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    New trailer- Powder or Paint

    In reverse order, yes paint before the floor goes on, you will burn the paint in the area of the weld, but touching it up is easy. As for paint prep. Hit it with flapper sander to knock off the scale. Then use purple power degreaser and a brush to give it scrub, start at one end, scrub, work...
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    Cheap bastards attempt at DIY fiberglass structural panels .One person in tool shed

    I used dow 25 psi blue foam, I have 2 skins made of fiber glass sheet. Its plenty strong, people have been using this style to build things for 60 or so years. Styromax builds 30 foot campers from 25 psi foam, mine and Jess's are both 25 psi foam. My trailer has about 5k miles with no issues...
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    Cheap bastards attempt at DIY fiberglass structural panels .One person in tool shed

    I used melamen coated mdf as my table, gave it a coat of car spray on wax, the epoxy did not stick to it. My vacuum pump was 75 bucks off craigslist, but you can get em for 50 from amazon. My vac bag was a pvc pond liner, epoxy wont stick to pvc and it cost 50 bucks.
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    DIY enclosed trailer frame

    Well they where for the stabilizers, until I put them on and found out the did nothing when coming in from the side at 90 degrees to the frame. So they got changed to 45 degrees, and I did not worry about cutting them off.
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    Electric Heat? Teardrop

    He said life battery probably meaning lifepo4, so 280 ah is usable 280 ah.
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    Homemade off road trailer

    Rip out the wood, if your not going to be dumping dirt stone or anything like that in it. Go get a sheet of 1/8 aluminum tread/diamond plate. Have a few tabs welded underneath if needed to mount it, or even just a good glue if there are a few tabs already.
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    DIY enclosed trailer frame

    1x1 .065 is plenty strong, yes it takes a little more skill to weld. As for getting it square, lots of tack welds and measuring, once you get most of it tacked it will be pretty solid. Edit you dont need a stell structure depending on how you build. look at sawtooth ultimate build thread here...
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    Cheap bastards attempt at DIY fiberglass structural panels .One person in tool shed

    The strength comes from the glass, and the core adds to it by being non compressible. So yes I do think it would work, and again the glass is the strength. If you want to max strength use uni directional glass with the fibers 90 degrees to the joint. Or even regular cloth cut in strips with the...
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    Axle Confusion

    Thats why I spent hours teaching myself some engineering stuff and using online steel stress calculators. all the steel in my frame weighs 330 lbs including the tongue, the highest internal stress in the steel is about 1100 psi on the frame, the tongue is about 1800 psi. Mild steel has about a...
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    Cheap bastards attempt at DIY fiberglass structural panels .One person in tool shed

    okay language barriers are confusing me. I am not sure what your asking. Do you mean do expanding foam glassed in place to lock it together?
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    Axle Confusion

    1600 dry, mine is 2300 wet.
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    Axle Confusion

    Looks like AZ is easy for home builds, if you can weld you can have a great trailer frame for under 1000 bucks. If you buy and want to rework the axle assume your going to spend 500 for the axle and brakes alone. So now your in to it for 500 plus what ever you paid for the frame. Rust was not a...
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    DIY enclosed trailer frame

    Tongue and tongue supports on the bottom its much stronger. For a 6x10 I would use 2x3 .120 on the tongue/side supports. And probably on the frame rails too, but you could use 2x3 085 as well. most of the stress is on the tongue and what its attached too. I would use 2x3 .085 as cross rails...
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    Axle Confusion

    I would recommend calling oemparts store in Virgina. Why they told me about a dexter shop I could have the axle delivered to for free. saved me 200 bucks for an hour drive. below is assuming you want a torsion axle. Yes you can order 6 lug axle spacing from dexter ( oempartsstore) , if you go...
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    Electric Heat? Teardrop

    The lighter plug heaters you see are normally 150 watts and put out about 500 btu. A candle does around 300 btu, about the same as a human body ( not wrapped in heavy clothes or sleeping bag ) The draw will be about 12 amps, so over night you would draw about 100 ah. Then getting 5 hours of sun...
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    New Guy with some questions

    Okay, you asked a lot of questions. First do you like the new sawtooth or the old sawtooth xl? You dont need steel to hold weight on the roof, normal teardrop construction methods will support a lot of weight on the roof. If you wanted to do the structural insulated panels like the new sawtooth...
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    Cheap bastards attempt at DIY fiberglass structural panels .One person in tool shed

    Mine now is fiberglass skin but not filon brand, but a company in south carolina, same company jess used for his. The steel loop around the opening for the pop top is fine. What I meant is if I ever do another for my self. Imagine just glueing and shaping foam sheets glued up into the shape and...
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    Shower water heater ideas?

    I have the camplux heater mounted in a box on the outside plumbed in to the trailer. It works well but your going to have a problem with the winter camping. They are very likely to be damaged by a freeze, so you will need to keep it warm and drain it as soon as you cant. You would be better off...
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    Cheap bastards attempt at DIY fiberglass structural panels .One person in tool shed

    I used 7.5 gallons of epoxy on my build and it was thickened epoxy. I also did the bed area as a panel, so I have a 12 foot by 5.5 wide by 5.5 high box with a 6.5x5.5 bed platform all from the 7.5 gallons. Also the skin I used is only gel coat on the outside, the inner surface was mat but pretty...
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    Cheap bastards attempt at DIY fiberglass structural panels .One person in tool shed

    Well I think if your gonna keep buying buckets, you need to learn vacuum infusion. Or start doing your own skins on a table. Make a smooth table and wax it, roll on gelcoat let cure, layout glass and put resin on it, let cure. Then peel it up. You could even do a few layers of glass then imbed...
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