Need help/recommendations floating sides

[Coca Cola Teardrop]

Ok guys, We need suggestions, recomendations etc.
Charles and I used outdoor carpet adhesive on the black teardrop with flames. Never had any problems with it bubbling.

Now, the 4th teardrop that we built Charles used some type of industrial adhesive. He did not use a trowel and spread the adhesive over the entire side. He just had big swishes everywhere. Well, going through the high temps in Nevada and California the sides started bubbling.
So we bought new aluminum and floated one side as recomended. The tear has been shop kept for 10 months. We had to move it out under an outside cover and with our temps getting into the triple digits a few weeks ago we noticed that the side that we floated has bubbled. I went out and checked in one morning when the temp was in the upper 70's or lower 80's and the bubble was still there. We used adhesive around roof edges, window edge and door edge.
We are going to remove skin on both sides this coming weekend and need advise on what we might have done wrong.

Any recommendations are needed.

Thanks
Linda

[madjack]

Linda, first I would ask you two questions...1) did it lay back flat when temps cooled down...2) did it re-bubble when temps went back up....

...my experience had been, with adhesive, once bubbled, it would not lay back in place and the bubble would continue to show, even after cooled...
...it took extreme(100+) temps/sun exposure for this to occur.....
...once it had gone thru the "bubble and back" cycle a couple of times, it wouldn't bubble anymore(or bubble as badly)........
madjack

[alffink]

Linda

Madjacks' two questions are right to the heart of your question
If you used an adhesive to PERMANENTLY mount your aluminum skins
you should not be seeing bubbles unless the adhesive is failing or worse the wood underneath is being torn by the exspansion and contraction of the aluminum. That is the reason for floating the aluminum, NO adhesive between the skin and the wood.

I camp in the desert all the time, first thing in the morning the skin on my tear appears to be soild, can run your hand along it or tap it and there is no play in the surface what-so-ever, but by lunch or early afternoon you can visually see the sides swelling, even the door skins, but as soon as the sun starts to drop along with the temperature things go back to normal.

The only thing that holds my skins in place is the aluminum angle along the edges, the door frames etc.

Hope that you are just witnessing the natural changes, due to temperature change, just check it in the morning, during the heat of mid-day and again in the evening, if things are the same morning and evening you should be fine, nothing to worry about.

[alffink]

Hi again Linda

Not to change the thread, but I wanted to tell ya just how much fun Karen and I had up at Cloudcroft. We had a ball, and hope to find ourselves camping with you again very soon.

[Coca Cola Teardrop]

Oops.
I edited my message. I forgot to say that I checked it one morning when it was in the upper 70's - low 80's and the bubble was still there.
So?????
Are we supposed to use adhesive of any sort around the windows, door and roof? Or do we just use clamps everywhere untill trim is on to hold in place.
The small bubbles are up by the roof edge and I can press on part of the side and make the side move in and out. This one isn't noticable. Just the ones along the edge.
Linda

Al, We enjoyed visiting with you and Karen also as well as everyone else that made the trip. Hope to do it again next july

[alffink]

Linda

when the aluminum skin was ready to be attached to the sides, I used one coat of contact cement on the wood only (normally when using contact cement you would coat both surfaces that are to be attached)
Place a length of angle iorn along the bottom rail of the tear, to rest the skin on and placed several 1/2" x 1/2" spacers that I had ripped on the table saw, tapped verticaly along the side of the tear to prevent accidental of the skin until I was ready.

When the coat of contact cement was dry to tachy-touch with help, tilt the aluminum skin to the spacers, start removing spacers one at a time working from either end, but not both, to prevent bubbles, as you smooth the skin into contact with the sides.

OK, now your asking if I used contact cement, how can I say No-Adhesive,
well since the contact cement is used only on the wooden sides. almost immediately the contact cement is being absorbed by the wood as it dries to tachy so all the aluminum sees is the tachy surface not enough for permanent adhesian, but plenty to hold the skins in place, while the trim is placed around the edges, took me about three days to get trim in place. Now as soon as the cement has dried completely, the aluminum will start to seperate from the wood, but is contained by the trim and can safely, move due to the difference in exspansion and contraction due to temperature changes. between the wooden sides and the aluminum skins.

Now, this is probably not the best or easiest, way to do this but it was the way I did it, and it has worked out well, and I have camped in temperatures ranging from near zero to 120 degrees and at 120 degrees the tear can have the appearance of an aluminum pillow, but as the temps return to a more reasonable range the skin returns to a smooth solid surface.

[alffink]

Linda

Had to go back to my old files but found this image, shows the spacers and the angle ready for the aluminum skin. Hope this helps with my discription from my previous post.





Oh, I skined one side, crawled inside drilled small holes to mark corners of door frame then skined opposite side. when skining was complete cut out first marked door crawled inside marked opposite door. this way I did not have to perfectly align the side skins and door openings.
I just used painters blue tape to hold edges until trim was in place.

[Coca Cola Teardrop]

Thank you Al, I'll relay this info to Charles. We will see how we do with reskinning this weekend.

Thanks again
'
Linda

[Coyotewash]

Interesting discussion on floating aluminum sides. I'm not quite there yet, but should be in a couple of weeks. Think I might try your method of spraying only the wood side of the TD.

Thanks for the info.

Dave