Thrifty Alternatives ..Building Foam Campers

[eaglesdare]

i was thinking of doing the canvas wrap again (instead of the paper), but now, the more i think about it, i think i will do the paper wrap. this is just in case that swelling happens once i am finished with the new one. it will be easy to just sand it down and recover with paper, easier than trying to patch a piece of canvas. but gosh dern, i wished i knew for sure why this is happening to me. i want to avoid this at all costs.

[eaglesdare]

i don't think any type of solvent was used here (not sure about at the store), but i don't see any reason why someone would have used a solvent to begin with. this foam was never skinned yet, so, except for the tarp being on top, laying directly on the foam, that is the only thing we have done to it.

but, you just might be onto something here. bleach, bleach watered down could be considered a solvent right, even diluted? if so, that just might be the answer. we had the shell tarped, but we also used the inside to store the pool inflatables. but we put them inside the shell. i know there were a few times, that we laid the vacumn on top, or even laid an inflatable on top also. perhaps the water dripped down, thru the tarp and caused this, like you suggest? is that a possibility? but again, this was a brand new tarp, so there really should not have been any holes in it to allow those possible drippings to go thru.

i think i may just test that theory this week. i have bleach and will dilute it and check this out.

[KCStudly]

The paint on this one appears to be generally in poor condition, which I suspect is the result of rapid aging due to moisture being trapped under the tarp (those plastic tarps break down quickly and are never really very water tight). The dark areas where the tarp imprint is looks like mold, perhaps, also suggesting water. My theory is that the moisture under the tarp, with abrasion from wind moving the tarp ruined the paint, allowing the moisture to get under the canvas, then freeze thaw cycle lifted the canvas while simultaneously making a depression in the foam (the reactive force from the ice expanding).

Even if the tarp could keep rain from penetrating from above, if it is an oversize tarp and is laid over covering
the camper down to the ground, and the whole thing s over earth or a poorly draining area, the moisture from the ground will be drawn up by the solar effect and be trapped under the tarp.

^^^ What Sharon said, above, need the tarp to be more like a car port where air can circulate under and between.

Tough to say from here, but that is my $.02

[KCStudly]

Oh, that's not paint and canvas, just raw foam? Hmm.

[eaglesdare]

that is not paint, its just dirty foam.

[GPW]

Pool chemicals , dog pee, the dreaded Foam eating bacteria... just a WAG ...

[linuxmanxxx]

Did you use TB2 on both of them? We may be revisiting that wood glue had terrible adhesion to foam.

[pete42]

Randy you are right about the saw stop not being added to any saw only comes on the one they sell, who says your to old to learn?
thanks for straighting me out.

louella could the "bumps" have been there when you bought the foam going unnoticed until the tarp rubbed them?

pete

[eaglesdare]

Did you use TB2 on both of them? We may be revisiting that wood glue had terrible adhesion to foam.

are you referring to those bumps? no tb at all, just gg inbetween the sheets. no glues/no paints/no coverings at all on the foam. plain naked foam. the shell was put together and then covered with a brand new tarp.
brand new sheets of foam, built shell, joints had gg, tarped and left since march.
now honestly, i doubt its the diluted bleach, because when i say diluted i mean it. a couple gallons added to over 10,000 gal of water. and the bleach would have been added the previous night. so by the next day, just about any bleach with turned into clorine, was for about all intense and purpose gone. i am going to try to recreate the amounts and test, but not sure if i can, due to the much hotter high 2 and 3 digit temps back then, as compared now to 50's at night to maybe high 70's low 80's. i would think air temp would play a factor in this.

i sure would like to cut into my canvas on the first foamie and see if that is what happened on that one, or if it really is just bubbling of the canvas. but i am not going to do that, i just don't want to cut that canvas open.


"could those bumps have been there when i bought them" well i would think that also could be a possibility, perhaps we did not see them without that dirt/tarp imprint. those bumps are on the same piece of foam, cut into 2 sections. so that could very well be.

[linuxmanxxx]

Past sold pics up close? G g will expand if there's room to allow it so it be gg expansion bumps?

[GPW]

I think Steve called it ... excess GG under the foam , kept expanding ... makes sense , especially when everything else doesn’t ...

[eaglesdare]

Past sold pics up close? G g will expand if there's room to allow it so it be gg expansion bumps?

it is early for me here, still working on my first cup of tea, but what does that first sentence mean?

now about gg, i have to disagree with this as the cause. i use gg all the time for connecting foam sheets to foam sheets. i could maybe understand that if the bubbles were closer to where the gg is, and it happened more over all the different pieces. and if it happened to others not just me. i am telling you these bubbles are not near the glue, they are on flat top pieces, nothing added to the foam. this isn't in the joint area, where gg is used, it just on the top flat part.

[GPW]

OK, so it’s not the GG ... Very strange ... All the years I’ve been playing with Foam , never seen anything like this ...

[linuxmanxxx]

What color and tote foam is it?

[eaglesdare]

its the blue lowes foam. 2" 4x8 sheets.