twp pack epoxy thats used in boat building ,,, sort of like fiberglass resin but better for wood and add about 10% xyleen into the mix , slows the setting time from hours to days , keep adding epoxy till the wood stops absorbing it ,,, it will last a lifetime ,,, and this is from a man who owned a boat with double diagonal hull and triple diagonal decks ... they sell the same stuff for a lot more and call it fancy names , ive seen me add 20% xyleen and have the hardening time at about six weeks , and just keep recoating every week .
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Smouser
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That will be a very good option for a 'permanent' / long time solution.
I did look at some of those kind of products but it is prohibitevly expensive for the products for me at this time. I will probably need about 25 litres of the stuff which wil be ££££.
I am aiming for a ~5 year solution for not too much money at this time.
as above ,,, the uber expensive one from the states is only the cheap one with added xyleen ... knowing that saved me thousands when doing my decks.
Using epoxy like this is a waste of epoxy & money, Boatbuilding epoxy is a fixed ratio mix, You cannot thin it without buggering up the cure, A part cured mess is the result that does not do what it is supposed to.
I have seen similar done on wooden boats more than a few times & it always ends in tears. Expensive tears. Especially when you have to put it right.
If the ply is fir shuttering ply you will get away with any old jollop, If its modern far eastern chinese exterior you may as well not bother as whatever you put on it it will delaminate anyway & you have just wasted paint.
Facebook marketplace is your friend here. Some second hand buffalo board is going to be 10x better than anything you’re going to do with ply. As others have said, do it properly and do it once, rather than compromising now and having to do it again later.
Not sure where you are in the country but something like this would do the job
Not sure where you are in the country but something like this would do the job
Smouser
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Thank you all for your recommendations.
It appears that I am stubborn and will have to learn from my own mistakes.
Critically, the products I have purchased did come in under my £100 budget.
I went for the Sika Sikagard Universal 5 Star Wood Treatment - All In One Treatment For Wet Rot, Dry Rot, Fungi and Wood Boring Insects @ Amazon for £27.50 as a base coat.
For the top coat I went for the Everbuild 901 Black Bitumen paint 25l @ Zoro for £70 (there is a bit of a wait 5 - 7 working days).
It appears that that stock is running low of the Everbuild 901 as many suppliers are out of stock at the moment.
After reading the technical specifications of the Everbuild 901 and the Everbuild 905 (all weather roof coating) it appeared to me that the 901 would be more suitable.
The old aluminium treadplate will go on top of the painted plywood boards so the coating does not necessarily need to be hard wearing.
I will keep you all updated with the painting and installation of the plywood boards. After that, I guess we will have to wait months/years to establish if my chosen path was a good or bad choice.
In the meantime, I am working on getting all the lights and electrics sorted.
It appears that I am stubborn and will have to learn from my own mistakes.
Critically, the products I have purchased did come in under my £100 budget.
I went for the Sika Sikagard Universal 5 Star Wood Treatment - All In One Treatment For Wet Rot, Dry Rot, Fungi and Wood Boring Insects @ Amazon for £27.50 as a base coat.
For the top coat I went for the Everbuild 901 Black Bitumen paint 25l @ Zoro for £70 (there is a bit of a wait 5 - 7 working days).
It appears that that stock is running low of the Everbuild 901 as many suppliers are out of stock at the moment.
After reading the technical specifications of the Everbuild 901 and the Everbuild 905 (all weather roof coating) it appeared to me that the 901 would be more suitable.
The old aluminium treadplate will go on top of the painted plywood boards so the coating does not necessarily need to be hard wearing.
I will keep you all updated with the painting and installation of the plywood boards. After that, I guess we will have to wait months/years to establish if my chosen path was a good or bad choice.
In the meantime, I am working on getting all the lights and electrics sorted.
Shedendman
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Good ole bitumen paint will be fine,plenty of coats,much cheaper option to
These wood preservative watery treatments are ofter just Borax based. If you have real wood a few years old, Ethylene Glycol kills the bugs and is cheap. Acrypol or Flexacryl are better than bitumen based stuff. I put the heavy 4.5kg torch felt on a new trailer some years ago and it did great. Timber decking can be an option. It is relatively cheap and is normally pressure treated Larch
Smouser
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Acrypol or Flexacryl is significantly more expensive too!
I was hoping to use torch on felt but there was no deals on ebay or fb marketplace in my local area at the time I was looking. No doubt something will crop now that I have ordered the bitumen paint
I managed to cut and test fit the plywood boards this afternoon/evening. They are back in the garage while I wait for the delivery of the products I am going to coat them with.
roofman
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If you were closer i could of sorted you out mate with a roll or two, have a container full of the stuff but post would of killed itAcrypol or Flexacryl is significantly more expensive too!
I was hoping to use torch on felt but there was no deals on ebay or fb marketplace in my local area at the time I was looking. No doubt something will crop now that I have ordered the bitumen paint
I managed to cut and test fit the plywood boards this afternoon/evening. They are back in the garage while I wait for the delivery of the products I am going to coat them with.
View attachment 426515
atomant48
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Following with interest as I’m rebuilding a box trailer (started a separate thread on it). Current floor is 6mm ply and has cracked in a few places but seems to have stood up ok. Was going to replace it with 18mm buffalo but more because it makes the sides nearer 1220 rather than 1230 which is annoying me when looking at sheer materials ! I’m only looking at covering about 2400 long and 1500 wide so a couple sheets of old buffalo shouldn’t be too much. You’ve got quite a platform there to cover - probably enough to transport that Tesla
Farside
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I've been caught out a few times in the past twenty years over so-called water/weatheproof plywood.
"Is it WBP?"
"Oh, yes, sure."
No it wasn't, it delaminated eventually.
Utter dross on the plywood market for the most part, and it wasn't cheap, either.
Note, some of the above was waterproofed by me, but it still fell apart.
The only good plywood I have knocking around is stuff I bought pre-2000 and it's been exposed to weather every day, untreated. Proper WBP, not marine.
Smouser
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No real progress on the deck yet but I did get some other jobs done.
The Sikaguard 5 star wood treatment arrived and I 'painted' the small piece of plywood that would be at the rear of the trailer. The 5 star wood treatment is a milky water-based substance and once dry I could not even really tell that the plywood board was treated. Low VOCs too - it is probably going to end up on the 'SOLVENT FREE - IT DOESNT WORK' thread
It is that time of the year when it is difficult to paint outdoors due to short daylight hours, rain and low temperatures, I think I am going to have a nightmare to get that bitumen paint to dry once it arrives.
Some other things I have done to refurbish the trailer:
I bought new braking cables as the old ones were looking a little worse for wear, and there would have been a good chance they would get stuck in their sleeves and bind the brakes up.
The old cables have been removed but the new cables have not been fitted yet.
While we are on the subject of brakes, the brake rod is pretty corroded.
The brake rod is getting replaced with an A4 stainless steel threaded bar from Zoro.
The axles were also corroded, l don't think their integrity was compromised but they required treatment before it was too late. I guess Ifor Williams just bought the axles already painted and they never got the galvanizing treatment.
The bump stops and U bolts were beyond saving. I tried to undo the nuts but it was more hassle than what it was worth so I just cut them off with a grinder.
I started to remove the rust on one of the axles with a grinder but quickly decided that there was a better use of my time.
I found a guy on FB Marketplace who does a bit of sandblasting on his farm so I took the axles and leaf springs to him.
Once I dropped the axles and leaf springs off he said he would have them done in an hour. £50 well spent!
The axles have since been primer painted with zinc primer and top coated with Rustoleum Combicolor gloss black paint (left over from my double driveway gate build).
They are now installed back on the trailer with new U bolts, bump stops and leaf spring bushes.
The Sikaguard 5 star wood treatment arrived and I 'painted' the small piece of plywood that would be at the rear of the trailer. The 5 star wood treatment is a milky water-based substance and once dry I could not even really tell that the plywood board was treated. Low VOCs too - it is probably going to end up on the 'SOLVENT FREE - IT DOESNT WORK' thread
It is that time of the year when it is difficult to paint outdoors due to short daylight hours, rain and low temperatures, I think I am going to have a nightmare to get that bitumen paint to dry once it arrives.
Some other things I have done to refurbish the trailer:
I bought new braking cables as the old ones were looking a little worse for wear, and there would have been a good chance they would get stuck in their sleeves and bind the brakes up.
The old cables have been removed but the new cables have not been fitted yet.
While we are on the subject of brakes, the brake rod is pretty corroded.
The brake rod is getting replaced with an A4 stainless steel threaded bar from Zoro.
The axles were also corroded, l don't think their integrity was compromised but they required treatment before it was too late. I guess Ifor Williams just bought the axles already painted and they never got the galvanizing treatment.
The bump stops and U bolts were beyond saving. I tried to undo the nuts but it was more hassle than what it was worth so I just cut them off with a grinder.
I started to remove the rust on one of the axles with a grinder but quickly decided that there was a better use of my time.
I found a guy on FB Marketplace who does a bit of sandblasting on his farm so I took the axles and leaf springs to him.
Once I dropped the axles and leaf springs off he said he would have them done in an hour. £50 well spent!
The axles have since been primer painted with zinc primer and top coated with Rustoleum Combicolor gloss black paint (left over from my double driveway gate build).
They are now installed back on the trailer with new U bolts, bump stops and leaf spring bushes.
atomant48
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Looking good. My chassis is a lot simpler (and smaller) was going to strip it back and paint with epoxy mastic - reading up on that it says down to 0 deg but when I’ve used it before in warmer temps it’s still days to dry so I might have to come up with a tent or something. No space in the garage unfortunately!
Smouser
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The tyres were an accident waiting to happen.
The seller said he did a 6-hour round trip delivering an LR Defender the week before I bought the trailer
Look at the state of them
With one steel rim damaged (needing replacement in my opinion) and the other rims rusty, the best option was to just buy 4 new wheels and tyres.
It worked out slightly more than just getting one new rim, 4 new tyres and fitting but not much more.
I then took off the 'back plate/panel' of the trailer as it looked pretty dire. The plan was to give it a lick of cold galvanizing paint.
However, it was actually corroded through in places so replacement was the better option.
A local engineering firm quoted £50 + VAT labour and £15 + VAT material to make a new one. A pretty simple job if you have access to a guillotine + brake.
I decided to just make one myself and got a sheet of 1.2mm galvanized steel sheet.
How hard could it be to bend a bit of steel plate at home?
Turns out, much harder than I thought
However, it did turn out OK for a manual bend.
The seller said he did a 6-hour round trip delivering an LR Defender the week before I bought the trailer
Look at the state of them
With one steel rim damaged (needing replacement in my opinion) and the other rims rusty, the best option was to just buy 4 new wheels and tyres.
It worked out slightly more than just getting one new rim, 4 new tyres and fitting but not much more.
I then took off the 'back plate/panel' of the trailer as it looked pretty dire. The plan was to give it a lick of cold galvanizing paint.
However, it was actually corroded through in places so replacement was the better option.
A local engineering firm quoted £50 + VAT labour and £15 + VAT material to make a new one. A pretty simple job if you have access to a guillotine + brake.
I decided to just make one myself and got a sheet of 1.2mm galvanized steel sheet.
How hard could it be to bend a bit of steel plate at home?
Turns out, much harder than I thought
However, it did turn out OK for a manual bend.
Smouser
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I am a poor government worker
Plus - what the hell do I do with the plywood I already have? It will just end up annoying me and getting in the way.
Not to mention the bitumen paint, I have no other use for that either!
At this stage, I am committed to my (probably flawed) plan!
