Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Wisdom, Experience. Often the same thing in my book!!! Glad you've played with this stuff over the years, this is my first time actually using the magic elixir (except for some trial pieces that I left buried in last years' epic snowfall.) so it's good to have a go-to person on this.

Just trying to be Helpful !! Seen So much Rot here over the past couple years ... Many Beautiful wooden trailers ruined by a little water intrusion ...

What Mel said.

The mix is not my idea at all... I got it years and years ago from Chuck Felton ( http://feltondesignanddata.com/ ) , who pioneered cardboard RC model aircraft construction ... Using it to waterproof common corrugated cardboard to the point where you could make a plane out of it ... a small one anyway .. I tried it on wood , because I had mixed up several gallons (?) of it and had a LOT left over... and it worked ...
If you check out his site , you’ll see a lot of ideas that could be directly related to Foamie construction... and ours don’t have to fly ...

well, ok, I'm sold! I've been mixing 50/50 poly/mineral spirits and hitting anything but metal with it. (Mostly just wood anything. old(er) yard tools, hand tools with wood, Bar-BQ tools with wood handles, plywood, chip, particle and fiber board "wood" even the stuff already damaged by a bit of water. Love that stuff. I now bought a gallon of the mineral spirits and next is a gallon of the poly (oil based). The water damaged stuff hardens up just like that new plastic wood stuff, which is plastic and sawdust, mostly. I bet that's how they discovered it. Stuff I could dig and tear apart with my finger from water damage becomes hard as a thick piece of plastic. YOU are a genius!

FYI: I use water based poly on metal, even rusty metal (after cleaning). Why water based? This is great. Any liquid has a solvent and the medium to it. When the solvent dries the medium hardens. The outside hardens first and the formula for the medium lets the lower layers pass out the solvent after the outer layer gets hard. So oil base poly passes the oil solvent out to the outer layers to dry and harden, BUT would trap any existing moisture like water in the lower layers. Anything beginning to rust is stuck with the water trapped inside. But with water based, the water existing in the rust could get passed out and would dry and be extracted. Water based would always be drying throughout its lifetime. And when the poly dries, just as with the particle wood, it would be as hard as plastic. (not as hard as metal, but at least harder that flaking rust, and it would seal out any additional water.) So steel in tools (garden, camping, work) get cleaned then water based poly. I think I'll do my under frame that way too. Definitely steel wheel wells, the rims. Then a coat of oil based poly (oil over water for paint) then an enamel...
(sorry, didn't mean to hijack your thread, but we WERE talking about repair/prevention of water damage AND poly's... :-)

PC, Thanks !!! Where I live , with it’s HIGH Humidity most of the time ... and all the rain , we Needed a quick and cheap solution to extend the lifetime of wooden things .. From my experience with corrugated cardboard RC planes and the philosophies of Chuck Felton , I just applied HIS principle to Everything else .... and it worked ... best of all it was THRIFTY... much cheaper than all those water sealers on the market ... and a chance to use that real Cheap poly (the kind that never seems to quite dry) which works fine for this “application” ...

I even used it on my little balcony on the house ... the wood showing signs of the dreaded Rot ... several coats seemed to fix this and prevent any further damage ... I do find on that balcony , my Latex paint will only hold up for a couple years before re-painting .. where the merciless summer Sun (and the Rain) hits the paint just flakes off, the wood undamaged , but the paint needs a good scraping and re-applying ... I should try a better paint (enamel) in this area ...
Odd because the Exterior Latex house paint seems to hold up Very well on everything else ... Even my Foamie is still looking good , no need for a re paint as yet .

Thanks for that tip for the WB on metal ... gotta’ try that !!!

In my readings, I've never uncovered an actual name for this "mix". It's also been mixed at 50/50 and 75/25. So what should we name it? The "Mix" and the "Supermix"?

Why don’t we call it “Chuck’s Mix” ?? He was the one that originally came up with it AFAIK... looooong ago ...
One only has to Google Chuck Felton and his cardboard planes to affirm this ... and see some unique construction techniques that “could” be applied to our trailer building ... only on a larger scale ...

http://feltondesignanddata.com/

That works for me. Chuck's mix. Pay homage to the one who figured out that in this case, oil and water not mixing is a good thing. Petroleum based mineral spirits and water based polyeurethane... what was he thinking? Brilliant...effective, low tech and inexpensive.

“ Petroleum based mineral spirits and water based polyeurethane... what was he thinking? “ .. Er, I don’t think he as quite thinking of that ... I always used the oil based poly for Chuck’s mix ... Believe it or not , back when he first came up with this , WB poly wasn’t around yet ...

My error!!!! I've used the poly for so long, I've forgotten that it is an oil based product. Since I don't ever have to clean up I never have to think about what solvent to use to clean up. I use foam brushes and pour it into disposable plastic containers. I've gotten pretty good at eyeballin' what I need so I don't ever waste much. So I mixed it together right, I just didn't realize it.

All’s well that ends well ...

Hope it's not bad form to resurrect this topic, but I have a question I can't find the answer to through the search function.

I'm building a plywood based TTT based on the generic benroy.

I'm leaning toward the idea of fiberglassing (the cheap stuff rather than the epoxy) the edges where the 1/8" ply roof meets the 3/4" ply sidewalls. Also planning on a lot of the special "mix" as described here for general waterproofing.

What is the general thought on which one to do first? A coat of diluted varnish first, then glassing the edges, then more varnish mix on the remaining exposed wood?

I'm having trouble balancing the desire to have waterproofing under the fiberglass in case it cracks against the unknown of how well the resin will adhere to the varnished wood.

Anyone have some experience they can share on this?

David , best not ask about plywood around here , I think we’ve all had Big problems with that ... Best thing you can do is waterproof EVERYTHING , as much as possible , especially on all the edges !!!!!!!! ... Just thinking you may want to consider a canvas over the plywood , canvas doesn’t seem to crack like fiberglass does .. cheaper too , just not as shiny a finish ... all your choice ...

To seal the wood, you would need to do that first. Then sand it well with a fairly agressive grit to get tooth for the resin. That said, you would need a few scraps of your intended materials to test compatability. It would take some searching, but there are some wood tears that are canvas covered. Again, sanding would be required after the waterproffing before aplication of paint/canvas. Either way should work, but testing is the only way to know.