brown paper bag floor?

[Wolffarmer]

Could use old stationary that past girl friends bought me. And i never used.

hmmmmmmm. Maybe I will get a clue some day.



Randy

[S. Heisley]

It looks really cool, Louella! It reminds me of stained glass!
Thanks for sharing.

[Wolfgang92025]

Louella,

That floor looks really great.....

[KCStudly]

Yup, you most certainly can be proud of that!!! It looks great!

[eaglesdare]

wow, thank you all so much!

[PKCSPT]

I love this idea it is certainly leads to more ideas. The trailer covered in maps is really nice too.
Makes me wish I had the patience to do it.

[pat g]

Nice job on your floor!

Pat G

[S. Heisley]

I thought the following should be quoted here because this gentleman is talking about our
water-based oil modified polyurethane for floors and also craft paper are mentioned in a good light:

The following was excerpted from: posting.php?mode=quote&f=55&p=926722

Just came across this forum on foamies, I have been building foamies for years now but they fly! The RC plane guys have been working with foam as core material for wings for 30 years now and recently the use of foam for entire planes has exploded as well as the covering and painting of it.

We are a cheap bunch so have developed some ideas for covering and adding strength to the foam. Maybe some of our ideas may transfer over to building these foamies and some of your ideas may work on ours.

Some of the stuff we use is the same , TBII , lightweight spackle , epoxy glues and resins. We also face the same problems of stuff eating our foam!

One of the things we use that I didn't see here was Water Based polyurathane(stuff for doing hardwood floors). We have been using it like fiberglass resin and have had great results. It dries very hard and goes on very smooth . It has been used with various coverings ranging from very light fiberglass(1/2-2 oz fg cloth) , unused newsprint , craft paper, silkspan tissue. I know that you guys are probably laughing now about using stuff like paper and tissue on your creations but its amazing how much its adds to the foam. 2 layers of craft paper will make the stuff damn near bullet proof. It can then be painted with latex or other paints.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1552848

Again, this way, we have all our information for our paper floors (and maybe other applications) in one place.

[SteveW]

I've been seriously considering using paper on all the interior surfaces of my foam build. Seems like it would give the rigidity I'm looking for, but be a bit easier to apply to the interior than canvas (and I would imagine considerably lighter as well).

[GPW]

SW, Good idea !!! Paper and wood being made of the same thing , just reconfigured.... brown kraft paper bags are pretty strong .. Better than thin Luan , no chance of delaminating ... Thrifty too ...

[eaglesdare]

thanks sharon. doing your walls like this is a cool idea. but do it prior to attaching, cuz i really can't see doing this standing up. pita. but while the wall panel is laying flat would be very doable.

[doug hodder]

Sharon....I really like what you've done on the floor. Get's me to thinking, there are some fabrics out there that look very similar to the older Marmoleum floorings from the 30's and 40's that are incredibly expensive now. I've got more time than money to do something like that on the flooring. I'm going to do some experimenting with it all. So how is your floor holding up and does it show scratches? I am amazed at the amount of small stones and other grit that makes their way into my standy when camping. Do you think that any flex in the ply substrate will cause problems through the finish? I wanna check it out at the Dam! Doug

[S. Heisley]

Sharon....I really like what you've done on the floor. Get's me to thinking, there are some fabrics out there that look very similar to the older Marmoleum floorings from the 30's and 40's that are incredibly expensive now. I've got more time than money to do something like that on the flooring. I'm going to do some experimenting with it all. So how is your floor holding up and does it show scratches? I am amazed at the amount of small stones and other grit that makes their way into my standy when camping. Do you think that any flex in the ply substrate will cause problems through the finish? I wanna check it out at the Dam! Doug

No problems yet. The polyurethane is reasonably flexible; so, I imagine that it flexes when the plywood flexes. As far as stones and grit go, this stuff is used on kitchen floors and, unlike our week-end trailer floors, some of those kitchens get grit walked in every day. The product is made to be used on floors. After a year or two, if it starts looking worn, just add another coating and you should be back to a new-looking floor. I had a co-worker whose mom used it on her kitchen floor instead of wax. She put a new coat on every year or so. The can does say to wait 24 hours after the last application before light use and 7 days before walking on it. I did that with my trailer but it would be hard to do that with a kitchen floor. I guess you'd have to apply it to the kitchen and then plan on leaving the house for a camping trip!

I suspect you'd be just fine, using material with it. You could always use a remnant on a small piece of plywood to try it out. I look forward to seeing what you do!

PS. While 100% cotton might be okay, I think some of the newer fabrics might not behave well with the polyurethane, depending upon what they are made of. Therefore, it would probably be best to test first with a piece of the actual fabric that is planned to be used. While you, Doug, would know this, others reading my posting might not. This postscript is to ensure that others meet with success, rather than failure.

[eaglesdare]

since i was doing my floor in the middle of my living room, i couldn't wait the 24 hours or the 7 days. once it was dry, it was walked on by everyone in my house. the dogs even played across it. i heard nails scraping it, kids doing their darndest, hubby's work boots, well you get the picture. i checked it several times a day just to see if any damage was done. nothing, looked like new.
now since this piece of floor ended up not actually fitting my trailer frame, we used it while they built my shell. it just sat on the frame, so the guys had something to stand on. since it doesn't fit though i am going to redue my floor. however, we never removed this piece from the trailer frame. it has now been sitting out in the sun, rain, wind and frost, pollen, everything. once you dust off the pollen, it still looks new. now of course the wood and lauan is not holding up as well, (i never got to the water proofing yet, so that part is starting to rot. no worries here though, it was a good learning experience for me. i am just going to get a piece of wood for my floor (no more torsion boxes for me) and just redue the floor design.

but just wanted to report about the durability of these floors, and don't forget that the brown paper can be sanded, as i even did that.

[S. Heisley]

There are a couple things to think about when sanding brown paper. One is that wherever you sand it, you are exposing more fibers to the polyurethane. What that can do is give you more dark lines, similar to where the paper has been torn. You decide if this is what you want. The other is that, if this is for a floor surface, the smoother the floor, the easier it will be to possibly slip on it, especially if it gets wet. Granted, our trailers are small so you probably wouldn’t fall far; but safety is always something to consider. Personally, I like the added minimal texture and find that the coatings of polyurethane smooth it out enough that it does not cause a problem for catching dirt or tear the paper. However, if you were coating a wall and planning to follow up with a polyurethane paint, you might want to sand it smooth, anyway.

If you are using cloth, the weave of the fabric should allow air bubbles to release and any wrinkles in fabric can be smoothed out, using techniques already established.

As stated before, it is best to test what you plan to do on a small scrap of plywood so that you will know if you will like the final outcome on your trailer.