so I grabbed the 4 sheets I needed to get. Since Brownie is always loaded with odds and ends cluttering up the bed, I grabbed a half dozen 2x4-8's that I'll need for something :thinking: to bridge the space from toolbox to tailgate without bowing the foam when I strapped it down for the trip back. To keep from cutting the foam with the straps, I picked up a couple sheets of the 5mm plywood. It's 3 plies and just a bit less than 1/4" thick, should do well for some sort of interior paneling between the ribs or something. Looks halfway decent too, which is a plus! :thumbsup:

Didn't really have time to do much once I fought the Saturday mall mobs when I was getting away from the store with the foam, but I couldn't leave it alone so I cut out the angled sides and played with the left front corner. It turned out as goofy-looking as the right front corner :roll: so it's gonna get a line of Great Stuff and a sander treatment when I get to using GS and can empty out a can.

I'll have pics of today's results Monday, all things working out like I want :D

I was looking at the springs and the head space the tops of the tires are gonna have, and got to thinking :? (Yeah, I know, that's not necessarily a good thing :shock: ) Seems that with a strip of 1x2 and then the plywood floor on top of that, I'll have over 2" of clearance over the tires. Now, with most of its weight in it, it's sitting 1/4" or less lower than it was with just the floor. Two inches of compression on the springs is gonna squish 'em almost straight. I don't think I'm gonna have enough weight on it to do THAT!

Now, the good part is, the chair can jump a 1.5" step no problem. My mom has one going into her house that is not any hindrance at all. So, I think that after I get all the foam and canvas on the thing, basically get it to the weight it's gonna be, I'm going to screw the spacer and plywood down without glue, and then throw like 5 bags of concrete mix in there where the chair would be tied down at. Then I'll find a bumpy road (which won't be hard at all in this county!) and go for a ride and see if there's any scuffing on the underside of the plywood. Chair only weighs just under 300, but that will be a good test because you KNOW we'll come up with 100# of crap to add even after it's "finished" :lol: Heck, might go for six sacks. Better do an extreme test than wish I had.

One thing I do know is that I've got about the right tongue weight. I was worried I had too much though, I tried to pick up the tongue and couldn't budge it :shock: But then I remembered to take the jack out from under the back bumper :DOH2: After that I could pick it up, not easily but it was doable. I figure about 150-175 lbs on the tongue, with the 2x4's for the back wall laying in the back of the trailer. A/C still to go in front of axle, and batteries behind, so we'll see.

I do not think I'm going to have THIS problem.....
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Bill
Texas Gulf coast, near Corpus

Working on this, started 5/2017: http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?t=68614

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Re: Foamie hybrid with ribs and wheelchair accessibility...

Postby GPW » Sun Jul 09, 2017 6:16 am

All Good parts … Progress … :thumbsup:
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Re: Foamie hybrid with ribs and wheelchair accessibility...

Postby featherliteCT1 » Sun Jul 09, 2017 12:24 pm

The photo of the suspended mule is great! Glad to hear that you are having good luck with your parts.
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Re: Foamie hybrid with ribs and wheelchair accessibility...

Postby Redneck Packrat » Sun Jul 09, 2017 5:38 pm

featherliteCT1 wrote:The photo of the suspended mule is great! Glad to hear that you are having good luck with your parts.


Yeah, kinda hard to get any traction when your drivers are off the ground :lol:

I'm at the point where I'm starting to get impatient to get it finished. For me, that's a dangerous thing to have happen, I start to rush stuff, and so it's going to take a conscious effort to SLOW DOWN and make sure I get each thing done right and don't get a "trim'll cover it" attitude. I want to get at least one trip in this summer or even early fall, but at the same time I want to surprise the better half with a completed "nest" that has all the necessities for her comfort that she has at home. I'm afraid that's the only way she'll look at it as more than merely an evac tool.
Bill
Texas Gulf coast, near Corpus

Working on this, started 5/2017: http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?t=68614

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Re: Foamie hybrid with ribs and wheelchair accessibility...

Postby featherliteCT1 » Sun Jul 09, 2017 6:22 pm

I relate to what you say about rushing towards the end. I just spent a long time completing the installation of insulation in my trailer. I had a self imposed completion date with the effect that, towards the end, I was hurrying things and not nearly as conscientious as I was at the beginning.
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Re: Foamie hybrid with ribs and wheelchair accessibility...

Postby Redneck Packrat » Mon Jul 10, 2017 8:55 pm

Ok. Saturday I cut out the pieces for the front left corner and dry-fitted them. Here's where I came to today:
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First thing today was to glue that corner down with Liquid Nails.
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Had the top piece laying up there, un-glued, just to be sure I didn't wind up with any gaps too big for GS. Turns out I had to trim about a half inch off of the full flat sheet to fit it in there after gluing both sides down and clamping/screwing them.
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Now came the time to uncork a can of GS. I've used all three brands that the sparky store sells, and I'm partial to the original GS and Loctite's expanding foam product. Both seem to do better than the GE or 3M or whoever it is (forgot to take pic and can't remember what brand the red & white labeled one is) and the door & window GS. Several pics of expanding foam products glopped on everywhere....
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Got the bright idea to slip on a vinyl glove and smear the expanding foam into the funky divot on the right front. :twisted: I'd of been better off doing this: :DOH2: The foam ate the glove :hammerhead: But I pushed through it and since I was already a sticky sloppy mess with one hand, I smoothed it out best I could:
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Left side, I just blew a line into the divot and let it swell up:
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I then glued the top down. I had 8'7" roughly to cover, and my foam stretcher wasn't working right :lol: so I lined up the full sheet to the back wall and left a gap at the front to fill in with a scrap. I am fairly certain I'm gonna wind up with a partial sheet full-width when I get the back wall up. (That was a decision made Saturday, is why the roof vent hole was already cut thusly.)

The roof sheet was the Newton clamp for the left side pitched wall, before I trimmed it to fit. Worked well to hold it in place while I got some screws and fender washers into it. After trimming the places that needed it, I glurped a bead of expanding foam down each rib and onto the butt joints where the sides of the top foam butted up to the pitched wall/roof. Then clamping everywhere I had a spot to put one.... back wall and around vent hole, mainly. Couple of 2x4's served as Newton clamps. I had opened a new can of GS to finish out this piece, so I went back and filled gaps between some squirrelly ribs and the roof, and a few points where stuff didn't square up exactly right. Can't see any more light where I shouldn't see light, so it's probably stuck together decently.
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Newton clamps, just laying up there :D
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The missing piece of the roof:
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Used a long sharp knife and trimmed back the glurps of GS, and started framing the back wall. This is as far as I got today, getting both sides up of the doorway. It's gonna wind up being 31.5" wide, giving a 30" opening if I use 1x2 to give the door a seal. The boss's chair is only 25" wide, she has no problems with a 30" interior door, and this one here will have straight approaches both entering and exiting. :thumbsup:
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Bill
Texas Gulf coast, near Corpus

Working on this, started 5/2017: http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?t=68614

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Re: Foamie hybrid with ribs and wheelchair accessibility...

Postby GPW » Tue Jul 11, 2017 4:55 am

Well heck, that’s looking Good !!! :thumbsup: A cheap serrated steak knife will make quick work of removing the excess foaming foam … ;)
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Re: Foamie hybrid with ribs and wheelchair accessibility...

Postby Redneck Packrat » Thu Jul 13, 2017 6:23 pm

Started working on the back wall today. Biggest single piece I *need* in one piece is the door, so I cut it out first and set it WAY aside so I didn't grab it and slice a chunk out of a corner of it :R

The drop from that door piece fit almost-exactly on the right side of the door, so it got put on with GG on the wood facings, with screws/fender washers.
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There was just a little bit of bow in this piece, so I ran a couple of 3" screws into the edge of the foam before clamping it with a pipe clamp. (That started screw's usefulness will become apparent shortly :twisted:
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Cut out the bottom of two pieces for the wall left of the door. Had a bit more bow in this one than the rh side.
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So, I had a piece of 1/4" dowel on the table, cut it to about 8" lengths and sharpened it in a pencil sharpener.
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Drilled 1/4" holes in the door frame, filled 'em with TB2, and started the 'fake pencils' :shock: into the holes
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Then I reached around and held the foam where it wanted to be with one hand and tapped the fake pencils into the foam with a small hammer until they were flush. They took 99.9% of the TB2 with 'em. Nothing to wipe up to speak of :thumbsup:
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Those dowels held the foam exactly where it wanted to be for clamping with a long pipe clamp.
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Squeezed the Liquid Nails out nicely...
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Did I say LONG pipe clamp? :shock: (Now the reason for that started screw is apparent ;) )
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When I cut the vertical 2x4's for the door frame, I only went as high as the rib. My intention was to screw the rib to the door frame, so it didn't need to go all the way up the wall. Because I am going to round off the back corner, I wanted it foam side-to-side without having to deal with a much harder-to-sand couple of spots over the doorway. That's why the funny-shaped piece over the door, which looks like it's gonna turn out okay.
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From a distance, the back wall foam completed...
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Next, I found a scrap to trim and put in the flat part of the roof in front of the full piece in that missing hole, just ahead of the fan cutout. Liquid Nails wood-to-foam and Alex Plus silicone (the label says 40 years, so it should last until I'm in my 90's. That's long enough :lol: ) on the foam-to-foam joinings.
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AND THE FOAM IS ON! 8) Now for the OTHER 90% of the build :?

Couple of inside shots through the front window hole....
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That's it for today. Switches for the bed came in, that's my next project is to see if my idea is gonna work for the bed controls.
Bill
Texas Gulf coast, near Corpus

Working on this, started 5/2017: http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?t=68614

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Re: Foamie hybrid with ribs and wheelchair accessibility...

Postby BigRay » Thu Jul 13, 2017 7:49 pm

I like your project, excellent documenting.
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Re: Foamie hybrid with ribs and wheelchair accessibility...

Postby depatty » Thu Jul 13, 2017 8:12 pm

Looking good! I especially like the fake pencils. Gonna steal that one! :thumbsup:
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Re: Foamie hybrid with ribs and wheelchair accessibility...

Postby Redneck Packrat » Thu Jul 13, 2017 8:17 pm

depatty wrote:Looking good! I especially like the fake pencils. Gonna steal that one! :thumbsup:


I was amazed at how solid they were! Driven into the foam six inches, and they didn't move around ANY.... and I hossed on one a bit that I stuck into a piece of scrap!

One observation... the pencil sharpener didn't care--it didn't know they were fake :R
Bill
Texas Gulf coast, near Corpus

Working on this, started 5/2017: http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?t=68614

Some days you're the bug, some days you're the windshield :?
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Re: Foamie hybrid with ribs and wheelchair accessibility...

Postby GPW » Fri Jul 14, 2017 7:02 am

Certainly coming along Nicely …. going to be a lot of room inside … 8)
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Re: Foamie hybrid with ribs and wheelchair accessibility...

Postby Redneck Packrat » Fri Jul 14, 2017 7:06 am

GPW wrote:Certainly coming along Nicely …. going to be a lot of room inside … 8)


Funny, I was thinking the opposite.... once I get a 2nd bed in there and her chariot parked in the open space, it's gonna get awful crowded :shock:

But.... it's not a ballroom, it's a place for soft flat spots for two people to lay down. So yeah, it's gonna serve the purpose just fine 8)
Bill
Texas Gulf coast, near Corpus

Working on this, started 5/2017: http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?t=68614

Some days you're the bug, some days you're the windshield :?
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