Bonding trailer lid
- Thread starter ikk
- Start date
jscherb
Expedition Leader
If you plan to put the sheet metal flat on top, then that's a good candidate for bonding with automotive structural adhesive.
I recently made a tailgate for my military trailer; the structure is similar to your lid. I bonded steel sheet on the inside and aluminum sheet on the outside.
Before the skins went on:
After:
I used Norton Speedgrip automotive structural adhesive (http://www.nortonautomotive.com/speedgrip-auto.aspx) to bond the skins on. Norton has acrylic, urethane and epoxy adhesives tailored for metal-metal, metal-fiberglass or SMC bonding (SMC is what the Jeep "fiberglass" hardtops are made from). Their web site has many PDF documents you can download describing the various adhesives and their application.
Here's a link to the writeup of the skin-bonding step: http://tventuring.com/trailerforum/thread-119-post-3830.html#pid3830 There's lots more detail in that thread, I didn't copy everything over to here.
I recently made a tailgate for my military trailer; the structure is similar to your lid. I bonded steel sheet on the inside and aluminum sheet on the outside.
Before the skins went on:
After:
I used Norton Speedgrip automotive structural adhesive (http://www.nortonautomotive.com/speedgrip-auto.aspx) to bond the skins on. Norton has acrylic, urethane and epoxy adhesives tailored for metal-metal, metal-fiberglass or SMC bonding (SMC is what the Jeep "fiberglass" hardtops are made from). Their web site has many PDF documents you can download describing the various adhesives and their application.
Here's a link to the writeup of the skin-bonding step: http://tventuring.com/trailerforum/thread-119-post-3830.html#pid3830 There's lots more detail in that thread, I didn't copy everything over to here.
Thanks Jscherb for your input, I was hoping that you would be getting out your fiberglass panels out for sale so I could of made a top with it. Since you didn't I went this route. that boding adhesive looks great, I see you were able to borrow a gun. Man those guns are expensive to buy for the amount of use I would get out of it. I may just go with Sikaflex along the outside to give it a good seam seal as well as bonding, and do a few spot weld on the crossbars to the lid for piece of mind. I like the 3M VHB tape but it has to be aligned perfectly the first time it seems.
jscherb
Expedition Leader
My local auto paint store lends out the guns to people who only need them for one job, you might check locally and see if there's a place that sells the adhesive, they would also have the guns and maybe they lend them out.
I have my own gun now - it turns out my local paint place ended up giving me a gun for nothing, someone borrowed one and didn't return it clean so they decided to give it to me since I'm a good customer there.