Hybrid Foamie in Southern Alberta

[Martiangod]

Thankfully we didn't get that, but its friggin cold....

ya cant sit out in the deck chairs so might as well work on trailer

Build on!!!

[Shar]

Da foam, at last!! My original plan was to bring this stuff home with the trailer itself, once the floor was bolted down on it, but things went awry this week and we have not yet a) tested the lights, or b) bolted the floor on. I decided to try bringing home the 2" foam (in 2x8 panels because they don't sell it any bigger, it turns out) inside our cars. Mark's Subaru is bigger, so we went with that. I needed 5 sheets, which will turn into the side walls of my tt, and Mark was confident that both we and the 5 sheets could fit into the vehicle. I heard a tiny little voice inside that said, "maybe you should bring your car, too" and I ignored it. (NEVER DO THAT!)
We exited the big blue box store with our 5 beautiful sheets of foam, and discovered that it was impossible to fit them all in the car, unless we left out one of us. By the time we were certain of this, the store was also closed. Everything within walking distance was closed, and it was cold (and snowing).
In the end, I had to lie down in the hatchback, under the foam, and hope that no cop would notice that Mark was carrying a body around in the back of his car.
Tomorrow after work, my first encounter with Gorilla glue.

[Wolffarmer]

The adventures of foam construction.

Randy

[lthomas987]

I like the zig zag of glue then spread it to a thin uniform film method of gorilla glue application. I use cardboard scraps as spreaders.

I feel like I am finally getting better with the stuff. My first practice piece was an over oozed blobby mess. Way to much glue and to much water.

You're working indoors. Which is good. We had a return to cold last week and after four days of temps just above freezing with rain I discovered one some of my glue had set. I brought it indoors and it finished fine.

[Martiangod]

Spoke / typed too soon, snowing...grrr
foam gives a warm fuzzy feeling

[Shar]

No Gorilla glue yet, but I did get a few things done today. The floor is now back on the trailer, and bolted in place. We backed the car up close to it, and tried to test the lights, only to find that the wires are not compatible! I hope there is an adapter for this, and I wonder where to find it. I have shown pics of this dilemma.
I then spent a few minutes lying on the trailer floor and admiring the cold, cloudy sky, while imagining the finished trailer. Then I came inside and cut my first piece of foam (used a steak knife). Here is a mock-up of one of the side walls (held together with toothpicks) with an Ikea chair for scale. The next step is to glue the three pieces of foam together, and I am still thinking that part through. I want to make sure that the foaming action of the Gorilla glue doesn't push the panels away from each other. Any ideas?

[Shar]

The electrical dilemma.

[Shar]

Those are not good pictures. The basic problem seems to be that both connectors are "female" so they can't connect. I went to an auto parts store and they said one of them would have to be cut off, and a male-type one sautered in its place. I want to find out a bit more about this...in the meantime I am working on gluing the 2x8 sections of foam together to make the side walls. The instructions say to clamp the work for 2 hours, but that a full cure is 24 hours. I wonder how soon I can move the piece, in order to glue the other one? (Only one work surface, y'see)

[Shar]

Further experiments with GG. A little more glue, a little more water- eek! run for more weights...!

[KCStudly]

In my climate I find a thin smear of GG using a fake credit card (the ones that always seem to come in the junk mail) on one side, and wipe with a barely damp cloth/paper rag on the other side and I'm good. Trim any squeeze out as flush as you can with a steak knife or extended snap type razor knife and be very careful if sanding is necessary (tends to cut adjacent foam and not the GG joint).

Light weight vinyl ceiling spackle is your friend.

[KCStudly]

I'll just add, you are looking for tight joints with tight bubbles in the glue (i.e. not a lot of expansion). The more water you use the bigger the bubbles will be and the weaker the glue joint.

Remember, GG is not a crack filling compound. It is a glue. Keep your joints tight, only use a film of glue and barely any moisture.

[Shar]

Thanks KC! I have two more to do today, so I'm honing my technique as I go. It was amazing, with that second one, how the glue pushed up against the sheet of foam.

[Shar]

By the end of the day, I had the foam panels for the side walls glued together. Once I have prepped them with some abrasive process, they will be ready for skinning. My plan is to use 1/8 ply on the inside, and canvas on the outside. I don't have the ply at my house yet, because the trailer isn't roadworthy yet (because of that electrical issue) and I don't want to bring 1/8 ply home on the roof of my car; I am afraid of damaging it with my powerful ratchet straps.
I bought a new connector for the lights; this morning we will check to see if it works with the connector on the car, and then another test of the lights can happen. It's even possible we could pick up the ply today, in that case. I will get as much done as possible. Then tomorrow, back to my job.

[jstrubberg]

Sheryl,

Replacing one of those trailer plugs is a lot easier than you would think. The color coding on the wire is standardized, so you can cut one plug off and simply mate the same color wire on the new plug to your harness.

Also, soldering isn't necessary. Any place that carries the replacement plug should also have weatherproof butt connectors. You cut your wire and strip the end, then crimp on a butt connector, match it up to the appropriate wire and crimp that wire into the other end of the connector. When you are done, you use a lighter or other heat source to warm the end of the connector and it shrinks tight around the wire to keep water out. More than good enough for a lighting system.


Good luck!

[Shar]

Thanks, jstrubberg! I did cut off the old one (see pic below) and bought a new one that was compatible with the connector on Mark's car. When we tried to wire them together, we found that the new connector had 4 wires, but the wires from the trailer numbered 5. We put the white with white, the yellow with yellow, the green with green, and the two brown wires from the trailer with the one brown wire from the connector. The left brake light works now, but not the right. We spent a couple of hours checking every part of the system (is it the bulb? is it the light? etc.) without success. Did we mess up by putting those 2 brown wires together?