The Squidget Pop Top build is on.

[S. Heisley]

Hi, Dale:

I think your Squidget PopTop design is a good one and am looking forward to seeing its construction. Please keep us posted!

[cracker39]

I'm finally getting the hang of welding with the MIG.

I now realize that I've been moving the tip too fast and had my auto darkening helmet set too dark to see what I was welding. I lightened the darkening setting a half point so I can just see the edges of the joint that I am welding and slowed down my tip movement. Then, finally, I made a few decent weld beads. So, I did a little more welding this morning, including a reinforcement piece between the tongue ends for the coupler support bar that my son-in-law will weld on after he welds on the tongue. Now, it's sit and wait for my son-in-law to come over to do his part. Then, it's clean up the metal and 4 days total application and cure time for the Rust Bullet before I can install the axle and move it to my wood working area. That will be sometime next week

With all of the steel on the chassis, I weighed one side with the bathroom scales. Total weight is about 240 lbs. With the coupler, jack stand, axle and tires/wheels are installed, it will weigh about 385 lbs. Once the spare tire mount and spare tire and wheel are added, the total weight comes up to about 425 lbs, or about 80 lbs heavier than the Squidget chassis which was a foot shorter and had no spare tire on it. The total weight doesn’t include the weight of the propane tank, tongue boxes or battery. I now believe that the finished trailer will weigh over 1500 lbs., but, probably less than 1600 lbs. With the low profile, towing the PT may not feel like there’s a trailer behind my Frontier at all. Only time will tell though.

With only the tongue and coupler left to add, the gas appears to be holding out OK, so I went ahead and welded my spare tire mount together. I'll plug the bolt holes later or just spray aerosol foam inside the tube to seal it

[cracker39]

My son-in-law should be over Wednesday to weld on the tongue. Then it will take a few days to get it coated with the Rust Bullet and about a week away from starting on the floor.

I finally ordered my mobile home type door today. It will fit into a 24â€

[S. Heisley]

I'm glad to hear that you found the door that you were looking for, Dale. Now, you should have no worries there.

If the door is 54" tall, are you building with 5x8' plywood or will you piece it?

[cracker39]

I don't have a ready supply of 5x8 ply near me, so I'll piece it. It will take three pieces, one whole sheet and two pieces cut from another sheet for each side. The way I join the pieces at the edges, you can't tell where the joints are after filling, sanding and painting.

[cracker39]

My son-in-law came over this morning to weld on the tongue, so most of the welding is finished. I just have to get my neighbor to help me turn the frame back bottom side up (it weighs 240-250 lbs as is) so I can weld some additional bracing beneath the piece of tubing that the coupler bolts to and coat the bottom with Rust Bullet. The weather here in Florida has turned cool (we expect 27 by morning), so the Rust Bullet application will be slow this week. It can be applied as low as 50 degrees and it may get warm enough by mid-day tomorrow to apply a single coat, but I’ll probably wait until Friday when it should get up to 60 degrees. It will take four or five days to get it done as I won’t lie on my back to paint beneath the frame this time. I’ll put the two coats on the underside while that side is up on blocks, then turn it over to put the final two coats on the top side. I expect to have the floor finished by the 19th or 20th, then I’ll put on the axle and get it moved to my portable garage out back to work do the rest of the construction.

[cracker39]

In the past few days, I’ve made good progress on the chassis. The build WEB site has been updated with new detail and a few photos. The chassis is almost finished, lacking the installation of the axle, coupler, chains and jack stand. I tried the foam end caps with some success. After trying two ends, I tried a new approach, pushing a piece of solid foam inside the end of each tube, leaving less than an inch of depth. That used less foam and it all expanded outward. After curing and trimming, I coated the foam with epoxy, which caused the foam to cave inward only slightly. After the resin, the foam was unaffected by the Rust Bullet or spray paint. Results on a tongue tube end is below.

[Larwyn]

My son-in-law came over this morning to weld on the tongue, so most of the welding is finished. I just have to get my neighbor to help me turn the frame back bottom side up (it weighs 240-250 lbs as is) so I can weld some additional bracing beneath the piece of tubing that the coupler bolts to and coat the bottom with Rust Bullet. The weather here in Florida has turned cool (we expect 27 by morning), so the Rust Bullet application will be slow this week. It can be applied as low as 50 degrees and it may get warm enough by mid-day tomorrow to apply a single coat, but I’ll probably wait until Friday when it should get up to 60 degrees. It will take four or five days to get it done as I won’t lie on my back to paint beneath the frame this time. I’ll put the two coats on the underside while that side is up on blocks, then turn it over to put the final two coats on the top side. I expect to have the floor finished by the 19th or 20th, then I’ll put on the axle and get it moved to my portable garage out back to work do the rest of the construction.

Yep, flipping that frame alone can be work. I threw together a quick rotisserie when I painted my frame. It's just a few pieces of 1/2" all thread, some 1/4 by 2 inch strap, and my pipe stands. It made the painting process a lot easier to handle. Most of the parts have been cut up/re used after the frame was finished. It was worth it to me and provided a bit of entertainment at "beer thirty" spinning the trailer and guessing where it would stop. Kind of a coin toss, only using the trailer frame instead of a coin........

[Ratkity]

Yep, flipping that frame alone can be work. I threw together a quick rotisserie when I painted my frame. It's just a few pieces of 1/2" all thread, some 1/4 by 2 inch strap, and my pipe stands. It made the painting process a lot easier to handle. Most of the parts have been cut up/re used after the frame was finished. It was worth it to me and provided a bit of entertainment at "beer thirty" spinning the trailer and guessing where it would stop. Kind of a coin toss, only using the trailer frame instead of a coin........

That is classic!!! Such creativity here!

Hugs,
Ratkity

[cracker39]

Yep, Larwyn, that was ingenious. But, looking at your picture, I'd think you wouldn't have much trouble handing a mere trailer frame.

It's rainy today, so no chassis photos. I did install the coupler and chains, mounted my spare tire carrier, and I started floor construction. The floor may be finished tomorrow, then I'll get it off the frame out of the way so I can put on the axle and get it out for a photo. Photos of floor as it is so far are on the build site.

[cracker39]

Yesterday, I got the floor turned right side up, drilled holes and inserted the bolts. Today I got started with installing the nuts and washers to secure the floor and started work on the underside.

Man, am I tired…and have a sinus headache and it’s only 3:30 PM. I spent most of the day on my back beneath the trailer (which has been rolled up onto my home-made work stands so I’ll have more room to work beneath it. When I wasn't under it, I was either crawling under the trailer, crawling out from under it, or going to the back of the house to cut pieces of plywood.

I installed reinforcing pieces of plywood on the joints of the floor, between the cross members. I then installed the foam that I had already coated with roof coating. I only had enough coated for 4 of the spaces between cross members. The 5th section of foam will be coated tomorrow when I apply roof coating to the joints of foam and plywood and around the edges to completely seal the layer of foam.

So, tomorrow, I use the roof coating and aerosol foam to complete the insulation foam layer so that it is waterproof. Then, finally, I’ll roll it out and get a photo of the finished trailer frame with the floor on it. It was too much effort to try to remove the floor completely to take a photo of the bare trailer chassis. By tomorrow evening, it should be read to move to my portable garage out back to start cabin construciton.

Today I had to apply adhesive from tubes to the foam to stick it to the bottom of the floor, and with my arthritic wrist, squeezing the handle of a caulking gun wasn't fun. before I got very far with the adhesive, the mail lady showed up with my latest tool from Amazon.com, a Campbell Hausfeld air powered caulking gun. And does it work great. I had only one problem, As my compressor is on the opposite side of the house, I was using a 5 gallon portable air tank. At high pressure, the adhesive came out too fast. When the pressure dropped to around 30 lbs, it applied perfectly. But,from 30 lbs PSI down to 0, I didn't get much work done, so I filled it to 80 lbs 3 times to get the job done.

When I connected the trailer to the truck hitch, I found that the jack stand, even when the wheel is raised completely, is too high for the coupler to come all the down onto the ball. I’ll either have to raise the ball 2â€

[cracker39]

I still have some caulking to do on the foam insulation beneath the floor and the hold down bolt holes to fill, but I rolled it out for a couple of photos. These below will also go on my build WEB pages.

[Steve_Cox]

Hi Dale,

Really like that bumper/spare set up. Nice work. I welded flat stock on my teardrop frame open box ends that were on the tongue and rear bumper. You made easy work of that with your foam and epoxy technique, very nice.

[cracker39]

Hi Dale,

Really like that bumper/spare set up. Nice work. I welded flat stock on my teardrop frame open box ends that were on the tongue and rear bumper. You made easy work of that with your foam and epoxy technique, very nice.

Thanks Steve. I just decided to experiment with the foam after someone suggested it. You have to be patient and wait for the foam to cure all the way through before trimming it off flat. After I did the bumper ends, I cut pieces of solid foam to instert about an inch inside the other tube ends so that it took less foam to fill the openings. Once cut off with a hacksaw blade and sanded, there were a few bubbles in the foam and not all were perfectly flat, but the epoxy sealed them before painting them. All of the foam "caps" feel pretty solid now.

The spare mount comes off to work on the cabin. Four bolts hold it in place on the two pieces of angle iron welded between the bumper and the rear rail. I may order a vinyl cover for it later on.

[bdosborn]

Dale,



Boy that's a good idea, I wish I'd know about it when I was making my floor.

Bruce