attaching deck to trailer, bolts or screw?

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Re: attaching deck to trailer, bolts or screw?

Postby 1960es » Thu Jun 15, 2017 10:49 am

I used the same deck screws as Tom and has been working great. Saw this recommended in several places and since my frame was pretty thick box tubing, it was preferred.

Eddie
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Re: attaching deck to trailer, bolts or screw?

Postby Nobody » Fri Jun 16, 2017 8:27 pm

I'm no engineer & have no training on stress factors of different joints. I have however built and re-built several truck campers that are stressed by off road travel, and/or rough country back roads. When I built my TD in 2006 I first built a reinforced floor that I bolted to my 1800# HF trailer chassis. The frame was made of spruce 2x4s ripped to fit the 'C' channel chassis members of the trailer, with 1/2" CDX plywood for the floor, and the underside of the floor 'painted' with asphalt fence post coating, then the 'voids' of the frame 'filled' with 1" Dow Corning 'blueboard' foam insulation. I then inverted the floor frame assembly & bolted it to the trailer chassis using eight 3/8" carriage bolts through the floor & the trailer chassis. I built the walls using 1/4" oak plywood (for inner wall) & 3/4" (nominally 1") x3" spruce & pine boards glued & screwed to the back side of the oak ply for wall frame. When I was ready to mount the walls to the floor I 'ran' a bead of PL1200 construction adhesive/sealer on the edge of the floor, drilled a 3/8" hole to within 1 1/2" of the bottom, followed by a 3/16" hole on thru the vertical, every 12" the length of the bottom frame piece, & used 3", #12 deck screws (I told the salesman at Sutherland's Hdwe what I wanted to do & he brought hese out & called 'em 'deck screws; they may in fact be 'construction screws?) to pull the side down against the floor assembly. After the PL1200 dried & the 1 1/2" rafter/spars were secured in place, the wall 'voids' filled with 3/4" Dow blue/pink board, & 1/8" pieces of luan glued to the wall frame, you could lift the trailer, floor, walls, & all, & he floor/wall joint won't give way. The 3" deck screws go thru 1 1/2" of the wall frame, thru the 1/2" CDX floor, & 1" into the white pine 1x6 that forms the side facade of the floor assembly. The 1/8" Luan extends downward over the 1x6, & glued to the wall frame adds additional strength to the joint. The 0.040" aluminum skin & the 0.063" 6" high trim piece along the bottom sides, fastened with 3/4" # 6 stainless screws every 3", thru the aluminum sides, along with 3 beads of PL1200 between the diamond tread & the aluminum skin also adds strength. Eleven years & more'n 30K miles over about every kind of road/terrain with no problems or separation testify to the strenght of the joint.

Floor frame assembly with 1' Dow blueboard, clearly showing the 1x6" white pine facade strip on each side of the floor assembly
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Wall fastened to floor assembly with vertical 3" deck screws thru bottom wall frame into the floor assembly & bead of PL1200 between wall & floor
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Diamond tread trim on sides, dry fitted on front
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Harvey -

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