poor man's fiberglass or, covering my TD with painted canvas

[desertmoose]

I will be looking for any more tips from yall as I near that part of my build. Would anyone suggest putting multiple coats of TB2 over the canvas, then sand, prime and paint? THANKS!

Randy:
In my opinion, no. The glue is to stick the canvas to the wood/ foam. You don't want to cover the cloth with glue, because then you will be painting glue, not canvas.

Glue the canvas to the wood/ foam with full strength Titebond 2. let it dry.

Then take your paint (leftover odd colors are fine). Thin it about 50% with water if it's latex, or paint thinner if it's oil base.

Put a couple of coats of this onto the bare canvas. it will soak up a lot of it, so put it on liberally.

After this prime coat dries, apply full strength exterior paint. The more coats you use, the more the weave will fill and the smoother it will get.

Check out the foamie section for advice on "Gripper" it apparently fills the weave a lot quicker than paint alone.

That's what worked for us.

Sam

[rowerwet]

IMO paint will stick the cloth to the wood just fine, TBII is about $18/gallon, or $102 for a five gallon pail. while that is cheaper than Glidden paint at $24/gallon, regular visits to the paint department will net you all the exterior oops paint you could need, most of the time I get oops gallons of exterior for $7-10/gallon at my local stores. Use the oops paint to stick the cloth to a wood tear and it won't come off.
You can thin TBII to get more coverage out of a gallon, depending on how much you may come out about even oops paint vs. thinned TBII.

For those of us planning a foamie, TBII should be used to stick the cloth to the foam. The TBII becomes a kind of hard shell over the foam, this seems to give the foam the tough skin it needs. Thanks to the properties of TBII and foam, any dents can be steamed back out with an Iron.

Thanks for the info on using Gripper to fill in the weave, not every one likes a high texture finish.

[RandyG]

Thanks for all the tips so far. I am thinking about using just foam for the roof so I can round the edges with a 3-4" radias while using my wood sides and front. Almost like a mini airstream. Not sure bout the roof to wall seams though. So do yall think the TB2 would be better for wood and foam? Just an idea for now.

[rowerwet]

from my testing and the experience of others, TBII is the way to go for sticking fabric to foam, while I am less than impressed with the actual adhesion of anything to foam, compared to paint to wood, the big advantage of TBII over paint is that it makes a hard shell once cured. Since foam is not as strong as plywood, a hard shell is needed.
Wrapping the fabric sides under the floor and gluing it to the wood with TBII locks the trailer shell in place. The foam is really more of a mold to keep the TBII in shape until cured and keeps the shell from imploding under highway wind loads. the fabric is what keeps the tension stresses from tearing the TBII apart, and the paint fills the fabric and makes it inert.
a good overlap or even tapes run just along the corners of the tear and any seams in the fabric are a good idea to keep everything tied together. (and give peace of mind with a foamie since the foam tears so easily compared to wood)
Radio controlled and real airplanes have been built using this type of construction for years (the airplanes that put Burt Rutan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt_Rutan on the map were foam cored, skinned with fiberglass and epoxy) Fiberglass and epoxy being way more expensive and unneeded for the stresses a tear will see.

[clermont cubby]

Great discussion. Learinng several good tips. Rowerwet, when u start the foamie mouseboat, keep us informed. Will be interested in your build.

Larry

[rowerwet]

http://www.instructables.com/id/Poor-Ma ... -weatherp/ I made an instructable with pictures of the process and instructions for using only paint or, TBII and paint.
(I'm in a contest, a vote would help if you like the I'ble, thanks)

[wagondude]

Just to add info, to help keep the cost down, check with your local household hazardous waste disposal for paint. Our city drop of location will let you take any paint you can use for free. This is a great way to saturate the canvas before you coat with your more costly top coat of your chosen color.

[nhstt]

http://www.instructables.com/id/Poor-Mans-Fiberglass-make-nearly-anything-weatherp/ I made an instructable with pictures of the process and instructions for using only paint or, TBII and paint.
(I'm in a contest, a vote would help if you like the I'ble, thanks)

My boys will be making a simple boat this summer. I think I'll have them use some of these ideas. My brother made a canoe with canvas that was then painted with oil base paints almost 50 years ago. wonder if I could combine the two into a kid friendly and cheap summer fun! any ideas out there? Hoping or tear will be done for Mi-Te-Jo in September. Sooner
Karen and the Brooks Bunch.

[rowerwet]

covering a boat with painted canvas will work just fine, I covered my foamie mouseboat with cotton bed sheet stuck on with TBII and then sealed with paint. while the 1" foam isn't that strong by itself, the fabric skin made it tough enough to run over rocks and trees in the water without a leak.

[rowerwet]

http://pages.citebite.com/w3k6d5o6h3gqw some interesting reading, I wasn't the first...
right now on the duckworks yahoo group, there is a thread going where the guy built a small sailboat and coated the hull with plain TBII, an experiment we are all watching. He will be bringing the boat to get together for boat nuts in OK, called sail Oklahoma so everyone can see how well it works.
somewhere else I read of a guy putting TBII mixed with latex paint for color on a boat I believe, though it might be a teardrop... can't remember.

[szern]

I found a video of a woman on Youtube who used PMF on her teardrop and it looks amazing. She said she ironed the canvas directly after placing it on the wood-coated TBII. I have just covered my tongue box using this method and I used a piece of parchment paper between my iron and the canvas to help save my good iron. I think the heat from the iron helped the TBII penetrate into the fibers of the canvas. It certainly took out any bubbles and wrinkles as well. I used a drop cloth from HD and it was a pain to deal with the edges fraying so badly so I may use duckcloth canvas from JoAnn Fabrics when it comes time to cover my camper in a month or so. I'm also thinking I should wash and dry it before hand to avoid shrinkage after it's on the camper.

[jondbar628]

szern.....Buying quality canvas in bulk is among the best investments you can make. Good canvas has a tighter weave, flat seams, and minimal fraying. The big plus is that it is actually cheaper than buying the junk at HF or a big box, if you buy a bulk purchase to do the whole tear. I bought mine online from Big Duck Canvas. Got it on a 6 ft wide roll, so no folds or creases. Did not have to wash first. Went on smooth with very few bubbles. What few there were smoothed easily by hand, no ironing needed. Delivered in 3 days.
I left myself a little short, and for convenience sake, bought an 8x10 "premium" 10 oz dropcloth at Lowes to finish the job on the doors. Horrible. Couldn't get it to adhere at all until washing first, coarse weave, pills, fraying, easily distorted, bubbles everywhere. had to iron out every bubble. I spent more application time & effort on this than the rest of the exterior of the tear combined.
There are a couple different methods of doing a TBII/canvas application. I used a variation of Ghcoe's thinned TBII method. Worked well for me (except with that d_mned canvas from Lowes). You can find it, and other techniques in the Foamie section.......jd

[szern]

Thanks JD. I'll check out your source for the canvas. I'm glad I tried out the canvas from HD on my tongue box before trying to use it on the entire camper. Thanks so much for the tip! I did make a small sample over a piece of 3/4 plywood in September and when I did so I used some left over canvas that I had purchased at JoAnn fabric and it looked great, much better than the tongue box. I threw it outside and it's been sitting in the rain and snow since then. I just brought it in the other day and cut it open and there's no sign of water intrusion. I'm hoping it protect my teardrop just as well as it did that little block of ply.

[SkyNerd]

Great info, I was a little worried about water proofing, i'm over that now. I like the idea of the textured canvas as well. I'll be canvasing over a 1/4" plywood exterior. I don't want to build another one of these for a few years. The first one has to be as good as possible. My questions are...

Paint? Oil or Latex or Doesn't matter.

Exterior paint or porch paint or doesn't matter?

bonding canvas to wood, TBII or paint or doesn't matter?

The price differences aren't enough to drive me away from one or the other, I just want a water proofed long lasting finish - and I'm too cheap for fiber glass My guess would be folks have tried one with good results and never bothered with the others so I assume some answers will be a little biased. And that's ok if the reports are that any combination yields good results I'll start looking for some oops paint at my local big box store.

- Jes