Quote:
Originally Posted by CampNBrew2
Thanks all for the valid points here. My thoughts were that 45" of my ~72" slide would be covered by the UHMW tape (5ea x 9" strips) and this should be slippery enough to prevent binding. But as you say I would be relying solely on tape adhesion and if it did let go would create a sticky mess. Plus I am near Sacramento and we have very hot summers. I have seen plenty of adhesive products turn to goo in the 100F+ temps.
There are 3 large screws under each end of the slide (#3 Philips drive, flat head screws, countersunk into the slide floor). One screw was too close to the edge and overdriven at the factory thus the edge of the screw is protruding slightly.
The others have very slightly loosened over time, and the Darco is beginning to fray at these screw heads. It did make them easy to find and I tightened them all maybe 1/16-1/8 turn back to tight. I assume these are the screws holding the wall framing to the floor.
I see that people are using 3/4" screws to secure these UHMW skids. This makes me feel better as I thought the flooring was thinner and was nervous about screwing to it.
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The above is what will happen I'm afraid. Once it starts getting "sticky" it's going to stick to the wear bar as much as the back of the uhmw tape - then the real fun begins because I have no idea how you would get it off the wear bar without removing (or hyper extending) the slide to pull the wear bar and either replace it or give it a thorough scrubbing down.
I've used uhmw under darco slides on 2 trailers, both had the darco glued to the bottom of the slides but I've seen some where the darco just "billows" under there. None of those situations are ideal for adhesive to work. On one trailer we used a combination of screws and adhesive with 12" wide strips (3). The screws were outside the wear bar when the slide was retracted and an adhesive was used on the rest (sikaflex??). The darco was adhered well to the bottom of the slide. Once the strips were in place the slide was ran in and out maybe 1/2 dozen times a day to seat the adhesive and let it cure (about 10 days). The outside edges where the darco was frayed was covered with black sealant so water could not seep back in under the darco. After installation it worked perfectly for the next 5 years until I traded it. On this one I had them cover the entire bottoms of the slides with solid uhmw at the first sign of fraying on the edges. All edges and ends were heated and formed to roll over the edges then screwed sealed. They have given no problem either (crossing fingers).
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