Lightweight Weekender modified to a slide on

[ute]

Hello everyone,

I am new here and thought I would hop over to the non traditional area and say hello. I am considering building a modified weekender to slide onto my ute flatbed. My question is, what is the total weight for an empty lighweight weekender? I would like to remove it with 2 people. I would unload it completely unloading, so I am talking about just the floor, walls and roof. Any cabinets will be using plastic containers that I can pull out, so it will be pretty bare bones.

Second question, how much would the floor have to be reinforced for a slide on? I wont have a trailer frame to add support, so I will have to stiffen the floor.

I appreciate the help.

[bobhenry]

I have built 2 floor as a torsion box . I take a 2x4 on edge as an outside ring and cut a 1/2" x 1/2" rabbett on top and bottom inside edge. I then recess a sheet of 1/2" plywood cut to fit in the rabbetts. It is glued and screwed 6 to 8 inches on center. Before applying the top sheet fill the center with blue foam insulation. You could run an extra spine in the center by ripping the center 2x4 to 2 1/2 inches and this would give you extra support lengthways. The foam inner core greatly increases the strength of the top sheet making it all but crushproof. One could easily build in electrical chases to whereever from whereever thru this center void if you plan your electrical well. This torsion box floor is like a turtle smooth on the bottom making for easy in and out with 2 or 3 small pipes as rollers. It is well insulated and virtually impossible to rack from corner to corner.

[ute]

What do estimate its weight to be?

[coal_burner]

adding the weight of materials
1.3 lbs per linear foot of 2x4
25 lbs per 1/4" thickness of 4' x 8' plywood
blue foam weight 1.5 lbs per cubic foot

31 Lbs of 2x4
100 Lbs of plywood
10 Lbs foam

141 Lbs for the un-finished 4' x 8' floor alone

if you build the walls and roof out of 1/2" plywood, then add another 250 lbs unfinished weight. unfinished meaning no mattress, paint, wiring, paneling, rain proofing, nothing.
You will probably end up with over 500 Lbs of camper that the 2 of you would need to lift.

Or....

A friend of mine is building a 4x8 slide-in pop-up using foam/wood sandwich construction. Instead of lifting the camper onto the trailer, we are trying to come up with a collapsible wheeled carraige like they use on ambulance gurneys.
If you could figure out that collapse-able base you could load and offload with only one person.

[ute]

I was thinking of using camper jacks. What if I used 1/8 ply for the sides with ribs every 8 inches?

[mikeschn]

Go here http://www.microlitetrailer.com/
and look at the specs for the Wazzat.

Mike...

[ute]

Go here http://www.microlitetrailer.com/
and look at the specs for the Wazzat.

Mike...

Thank you for the link. It looks I won't be able to build it light enough for my needs.

[jay]

http://nida-core.com/english/



depends where your pain threshold lies. the trade off for uber light weight may be additional $$$ and labor. what is 100# worth in time & effort?

how often will the cabin be shuffled off/ on? every weekend or 4 times a year? all good things to consider at the planning stages.