All-Season Off-Road Tiny Trailer

Design & Construction of anything that's not a teardrop e.g. Grasshoppers or Sunspots

Re: All-Season Off-Road Tiny Trailer

Postby MadMango » Tue Jan 17, 2017 10:26 am

Did you rough-up the bonding surface of the plexiglas prior to applying the adhesive? I think if you used 60-80 grit sandpaper to create a rough texture your silicone should hold. Mask with tape for clean edge from the exterior viewpoint.
MadMango
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating." ~Quentin Stafford-Fraser

You can see my design planning, The Mobile Mango.
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Re: All-Season Off-Road Tiny Trailer

Postby artquixotic » Fri Jan 27, 2017 8:26 pm

Thanks, MadMango. The edges of the plexiglass are the only areas where I'm asking the adhesive silicone to stick now. I finally finished up the back edge today. While I was up there, I noticed a spot where I'd got the adhesive on the smooth surface of the plexiglass. Even with the smoothness, it was stuck hard after a couple of months. So I'm relatively confident this is going to hold.

I also pulled out the license plate light. And though it is faulty, so is the replacement light that I bought. So it's back to shopping.
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Re: All-Season Off-Road Tiny Trailer

Postby glenn201 » Fri May 26, 2017 3:00 am

I really like this trailer good job
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Re: All-Season Off-Road Tiny Trailer

Postby artquixotic » Sun Aug 13, 2017 3:37 pm

We've been backpacking. And getting married. And I started a challenging new job with a long commute. Excuses. The trailer has been sitting in the driveway under a tarp and SUV cover. As a recap, the SUV cover leaked and held the moisture against the trailer for weeks, and damage resulted in a few small areas. (The cover retailer wants to replace it, but... fool me once.)

So now I've got 97% of the siding covered with many coats of nice oil paint. The other 3% is cracky/flaking. The failure was at wood filler and within the plywood. I scraped aggressively today and recoated with Bondo. I'm not sure what to recoat the entire body with to prevent more damage (we're in Seattle after all). I bought a bunch of sheets of relatively thick FRP, but I'm worried about making the edges look nice, plus I think the weight will pull the back hatch down. The stuff is heavy.

Thoughts on coating with a thick exterior polyurethane or something? The other finalist is canvas with oil-based paint in it (or the glue method, if that works with oil-based paint)? If it were bare wood, I'd go all-out foamie style, but given all the oil paint there...
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Re: All-Season Off-Road Tiny Trailer

Postby artquixotic » Sun Sep 17, 2017 10:52 pm

Siding: I simply scraped and sanded out the problem areas, filled with Bondo as necessary, and painted with thick oil-based paint. Fingers crossed. I covered one area with canvas and oil paint but didn't like how it looked. And then I did put some more holes in the siding...

...installing a Propex HS2000 heater. Space was tight, so the exhaust and intake are very short (disregarding the instructions). I hope it works. I ran high-pressure propane lines behind a pressure regulator. The lines go under the trailer to the furnace and stove. I don't know yet if the stove will work either - it's designed for high pressure. So I removed what I think was the little regulator inside the burner. If it has only a tiny flame, I'm back to looking for a little low-pressure burner. I still haven't mounted the thermostat or the propane tank, but everything else is ready to go. I'm trying to summon the courage to go fill the tank and test my work.

Yeah, I think that's it. Nine hours for the installation - probably pretty slow.
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Re: All-Season Off-Road Tiny Trailer

Postby willrothfuss » Sat Mar 31, 2018 9:27 pm

I am wondering if you have an update on your camper. I have to admit when I saw your design, I had my doubts. The door behind the wheels didn't really leave any galley space. But I like the way it came out- the whole camper has a nice open airiness. So how is it holding up? How about the roof?
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. Ralph Waldo Emerson
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