Superlegerra -ish 5x9 foamy - First Trip!

[S. Heisley]

The paint turned out nice!

Yes, as long as you won't be knocking anything around inside or near the outside of your trailer, you should be good to go.
When I built my trailer, I put the windows in with about half the screws, for easy removal, until I was certain that I was ready to attach them permanently.

[lthomas987]

So last night I did the cutting and kerfing of the hatch. I also started on my door.

Tonight I got the second coat of primer on most of my internal parts just not the second sides of some two sided parts.

Next up setting backing blocks foot the hinge, props and latches in the hatch. Then gluing it into shape. Then canvas and paint!


I am out of town this weekend. Next week however

[Mary C]

WOW! You are doing great. I am so impressed. now is the time you have to decide just how to fit the hatch and door. it is a lot of figuring and measuring and measuring but you can do it. Have a good weekend. I know you will be thinking about just how to do the finishing but you will do a great job.

Mary C.

[Shar]

This is looking great! I for one can hardly wait to see it with the windows in; it will look almost done (even though of course there will be all sorts of details to sort out). Good luck with the weather.

[GoTurtleGo]

Hi Again Laura,

This is looking great. I can hardly wait to see the hatch and the door. Been following along and enjoying it thoroughly. Love the color.

[lthomas987]

So I started on my hatch the other night and kerfed the foam. The quick will notice I cut one kerf the wrong direction . At least I noticed before I cut more than one?



I was then stumped and stopped because I was out of Gorilla Glue, and I was going to lose my whole weekend to travel. Which it turns out was just as well because it made me think about things.

I had been planning to mask and tarp off all the finished bits of the trailer and then shape the hatch to fit the curves while trying not to get glue on anything important. Which as we all know is a joy and a treat with GG. Then while sitting on the tarmac waiting to head out of town I had a good idea. Why not make some fake hatch curves out of offcuts of foam. Then do my glueup on them away from the trailer! So given one piece of my roof foam that I had cut off the remaining 30" of width I managed to get two curves cut! So I still have some big chunks of foam left.



I then shaped everything around the fake hatch curves with some ratchet straps. When I do this for real with glue I'll be sure to put some cardboard where the straps run over the edges of the hatch.






Now I have to decide if I am going to do my hot wire inletting and installation of the backer blocks for things like the hinge and the latches and the prop rods before or after I glue up the curve. Also I have to decide on inside or outside the hatch for each of them.

My thoughts are hinge reinforcer bar on the outside to match the roof.
Latch backer blocks on the inside so they pull THROUGH the foam not just one layer of canvas.
The prop rods.. they vex me.. inside? outside? there will be forces in each direction. Although I think the gravity effects of my foam lid are not significant , so I am thinking outside so the prop rod when it pushes on the block it COULD push through the back if the gorilla glue and canvas fail, but that way if the wind grabs the hatch it will have the foam and the fabric and the glue holding it all in.

Perhaps I should make some pictures of this.

[lthomas987]

Does this make the rambling I was doing about blocks any easier? This is the edge view of my trailer hatch (sort of as whacked up in MS Paint in 5 minutes at my desk at work).

The hinge strip is a 1x2 (ripped out of something bigger so it's pretty nice actually) and goes all the way edge to edge. Once canvassed and painted and such I will be screwing a living hinge backed with 1/8" aluminum into it.

The prop rod I haven't solved totally yet but I know I need something to drive screws into probably just to support a closet rod cup drilled through the side to allow pinning. I am thinking of using two prop rods to reduce the chance of twisting. Anybody with experience got thoughts on that?

I'm using rubber and plastic draw latches to hold the hatch down. The bottom of the latches will be screwed into the bumper. So I needs something to screw them into on the hatch.

For the draw latches and the prop rods I was thinking of using a couple of squares of hardwood 1x4 to anchor the screws in. So they'd be fairly big 3.5" by 3.5" squares set in the foam with gorilla glue and covered with linen and paint.

Do you all think my all foam hatch dream will work? I've made a freestanding foam curve (the front of the bike drop prototype) that I could set my 30lb dog on before I even considered canvasing it. So I think I can make the curve hold.

[Mary C]

I certainly think it would work. I like your idea.

wood backer blocks would work , What kind of latches are you going to use? be sure that you can secure you hatch well because it is foam the wind at sixty mph can lift it up. I saw the wind lift us a piece of plywood off a truck one time.

Mary C.

[lthomas987]

I certainly think it would work. I like your idea.

wood backer blocks would work , What kind of latches are you going to use? be sure that you can secure you hatch well because it is foam the wind at sixty mph can lift it up. I saw the wind lift us a piece of plywood off a truck one time.

Mary C.

I'm going to use these http://www.mcmaster.com/#4015A31 from McMaster Carr. Several other people have used them. They appear to be the sort that hold the hoods closed on semi-tractors.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#93085k92/=u65wp0 I am thinking of using this to seal my hatch, but it depends on what the gap looks like once everything is bent and canvassed and glued.

I am also considering the screws for installing my windows from there, they have some designed for marine usage with anti-vibration rubber gaskets.

[lthomas987]

Something went awry on the glue up of my hatch. Despite having set it up dry twice. Dry fit it twice. When I did it with glue SOMEHOW the thing skewed. So it's sort of a parallelogram in a curve. I have done a TON of long put off chores while thinking about it. LIKE LONG deferred chores, cleaned the p-trap in the upstairs tub, touched up the house paint in a few spots where it was peeling, scrubbed the utility room floor on my hands and knees, cleaned the bedroom carpets, painted the dog's teeter, went hunting (dog flushed a few but I didn't get a shot I'm just not fast enough for woodcock).

But on my way back from hunt training my dog training buddy had an idea for fixing the hatch. Which is why I have explained the dilemma to EVERYONE who has come near my garage, even if they're not inclined to build things. She doesn't build things, but she doesn't have cable TV, so she watches a lot of PBS and she said "Norm would scribe a line and cut it." I think she might be right.

Tomorrow I have to do the brakes on the van I gave away. I gave it away so I could stop working on the thing. Sometimes being nice doesn't pay. I HATE doing drum brakes.

I also borrowed a scroll saw for trimming the corners of my door, if I get up early I think I can get the door trimmed and test fit tomorrow before the brake job.

[KCStudly]

Busy, busy, busy. When I procrastinate I usually don't do anything productive at all.

So is the hatch wide enough at the top (or bottom) but too wide at the bottom (or top)? If it fits the profile and is the same or bigger all around, then I don't see what could be wrong with trimming it to fit. You might want to make sure that you have your hinge all set to go and dry fit so that you can make sure that the hatch goes back to the same spot once it is trimmed.

[lthomas987]

Busy, busy, busy. When I procrastinate I usually don't do anything productive at all.

So is the hatch wide enough at the top (or bottom) but too wide at the bottom (or top)? If it fits the profile and is the same or bigger all around, then I don't see what could be wrong with trimming it to fit. You might want to make sure that you have your hinge all set to go and dry fit so that you can make sure that the hatch goes back to the same spot once it is trimmed.

The hatch was intentionally cut a bit (1/2" wider than the trailer so I could plane it down to the exact width I wanted) Also to allow for the fact there is a tiny bit 1/4" of flare towards the bottom of the passenger side wall where it meets the trailer. For some reason while gluing up it slid out just a bit. Since the foam comes off so easy with a Surform plane I just cut it slightly oversized. When looking at the hatch lid from the rear it is no longer square || it is slightly parallelogram shaped. //

3 (Top, Drivers, Bottom) of the 4 edges of the hatch are the factory edges of the foam sheet. So if you line up the edge along the hinge it is about 1.5" sideways at the bottom. If you line the drivers side edge up and make that the one you care about.. It all fits GREAT except that you have a 3/4" gap at the top on the drivers side near the hinge. And at the passenger side it is all the way up where it should go.

So if I took a long narrow triangle off the top edge everything would fit right. Sure the bottom edge wouldn't be straight but that is irrelevant. I deliberately left the hatch piece longer than it needs to be so I can trim the length off the bottom to make the seal work out, and know exactly where I wanted it to end.

[KCStudly]

Sounds like a plan; trim the top. If all else fails you can glue some extra foam on where needed and trim it back to suit.

There are so many variables that build up by the time we get around to fitting the hatch. The wall profile and relative position, both side to side and front to back; whether the bulkhead is built square, and installed plumb and square side to side; and then the hatch itself. Making a curved shape true in 3D is not easy to do with great precision.

I haven't figured it out exactly, but the gap between my hinge spars wants to be about an 1/8 of an inch wider on the curb side ( don't tell anyone), and my lower hatch spar is higher up on the profile than I expected when I made an adjustment in my rib placement to allow for canvas thickness. The plans are just a guide. Stuff still has to be made to fit, and the further along in the plan, the more stuff has to be "fit to suit".

Letting things sit on the back burner can be a very effective tool to avoid rushing into things with a lack of clarity.

[S. Heisley]

You're one smart lady, Laura, and that's half the battle in building.

PS. I love you're new pooch avatar.

[GoTurtleGo]

Laura,

Everything is looking so nice. Love the color. Good work all around.

I'll be interested to see how you solve the hatch skewing because I have no doubt that you will come up with an excellent solution.

Cheers,