The Poet Creek Express - Foamie Hybrid

[azgreg]

Thanks for the new wallpaper Tony.

[tony.latham]

Thanks for the new wallpaper Tony.

You betcha.

T

[OP827]

The one obvious difference between canvas and fiberglass is , ..... Canvas shrinks as it dries , tightening and smoothing over the foam .... Fiberglass does not ... so must be applied perfectly ...
And we’re still wondering about the self-healing of fiberglass over foam .. Maybe ???

GPW, I had a dent made by a clamp jig by accident cinto my build trailer body that was glassed with epoxy and one layer 6oz cloth. I used a heat gun (carefully not to overheat the surface) and the dent is gone. Where I have two layers of 6oz in front it would be more difficult to put a dent, but I think still the same technique can be used and if glass cloth is teared, then a patch with some epoxy will fix it.

[GPW]

Thanks OP , that’s Good news !!!

[KCStudly]

That is good news. Thanks.

I've hit a bit of a slow down here. Combination of things from construction labor at my day job wearing me out, to doing the taxes, to a nasty stomach bug that has taken me down for a couple of days. I won't gore you out with the details, but am still ADR ("ain't doing right"); so am staying close to porcelain. At first I thought it was food poisoning, but apparently it is something that is going around at work.

I hope to be back out there tomorrow. I did hear from Karl and he said the hatch cure looks good, although he didn't scrutinize it closely.

Kind of bummed because the weather here is very nice.

[GPW]

Isn’t that always the way ... Nice weather , can’t work ... Please get well soon !!!

That is great to know about the foam and fiberglass too . It was wonderful knowing the foam/canvas would self heal , but fiberglass too ... that’s very cool ... must mean it’s all the Foam doing it , and considering that foam is probably mostly AIR , then it’s the trapped Air inside the cells that’s doing this ... Not too shocking ,considering we ride around on big rubber balloons all the time ...

[KCStudly]

Finally back in the shop tonight!

And it was mid-70’s out today.

Got the hatch amine washed; scraped the rough edges from around the perimeter; and sanded the bumper to fair in the new layers with the previous under wrap.

Lots more sanding to do on the hatch around the edges and behind the hinge. All of those ripples I was trying to avoid with the roller showed up. They don’t seem to be air blisters, but rather more like the first ply kinked up and let resin fill in underneath. I don’t want to sand them down and burn thru the glass fibers, but I don’t want to add a ton of filler either, so we’ll see. Makes a good argument for a proper vacuum bag setup.

Trudging forward.

[KCStudly]

I figured that I should do as much of the fairing sanding and cleanup work on the hatch now while it is stable and securely attached to the cabin, rather than chasing it around on the bench.

First I sanded across the top near the hinge, working from either side out to the middle. You'll see that in a bit, below.

Here’s an example of what we’re dealing with, the somewhat rough edge of the top glass ply where it overlaps the plies that wrap up from the side wall; looks sort of like half a zipper.


Here’s the same area on the curb side after blending the riffle back down to the outer edge. Essentially tapering the area where the 2nd hatch ply became the 3rd overlapping ply.


While I was at it I ran a little wad of sandpaper around the edges of the wire recesses for the clearance and tail lights, just to ease the edge and make sure that there wasn’t any thing sharp that could chafe the wires.


So I did what I could on the bumper on Monday, and tonight I got the top pretty well set, down the curb side, and about the top half of the street side.

While I was at it I also scuffed most of the surface of the hatch to get a better feel for those ripples and whether they might sand down without burning too far through the top ply. I think I figured out what happened. As soon as I scuffed the area just below the bustle radius I could see the imprint of epoxy drips that had run down from above ahead of the squeegee action. Those drips must have started to gel before I advanced to that area with the wet out, creating slight bumps that didn’t lay down the same, despite it all seeming to be consistent at the time. I figure that the disc roller probably just pressed these slightly cured drips into the foam, which in turn just kept springing back. The good news is that they definitely aren’t air pockets, just resin rich areas, so I can sand them quite a bit before attempting to fair with compound or high build primer. Now that I scuffed them they might show up better in a pic, which I will attempt to take tomorrow.

Running out of steam, I picked a little easier task to finish the evening; I peeled the masking tape off of the hinge.


It’s looking like the hinge should be pretty easy to flip. Also, you can see the area sanded along the top to the left of the hinge in this pic. Just a little left to do after the hinge comes off again and is out of the way.

Train kept a rollin’.

[Redneck Teepee]

KC, just wanted to let you know that I enjoy following your build thread and I look forward to every update as it progresses. You are very thorough and methodical with all of your approach's to the task at hand. You're also quite patient, which translates to me a real desire to build to the best of your ability and know how .. which I might add are quite impressive!

Keep the pic's and updates coming

[KCStudly]

Thank you very much. I appreciate that you took the time to share such kind and encouraging thoughts. It means a lot to me when the hard work and effort is recognized.

[GPW]

QUOTE: “ which in turn just kept springing back. “ Yes, Exactly .... The self-healing we talk about is merely product “memory” ... “ memory foam” ...

Looking GOOD KC !!!

[KCStudly]

Thanks, GPW.

Hopefully I can get thru with the sanding on the street side of the hatch tonight and get the hinge removed. I have an idea for a quick fixture that will help drill and chamfer the new pattern in the back side of the hinge... then I get to cut the hatch free again!

[TheOtherSean]

Nice work, KC. Your trailer's exterior is really starting to look near done. I am eagerly waiting to see how it looks when you get a coat of paint on it.

[KCStudly]

Thanks TOS, I'm looking forward to that, too, however, at the moment paint seems like it is a long way off. It has made it on to the new “short list”, though.

This evening I finished sanding the edge “zippers” on the hatch using the medium board with 36 grit followed up by the other medium board with 100 grit, all working with diagonal strokes keeping the board perpendicular to (aligned straight across) the profile.

Intermixed with this I hit all of those ripples, the bias diagonal seam and the small triangle at the top of the hatch pretty aggressively using the same ‘X’ pattern sanding.

Until I saw this pic I thought the ripples only corresponded to the pattern I had worked to applying the various cups of epoxy, but to see this it almost appears that they correlate to the kerf pattern on the underside of the foam. Not sure how that could have come into play.


A slightly different view, followed by a close up.



Looking back.


The small triangle bulge in the bias ply at the top of the hatch.


Here’s a shot of the street side, same perspective as last night, after removing the “zipper” edge.


And another one looking down the back of the street side toward the bumper.


The shop vac is getting a workout staying ahead of the sanding dust, but the cyclone separator seems to be keeping the fine dust filter in the main can clean as performance has remained high.

At some point I will have to smear it all with fairing compound, probably the 410 filler in epoxy, or may go straight to high build primer, but there is a lot more to do all over before moving on to that step.

Lots to do first: flip the hinge; cut the hatch free; glass the roof and front wall upper; fit and glass the doors; rabbet the galley walls for the hatch seal, build flox corners and FG tape same; and the list goes on.

[GPW]

KC, there used to be a choice of spray Fillers for fiberglass , I remember we used a product called Feather Fill, but that was some time ago . I’m sure there are many good products now that will give you the smoothness you want . No matter what we used ,there was still a good deal of finish sanding involved ... can’t get around that ...