Pop-up foamie for Cross-Canada trip

[loaderman]

Very interested in this build, How is it going?

[dancam]

Very interested in this build, How is it going?

Sorry it took so long for an update. Not going that great and i felt like giving up

Looks good so far!

Do the walls flex when you lean on them a bit? This foam construction amazes me at how strong it can be... Don't sweat the seams being visible, you can always bondo that later, or finish the whole thing in bedliner and that should hide it. I'm following this build

Thanks.
The walls felt quite wobbly but when i secured the back to take it home they were quite strong! I was very suprised. Wobbly yes, but there's no top and i have to build dividers inside which will add lots of strength as will a door.

So anyway, heres the photo of that huge mess that was praying the rockgaurd... Ill jut add the one. 


Then i went to put the 3500 pound braked axle on. Whoever built this trailer was very careless and stupid. Tongue is welded wrong, nothing is square, sides are bowed all over, width of the trailer varies from 1/8th under 5ft to 3/4 of an inch over. Thats almost an inch! The axle was 1/4in out of square from the ball, spring hangers welded different distances from eachother one side to the other and one of the angle iron crossmembers is welded directly above the axle. Even if i kept the old axle it probably still would have hit it. With the new axle being bigger it wasnt going to work. I mounted it under the springs for now to get it home, i believe i have to move the axle later and make it square anyway. No time now. I could have build this trailer 100 times better with no experience and way cheaper. 


Anyway, then i went to weld my angle iron flange on. Its so that we can use a double/full air matress instead of a twin. And have a little more room inside. Cut up the angle i cut off before because it was going to cost $140 to buy new stuff. That took a while and one place wouldnt call me back on their prices or answer the phone. So i got all my old stuff ready, welded it on and ended up needing a new piece anyway. Went to the place that wouldnt call me and it would have been $50 for the angle... So frustrating to waste time like that. So pieces werent quite long enough, i have to buy some extra later to weld in the gaps i left. No latches yet so i have to weld their brackets later. Didnt decide where the tailights would go so i have to weld that later. Welding that angle on took over 20 hours and added a lot of unplanned weight to the trailer all so we could have a bigger air matress... seemed so pointless and stupid. Anyway, its done. That angle and bigger axle added 110 pounds to the trailer which is lame. I did weigh the axles but forgot to write it down. The new one is over 50 pounds heavier than the old one. Anyway, heres some pictures. 









Then i drove 3 hrs total, took a tarp shed apart and brought it home. Set it up on my yard yesterday. We went camping september long weekend here so that took some time. +5 celcius in tents wasnt the most fun ive ever had. High was +14 for that weekend. 
Today im trying to bring this trailer home so i can work on it in this tarp shed. 


 

[dancam]

Made it home uneventfully. I only had the 2 straps because i had to go all the way underneath, so i was quite worried about the front one breaking and the whole works flying off. Kept it to 80-90 km/hr and everything was fine. Its home now so i can start working on it again in that little timy cramped cold tarp shed... Lol






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[dancam]

Haven't made much progress. Purchased materials and borrowed a whole bunch of stuff to work on the trailer this weekend. Drove 3 hours friday after work to borrow a radial arm saw to cut the foam. Wish I knew someone with a sliding mitre... That thing is insanely heavy! And super old. 'Made in the Dominion of Canada', lol. To brake it you push really hard down on this button and it kinda slows down a bit and there is only one nut to take off the blade, no blade lock either. Kinda hurt my hand to get that blade off as it was course and sharp.

Now what I do is dictated by rain, It was raining in the morning so I couldn't start until about 10am. Took me an hour to get the platform square and the saw set up because something was seized on it. Took until noon to set up everything else, then went to take the inner half off the trailer and my wife couldnt lift her end. Walked up and down the street knocking on doors and literally almost no one was home. Finally found a guy to help me lift it off and we got started. Only got as far as in these photos and it started to rain and everything had to go back into the tarp shed. There isn't enough room with the trailer in there to have the saw set up and work in there, so that was the end of that. Kinda lame, but at least i finally got started on the top half.





Today was supposed to be the last warm day for a while and it gets dark pretty early. Had frost already. I don't get home from work until 6:30pm at the earliest so we shall see how trying to work on it during the weeks goes.


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[S. Heisley]

Today was supposed to be the last warm day for a while and it gets dark pretty early. Had frost already. I don't get home from work until 6:30pm at the earliest so we shall see how trying to work on it during the weeks goes.

It sounds like it will be a "weekend project" for a while. Will the tarp shed be able to stay up in snow?

[dancam]

It sounds like it will be a "weekend project" for a while. Will the tarp shed be able to stay up in snow?

The tarp sheds like this last bout 2 years if you dont clean snow off, 5 years if your clear it off within a day after every snowfall and maybe 10 years if you build supports inside, clean it off as its snowing and have it completely sheltered from all wind. This one is about 2 years old and pretty beat up, hopefully it lasts the winter, but i will keep the snow off it.

Finally got a bit more done on this. The weather is not my friend. Cold, raining a lot and its getting dark so early. Also our fridge died and I had to quickly find one on kijiji, get it and switch all our food over to it. Was a challenge to get it in and the old one out, as well as finding one the same size, its insane how many different widths fridges are. This one was 3/16 wider and a huge pain to get in. Got to bed at 1:30am that night


Anyway, heres 2 photos, I didnt take many as it was a rush the whole time, finished up for the day well after dark.



So I got the sidewalls glued in and half of the roof. I still have to do the end wall for the door and the other half of the roof. It seems to be working out alright, just takes forever.

[dancam]

Took this photo before i started working last night. Still hoping to canvass on the weekend but the forecast is for 40mm of rain and +11c.
This shows a little better what it should look like. The wood in the doorway on the bottom is coming out. Its just to keep the spacing proper.



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[dancam]

I have had zero time for updates, sorry. It is now painted, but i will post updates as i have time to write them.
So we worked a lot of long hours in mid to late september to get this trailer ready for canvassing. It was around +5 to +10c for highs after the last post and the filler did not want to dry and we kept getting frost overnight. finally got it ready enough and since there was no way we could canvass it in the cold like that I hauled it back to work. I strapped it to the trailer, stayed at 60km/hr and went at 11pm. It the first 45km were fine but the last bit was a scary drive. I took all back roads except the last 5km into the capital city of our province I had to take a freeway that is 5 lanes of traffic heading one way. I figured at 11pm it would be quiet. Nope. Lots of people, I Drove 60km/hr in the far right lane  when most people were doing 120 km/hr. I just hoped everyone would see me and not hit me and no one did. Also a ratchet strap snapped, but I saw it and stopped before everything flew apart.

It was a good thing I brought it to work because this happened the night after we started canvassing, Oct 8.

The snow hasn't melted yet either.

Ironing


Canvassed






The day before I started painting this happened. Again, good thing i wasn't trying to do it at home, the last snowfall was still thick on the lawn and we got another 4 inches. Around -8c


Finishing canvassing







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[ghcoe]

Looks good .

[dancam]

Looks good .

Thanks!



So I laid the box on its side as you can see in the photo. I didn't want to and it did get a few dents from that, but it wasn't so bad. The floor was very out of level but I put 3 2x4's on edge underneath the plywood and it was ok. Laid chipboard on the foam inside to kneel and walk on. We Worked on this a Friday night and a Saturday. Friday we started right at 5pm after work, but we had the younger kid with us and all the canvas had to be ironed so we didn't get a whole lot done. On the lower half we managed to hang some of the canvas on the line so it wasn't too wrinkly but we didn't have time and it was too cold this time. It was insanely wrinkly and took forever to iron. A lot of the wrinkles could not be ironed out. So we canvassed the ceiling, wall that was on the floor, front wall and the half of the rear wall that was closer to the floor. Also the lower stuff on the rear that overhangs. That took until about 1am and I hooked the trailer frame and towed it the hour home since there was no room in the shop and i didn't want it stolen. On the way home my plastic license plate bracket snapped off and I lost the plate. So that sucked and I had to go buy another plate and metal bracket.
We got to bed around 2:30am and were up at 7am I think to head back and start the rest of the canvassing.

We started with the 12in strips over what  we had done the night before in the corners. (I had previously had problems keeping inside corners tight and it was suggested to cut it in the corners and glue a 12in strip over it.) It was easy enough to cut, glue and apply but impossible to apply straight. I snapped a chalkline down the middle so I could see exactly where the 6in middle was and we applied it fairly straight but to smooth and stretch out a 10ft length it kinda pulled here and there and we didn't have time before the glue dried to get it nice. So its fairly wavy. I did a 5ft and 2 shorter sections as well but they weren't easy either, also wavy. When we were done applying them the inside corner was nice and tight, we did not stretch them much, just tried to flatten them down, but as it dried they all pulled away here and there. So, unfortunately, as ugly as the decision made the trailer i decided not to do that 12in strip on the rest of the corners. I used caulking instead. Some stuff called mono. That turned out very well, looked better and was much, much quicker. The 12in strips the way I did it are pretty ugly. Thats an understatement actually :/ and of course its worse only having it on the one side.
But anyway, that Saturday after we did those 12in strips my co-worker came in and we flipped the box back upright. Put it up on the blocks you see in the photos. Then we finished canvassing the inside. Then we canvassed the front outer wall and the 2 outer side walls. That all went fairly well applying it. The problems were the time ironing took and that to get the 15ft length for the side walls (I needed 13ft actual length) I had to buy a brand I don't like. Its thinner, strings everywhere, straight weave instead of diagonal, ugly seams and flaws here and there. When we applied the side wall canvass there was a few spots that we didn't see that there were strings on the back of the canvass. They ended up glued in between the foam and canvass and are fairly noticeable bumps. 
We were going to start ironing the sheet for the roof to do it (was the last panel) but my wife had been falling asleep while standing and holding the wall canvass for me while i was applying it and was too tired to think. So we just cleaned up, finished around 8:30pm and she went home while I drove 1.5hrs to get our older kid from the sitters and go home. The next morning I had to get up early to put the winter tires on the car and we went to my parents for thanksgiving.

It was really nice to have that Sunday and Monday off, hadn't spent time with my parents in almost a year.

Then the Tuesday (oct 11) Julie dropped both kids off and met me at my work at 5pm and we ironed the roof fabric and glued it on. Lots of wrinkles in it that didn't come out which was very unfortunate. I think part of the reason is that I had to buy a 12x15 foot sheet for the roof and that was too big for our dryer. I only needed 6x15 but that was the closest. $50 for that one sheet
Then she went home and I glued more overlapping edges over. One thing that really kills trying to do this in a hurry or not where you live is that you have to wait until the next day to glue another piece of fabric onto a piece you glued. I was supposed to have the trailer canvassed over the Friday-sat and painted the Tuesday but it ended up being super in the way in our shop all week. The lower half of this trailer we canvassed in 8 hours and thats kind of what I was counting on, but we spent 25 hours canvassing Friday night, Saturday and Tuesday and I still had to spend another 7hrs or so gluing overlaps and caulking on Wednesday and Thursday.
Then it was time for paint on Friday night.

[GPW]

Coming together !! Be patient, you’re doing great !!!

[dancam]

Coming together !! Be patient, you’re doing great !!!

The problem with being patient is that now I cannot do this trip next year like i intended. That was the whole point of building this, but it will have to wait until 2018. I will talk more about that when I finish the update though.

So I had a hard decision to make about the caulking on the outside of the trailer. The stuff I used (mono) sticks quite well to bare canvass, but almost not at all to glossy paint. However I have no idea how good the mono stuff is, I have a feeling its not that great for long term exterior use at 60mph. I did not want to risk having the paint flake off it, or having rock chips or peoples fingernails peeling it off the bare canvass and causing a leak and mould later on. I have no idea if it would or not, I was just worried about it. I also did not like how it looked on the inside of the trailer. Its actually fine on the inside, but i wouldn't have wanted it looking like that on the outside. So I did the front wall seams with caulking just to try it. It will be covered by my nose cone -or whatever you want to call it- once i build it, so I'm not as worried about the peeling there. I couldn't apply it very nice and didn't quite like how it looked so i didn't do the sides.

So Friday Oct 14 after work I did a little trimming and them was ready to paint. The plan going into it was to do 2 coats the Friday night and then get up early Saturday and do the other 4 coats on Saturday. Well as you can see in the photos in my second last post painting the inside of the trailer was fairly uncomfortable. you either had to kneel or crouch very uncomfortably. I chose to do the inside first and it took me 2 hours for the first coat. I thinned the porch and floor paint with 10% water, used a 15mm roller and rolled it on real heavy. I pressed real hard while rolling that first coat and would roll paint onto a section until it was so thick the roller wasn't rolling, then i would roll the excess past onto the next section until it was nice. Then I did the outside which took me 1 hour. Just that first coat of paint thinning it 10% was 2 2/3 gallons!  I was pretty exhausted and sore by then and it was 9pm, but i put some big fans on the outside, had supper and then did a second coat of unthinned porch and floor paint on the outside with the 15mm roller. I decided not to do the planned second coat on the inside, i got home after midnight and still had to shower. I couldn't believe it took 5 hours to apply the first 1.5 coats...

Saturday i got up at 4:30am and headed to work. I sanded the outside lightly with my orbital sander and 120 grit just to remove the fuzz, strings and roughness from the 15mm roller. I cut off sharp edges and strings and then painted the third coat of porch and floor paint on the outside with a 10mm roller. It turned out nice and smooth with the 10mm roller, I should never have bought that expensive Sherwin Williams paint... It was 9am by the time I was done that and then I painted the second coat of unthinned porch and floor paint on the inside with the 15mm roller. that only took 1.5hrs the second time :/ I had used 5 gallons of paint by this point. 
Then I had a few other things to do while it was drying with fans blowing on it. At 1pm I did the 4th coat of porch and floor paint with a 10mm roller on the outside. Once that tacked up I sanded the inside with my orbital just like i had the outside. 
Then at 6pm I did the first coat of the Sherwin Williams paint on the outside with a quality 10mm roller. The roof looked terrible. I was by myself and could only reach half the width of the trailer at a time and the pole I had was 2ft short of letting me do the whole length while standing on a ladder. So I tried to roll one half real nice down the length and then quickly do the other half and ended up with a huge ugly roller line where they met in the middle. (this is high gloss paint, so roller lines show up easier than say eggshell). 
As soon as I was done that (7pm) I did the 3rd and final coat on the inside with the porch and floor paint and a 10mm roller. It looked good. 
Then I started the final coat on the outside with the Sherwin Williams at 10pm. This time I tried to cover the whole (5.25ftx12ft) roof with wet paint and then roll full lengths length ways from one side to the other. The paint dried too fast and I still have what I think are bad roller lines. The rest of it went well though. I finished at 11pm, cleaned up the shop, went home, showered and got to bed at about 1am. So I was up 20.5hrs just to paint that day, or if you include the day before 31hrs with 4hrs sleep in there. I was completely exhausted, mostly from the painting while crouching on the inside of the trailer, and I slept most of Sunday.

So, the results were: 6 coats of paint on the outside, 3 on the inside. 7 gallons of paint used- 6 of the porch and floor and 1 of the Sherwin Williams. The paint finish turned out real nice this time. The trick is to sand after using the 15mm roller and then use a 10mm. I got the wave filled this time and it looks good. Outside is nice and glossy and looks good except the roller lines on the roof. I am considering repainting the roof in the spring, but not sure yet. When its in the bright sun you hardly see it and the paint is like $70/gallon. 
Now the flaws: random tiny bumps here and there. I have no idea what they are from, weren't in the foam for sure. A couple dents from laying it on its side to canvass and from people knocking stuff into it because it was really in the way at work. You can still see my wood framing..... I used all my best foam on the lower half and this stuff did not want to join nice. Its not nearly as bad as my first half though on the sides. The roof spars do make me a bit sad. 
And of course that ugly seam where the roof fabric comes down the sides. I need to find a solution for that next year. Something to seal it or cover it so It doesn't get picked loose by picky fingers...



This is it hooked up to my car at 5pm. its kinda dark and was getting ready to snow, I will get sunny photos at some point. The trailer is going to end up 4 inches lower once I move the axle, so it wont be nearly that high. 4 inches doesn't sound like much but its huge.









all my empty Paint cans:

[KCStudly]

Looks pretty good from here. Stand back a little and wait some. You will notice the little stuff a lot less then, and most others won't notice them at all.

[dancam]

Looks pretty good from here. Stand back a little and wait some. You will notice the little stuff a lot less then, and most others won't notice them at all.

Thanks, it does look pretty good and I know that stuff won't bother me as much later on the trip. Just with this much work into it I had hoped for better
So, I took some better photos in the sun, but my phone was full so I used my co-workers phone. It will have to wait until Monday or Tuesday for the photos to make it here. 
This all started with a plan to do a cross-Canada trip in the summer of 2017. I came up with a plan that I figured would work and started on it early this year. I realized that a foamie would be a lot lighter and quickly switched my plans to a foamie instead of plywood. There were a few miscalculations and unintended changes of plans along the way and it resulted in this taking hundreds of hours more than I had thought it would. I needed to have the trailer built by now for this trip to work for 2017 and I am nowhere close. Throwing quick numbers at what I have left to do I am guessing I have about 190 hours of work left. I need the next 7 months for working on the tow vehicle so we will no longer be going in 2017, it will have to be delayed one year until summer 2018. That creates a ton of problems, but hopefully we can work through all that. I plan to get the car ready this winter and then start on the trailer again this coming spring. I hope to have the trailer completed by late summer and to go on a decent one week holiday with it in September or something if work allows. But we shall see, its pretty disappointing anyway. A plywood trailer would have been heavier but would have been done a while ago, been cheaper and narrower meaning more aerodynamic. O well, cant go back now and this is what I have. Its also insulated, which is giving me ideas. Has anyone ever gone north of the arctic circle in the winter in one of these?

I will add up my hours and costs later, I did weigh it today though, so:
-Trailer as i bought it before i cut it up: 607 pounds
-Trailer after: 270 pounds (182 decking I removed, 155 metal I removed)
-plywood floor: 86 pounds
-trailer with bottom built, no door, small axle: 100 tongue, 180/tire= 460 pounds. ( minus the trailer frame is 190 pounds for the part I built)
-same as above but with the new 3500 pound braked axle and extra welded angle iron. Extra 2x2 and straps before taking home. 101 tongue, 238 each axle. 577 pounds total. (Axle and angle added 110 pounds, frame is now 380 pounds)

- Oct 21, 2016 top built and painted on frame, 233,228 pounds on tires, 84 pounds tongue. 545 pounds total. Minus trailer frame is 165 pounds for the top. 35-50 pounds of that is the paint. Weighed 6 days after painting, so may not be all evaporated yet. 
-Were at 735 pounds total for the trailer so far. 

Just the weight of the paint alone that I applied is 70 pounds, according to the data sheet for the Sherwin Williams its 48% solids, so thats 34 pounds of paint on there once its completely dried. I weighed this 6 days after i painted so its not completely dry and the floor paint is probably higher solids.

So, what I have left to do:

-decide what to do for flooring inside trailer
-buy metal, latch hooks and ratchet straps,
and finish welding flanges on trailer frame and latch points.
taillights. decide where they go and weld them on
Weld stabilizer jacks on.
Weld spare tire carrier
-find a water tank
-install water tank, weld brackets for it to trailer
-check axle weight transfer with jack stands
-decide where axle and fenders will be
-move axle ahead and weld it square to the frame
-get trailer tires and car tires balanced at the same time
-Plan wheel wells, make them, attach to top half of trailer
-Cut 1/8 PVC strips for shimming floor bracing angle iron
-glue down strips? tape and bolt down lower half to trailer frame
-cut and screw side sliders on top and bottom half of trailer so the top half goes up and down nicely when lifted and lowered.
-make supports for top half
-install foam seal 
-get latches, install latches
- decide on hinges, handle and design for doors
-make doors  and door jambs and install them
-plan bridge for car-trailer gap
-build bridge for car-trailer gap
-plan and make aero front nose cone thing
-paint lower surface of upper half with Sherwin Williams paint when painting aero front or doors
-re-attach vin sticker
-install flooring in trailer
-build dividers in trailer
-make sealed container for inside trailer for gas and propane
-make bed slats
-install screens for sides and doors. 
-buy and install door fans
-buy and install lights inside and outside trailer
-wire interior for 12 and 110v power 
-wire trailer lights and brakes
-set up roll up tarp and poles for back
-buy spare tire and mount under trailer
-fix suspension with greasable stuff
-plan how to load trailer
-test trailer to see how it pulls and weight is distributed before a trip

[Don L.]

HI, I have been following your build and think it looks pretty good so far.

You mentioned not liking the seams from the roof wrapping down on the sides, I know what you mean. But I thought you did a pretty neat job of it.

Mine were more uneven and I tried to smooth them down some by ironing the seam and pressing into it pretty hard which helped some. I also brushed extra gripper prime into the edge of the seam to help fill it. I thought spackeling might be to fussy and also might not stick so I left it at that. The seams were still pretty visible but my funky paint job does a good job of distracting your eye from the seams.
Maybe a decorative border or something?

Cheers!