Tom & Shelly's build

[tony.latham]

We plan to have an air conditioner in the front, so we wanted to epoxy both that compartment and the galley.

T

[Tom&Shelly]

Looks about right? Adding a few more coats will smooth is out without sanding. Or you can sand in-between coats to get it to smooth out quicker. Like Tony said I like to use a squeegee. I used some cheap plastic ones I found at Home Depot It is an edger for painting. Let the epoxy cure and it just peeled off.

Some of the problem may be with the fir plywood. The summer growth is very soft compared to winter growth which is hard. And the softer wood will soak up the coating more than the harder wood. Same thing when sanding fir. It's hard to get a smooth flat finish.

I use West System and would recoat when the first coat is about as sticky as masking tape.

Todd

Thank you Todd. Now that you've said that, I think the quality of the plywood may be in play here. I first experimented with a scrap of 3/4" AC ply and liked how it came out, but this is 1/4" AC ply, and I don't like the quality of the A side as much. Also, Shelly pointed out an area that had been filled by the manufacturer with some sort of plastic wood, and the epoxy on that was nice and smooth.

We may sand and apply another coat with a squeegee as an experiment, to see if we can get it as smooth as we want the topside of the floor to be.

After working on it yesterday, Shelly found this video: https://www.offcenterharbor.com/videos/how-to-use-epoxy-part-1-coating-plywood-for-paint-or-varnish/ and it looks like this guy gets it as mottled as we did, so, as you say, perhaps we did do it right. (Grey pigment notwithstanding.)

If we go back to rollers, I'll be more careful and try and duplicate his technique. His roller is thinner than ours, and I think we were getting better results before ours saturated. Also, we poured the mixed epoxy onto the wood and then rolled it out (per Raka's instructions), but this guy uses a roller tray and carefully tries to get an even coating on the roller.

At least we aren't scraping off partially cured epoxy, so I guess we didn't screw up that badly. We should probably do a little more experimentation before moving on to the top of the floor. If we were on a schedule, this would mess that up, but part of our reason for building a teardrop is to learn new techniques. I feel at this point ours can only improve!

Tom

[KCStudly]

I've never been a fan of foam rollers or brushes. I use a squeegee where possible, and cheap chip brush (often times with the bristles cut down by 1/3 to 1/2) where the squeegee won't work.

It does look and sound like wood lint, but there may be other factors.

Did you keep your batch sizes small and/or pour them into a wide tray to prevent it from kicking off too soon?
Did it start to tack before you finished rolling? This can induce air or pull fibers out of the roller/brush.
Did you go over it a bunch of times (potentially inducing air bubbles), or just enough to lay down an even coat?
What was the climate like when you laid it down? If it was humid or going from cooler to hotter that can affect the finish. They say if you can catch it going from warmer to cooler and dry, those are the best conditions.

Keep with it. You will get there!

[Tom&Shelly]

I've never been a fan of foam rollers or brushes. I use a squeegee where possible, and cheap chip brush (often times with the bristles cut down by 1/3 to 1/2) where the squeegee won't work.

It does look and sound like wood lint, but there may be other factors.

Did you keep your batch sizes small and/or pour them into a wide tray to prevent it from kicking off too soon?
Did it start to tack before you finished rolling? This can induce air or pull fibers out of the roller/brush.
Did you go over it a bunch of times (potentially inducing air bubbles), or just enough to lay down an even coat?
What was the climate like when you laid it down? If it was humid or going from cooler to hotter that can affect the finish. They say if you can catch it going from warmer to cooler and dry, those are the best conditions.

Keep with it. You will get there!

Thank you for the suggestions and encouragement KC.

I do feel better about it now. Last night, I spent a few hours wet sanding with 240 grit, and was surprised at how fast it took down the roughness. Showed the end result to Shelly, and now we both feel another coat or two will make it smooth enough that (if it were the top side of the floor or a wall, instead of the bottom of the floor) we could apply paint and be not be ashamed to show it off. Or, we can use "hammer finish" and claim we wanted it that way.

I think there were a few bubbles, particularly in one area, but mostly the results we got came from the wood. I will go back over it tonight and take care of anything I wasn't satisfied with, and then we plan to try another coat, for the practice and to see how it comes out. This is the bottom, but it's practice for the rest.

Still don't know what went wrong with the grey pigment. Raka hasn't responded to our email. We took a long clean screwdriver and probed the pigment bottle, and it seems we shook it up okay--no gunk at the bottom. We also have a small bottle of black pigment (not graphite) and may try that on a test piece to see what it does.

Thank you again everyone! It's great to have this forum to seek advice when we are unsure of ourselves.

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

We put a third coat of epoxy on the bottom of our floor Friday, and I sanded it Sunday afternoon:



Guess in the picture it doesn't look much different from last week's picture, but I like the texture better (less of it!)



Still some texture though. If this were the top of the floor or outer sides (which will get fiberglassed), think I'd want to be more aggressive at removing the dimples and then put another coat or two on. Then again, I'll sand the bare wood before putting the first coat of epoxy on those surfaces.

We decided to try using squeegees for the third coat. Actually I started, but Shelly quickly said she wanted to try something (obviously not appreciating my technique, which was all of 5 seconds old) and she did the entire thing. Only problem was that the 1st batch (6 oz) started to set up on her, right after she poured out a good amount on the wood. In the end, that meant a little unevenness of the coat, which I was able to quickly sand away this afternoon. I tried 120 grit at first (wet), but when I saw how much that scratched things up, went back to 220 grit, and found I could remove all evidence of problems.

Clearly the dimples, etc. are as much due to the unevenness of the unsanded wood as anything. I think, if this weren't the bottom, we could probably make it glass smooth with another thick coat, especially now that I see how easy it is to even out with wet sanding. That said, Shelly thinks she'd rather us use a roller than the squeegee. We will see.

I even tried sanding a patch with 1500 grit after the 220, and it makes it real smooth to the touch. A pointless activity however, with the dimples and because it is the bottom.

Could have done some other things with the teardrop build on Saturday while waiting for the epoxy to harden, but decided instead to go to the back woods (mixed pinion and juniper) and cut up some dead wood for firewood. Think I now have enough to last the better part of the Winter! The better part of the Winter, in my opinion, goes from December 22 to about the 26th. Still have to cut wood for the worser part of Winter, about 6 weeks of Fall, and a few weeks of Spring, but I should have plenty of opportunities for that as we epoxy and varnish the rest of the teardrop!

We had a little left over in our last batch, so I tried mixing in some black pigment (not graphite) and testing it on a piece of scrap. This is a second coat on scrap I'd practiced on earlier



Very disappointed that it came out so transluscent. I think I'll call Raka this week and see if we missed something, or if that's how it's supposed to come out. We used twice as much pigment as recommended. Also, the black seemed much more viscous than the grey pigment which also came out very transluscent.

[KCStudly]

I wonder if the pigment would perform much differently when saturating glass weave. Think about it, the wet epoxy makes the the glass disappear... maybe the pigment makes the glass appear and help it be more 'opaquer'. Just a thought.

[Tom&Shelly]

I wonder if the pigment would perform much differently when saturating glass weave. Think about it, the wet epoxy makes the the glass disappear... maybe the pigment makes the glass appear and help it be more 'opaquer'. Just a thought.

Yes, interesting idea. Thank you KC. I haven't called Raka yet, but plan to, to ask whether we missed a trick with their pigment, and I'll ask about using it over glass.

In the meantime, Shelly is on the disabled list, with a sprained arm, so we can't rotate the floor (without asking the neighbors for a favor) to epoxy the top, and so I spent Labor Day weekend building aluminum battery boxes. Will post pictures when they are finished...

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

Took some time earlier this month and built one of the two battery boxes:



The front and back are 3/16" aluminum, while the bottom is 1/8" aluminum from scrap I had around. sides are 1/16" aluminum that I cut from shelves designed to mount in 19" electronic communications racks. The nice thing about them is that they came with sides that were already bent around (for both strength and ease of attachment). For the other box edges I used some 5/8" aluminum angle.

The company that made those shelves is in England, so I used (pre-tariff) British aluminum!



After a few unsuccessful tries cutting the aluminum with a scroll saw, I remembered I had a table that bolts on my Harbor Fright metal cutting band saw.



That saw is mainly meant to be used in gillotine mode, and can cut angle iron, soft steel, aluminum angle and channel, etc. It always looked awkward to cut plate aluminum--notice the table is very low, and isn't even parallel with the floor! But it worked great.

I don't have a milling maching, and cut the screw holes on my regular drill press, being careful to clamp the material together and cut the line of holes through both pieces at the same time. I then cut one hole one number size drill bit higher, and tapped the other. I used 6-32 machine screws. These parts are anything but interchangeable! Last step was to use some locktite on all of the screws.

Our plan is to have two pieces of angle iron welded to our trailer frame behind the axle, and mount the two battery boxes below the floor, so the top of the boxes are level with the top of the floor. Access will be via removable shelves in the Galley. The scrap aluminum in the box bottoms already came with convenient drain holes, and there should be enough ventilation in the whole thing to let out any hydrogen.

(Thank you Half-Dome Danny, and Tony Latham for suggesting mounting the battery boxes behind the axle. The specific construction, especially if it doesn't work, is my design.)

I'm pretty sure the aluminum is thick enough that rocks and other debris won't damage the box. Shelly was worried that if we back down a hill, the boxes might scrape at the bottom, but with the 15" tires, that's almost not possible without scraping the back of the trailer first.

Each of these boxes will hold an Optima battery (which is wider than typical Group 24 batteries), or a Group 24 or 27 battery. It could hold a golf cart battery, but we'd have to modify the shelves in the galley so they can stick up in there.

I'm thinking of mounting the battery(ies) in the box(es) by lining it with scrap blue foam insulation, cut to the correct width so the battery is wedged in, compressing the foam just a little. Those metal mountings always made me nervous, especially if the parts are long enough so that they could short the battery if dropped on top or whatever.

Our first couple of times out, my plan is to carefully check to make sure no screws vibrated loose. If they do, at least most of them should land inside the box. I was careful to put a bunch in, so losing a few shouldn't be too serious.

We're working on epoxying the floor now, but in between coats, I'll try and finish the other box and see about getting the angle iron welded.

Tom

[Tom&Shelly]

We turned our floor over last weekend, put on a coat of epoxy and filled in the imperfections around the many-many footballs in that half inch AC plywood. Then this week I sanded the fill down, yesterday we added a second coat, and today a third. Looks like we'll put on another coat tomorrow morning.



Overall, I'm pleased with the results, although I sanded so much around the fills around the footballs, that there still is inconsistency between the part that was sanded down to wood and the part that contained most of the first coat of epoxy. I'm hoping tomorrow's coat will mostly fill that in, and once I sand it, it will be smooth.

One dumb mistake I discovered when taping off the sections to glue in the bulkheads: I designed the cabin/galley bulkhead to go right over the bolts into the aft trailer cross piece.

Shelly suggested I countersink the holes in the floor and just put the bulkhead over it. "Why would we want to remove the teardrop from the trailer once it's built?" I'm thinking a better idea may be to cut some discrete notches into the bulkhead, so we can get in there with an Allen wrench on the bolt heads to hold them if we remove the nylocks from the bottom. Not as convenient as having the heads exposed in the cabin or galley, but just in case we someday need to weld damage to the trailer, or something like that, at least it wouldn't be impossible.

After experimenting with epoxying the bottom of the floor, we decided we like using the white foam rollers rather than scrapers. I would roll, which did leave bubbles, but then Shelly went over it with a foam brush and "tipped" it off. Seems to work okay for us, but we'll know better after sanding later next week.

One thing is for sure--I'm going to use Baltic Birch for the outside walls! I don't think I could make the AC plywood smooth enough to look good with fiberglass!

Our next step for the floor will be to paint. We noticed Rustoleum has come out with new hammer finish paint, and bought a can to try on some scrap i'd practiced the epoxy on. Didn't seem to "hammer up" as well as the old stuff, and also didn't fill in or hide scratches or imperfections. Also, their fancy new nozzle seems prone to splattering. So we are now thinking of using some filler primer and then their old style hammer finish. I'd actually painted a car with that stuff some years ago (an application they don't recommend) and it seemed to hold up well.

If anyone has other suggestions for durable floor paint, over epoxy, we'd love to hear them. Thank you!

Tom

[tony.latham]

If anyone has other suggestions for durable floor paint, over epoxy, we'd love to hear them.

For the top of the floor? When would it be exposed? Are you planning on some kind of futon mattress so you can fold it up and sit?



Tony

[Tom&Shelly]

If anyone has other suggestions for durable floor paint, over epoxy, we'd love to hear them.

For the top of the floor? When would it be exposed? Are you planning on some kind of futon mattress so you can fold it up and sit?



Tony

Hi Tony,

The only part that will be regularly exposed is the back of the galley. We could leave it as is and just varnish for UV protection, but paint appeals to us more than the multi-footballed AC face back there.

Long as we're doing that, we thought we'd do the cabin too, just in case we do someday use a fold up mattress.

Also, we haven't completely made up our minds on the outer covering for the walls and ceiling yet, and if we find a paint we like, we might consider it for there too.

Tom

[tony.latham]

Hi Tony,

The only part that will be regularly exposed is the back of the galley. We could leave it as is and just varnish for UV protection, but paint appeals to us more than the multi-footballed AC face back there.

Long as we're doing that, we thought we'd do the cabin too, just in case we do someday use a fold up mattress.

Also, we haven't completely made up our minds on the outer covering for the walls and ceiling yet, and if we find a paint we like, we might consider it for there too.

Tom

Gotcha. Your attention to detail is great.

I'm still mentally building #4. Gotta get the new shop built first.

T

[Staryder61]

Maybe consider Linoleum on the floor.. durable, inexpensive, easy to lay... and comes in many colors and textures..

[KTM_Guy]

You really want to think about not building on the frame and build a sort of cart out of 2X4's and some good casters, I started with 4" but had to switch to some better 5" one have way through the build. Unless you have good knees and back, I sure don't. It is so easy to get in and out of the cabin when it is only 8-12" off the floor. I have a little rolling stool from HF I had inside. Worked great, I have seen Tony say this a few times and I can say it is the BEST tip I have seen in this forum. On my next build I will build the floor and put the walls together while on the frame and then everything will come off and the rest will be built on the cart.

You might want to read current reviews on the Optima batteries. They are not the batteries of a few years ago. I needed a new battery for the Jeep and was going to get a yellow or blue top which ever is the hybrid deep cycle and starting battery. Went to auto zone and the guy there didn't want to sell me one, a few more questions and and he said they have been getting screwed on warranty clams. they will only take clams on Optima batteries they sell, buy one at the Auto Zone across town they won't take it. He also said count yourself luck if the battery dies at 18-22 months, and you can get replacement, most die just pass 24 months. He and a few others that work there are switching to Odyssey batteries in their diesel pickups and have been very happy with them. They have to special order them. A lot of the overlanders are using Odyssey in their Jeeps and trailers now.

Todd

[crpngdth2001]

I’ve had two Optima Yellow Tops fail at roughly 18 and 24 months, with the warrantied replacements lasting just under 2 years. Never again!