Tangerine Dreamer Its begun

[Wolfgang92025]

Will 1/4" ply over "stick" frame be strong enough for most cases. And what ply would be the best to go for in terms of material no of plies etc.

Yes, 1/4" (5 or 6 mm) will be plenty strong. I used 1/4" on the outside, 3/4" batten and 1/8" inside. No problem at all.

Good luck and let's see some sawdust and

Wolfgang

[jackdaw]

Andy if you want the best plywood, you should go for Lloyds approved stuff. If you want really good stuff, go for marine ply. and if you want something that will do the job, and is going to be covered, go for external ply. As with everything , it's all available at a price.

I've used Edens for the ply on the current build. I thought they were reasonable.

http://www.edens.co.uk/gfx/ul/files/Page06_1.pdf

If your going for a glued sandwich wall, I would think 4mm sould be fine as long as you have framing where you need strength. If you think of a panel door, the ply is not thick.
If you ever strip a caravan down, you'll see the walls are very thin battens,insulation, and super thin ply (3mm?).
Good to see you making a start

[Vindi_andy]

Well the wood has been ordered for delivery on july 19th when Im off. 4 sheets of 1/4" 10'X5' Baltic Birch to make 2 sets of stick frame sidewalls.

We are then away for a week and have about 5 days off work when we get back so the sawdust is gonna fly from the 28th July

Sorry to disappoint those that were following the thread for the glass over foam construction. I bottled out a little in terms of my skillset and the need to "Git 'er done" fairly quickly

[Vindi_andy]

OK folks well the build of Tangerine Dreamer has begun.

Had 4 10' x 5' sheets of 1/4" baltic birch delivered on 19th July unfortunately we went away on holiday for a week on the 20th so nothing happened for a week.

Got home at 3am on wednesday so wednesday was a lazy day with only the washing being done.

Didnt have any string long enough to use andrews string method so used the dimensional profile.



Did a rough cut allowing some spare between the line, to be sanded down to the final shape at a later date.



Havent done the lower curves yet as the are 10'x5' sheets and the idea is that the sides hang down below the chassis to cover it

All 4 sheets are now rough cut awaiting the procurement of a caravan which hopefully will be soon as there is a local caravan storage place with a non payer.

[Rigsby]

Great start Andi

[Vindi_andy]

Went to see caravan, a bit battered and no 12 volt electrics, but chassis looked sound and it had 3 way fridge, cooker, hob and sink.

Negotiated price and friend towed it home for us last night. Fun day anticipated starting to strip it out. The sooner we can get to the chassis the better, but need to ensure we keep as much good board and bits and pieces as possible as may need for Tangerine Dreamer

[Vindi_andy]

Well we acquired the caravan for the princely sum of £100. A friend towed it back to my house for a bottle of wine and we started a more in depth investigation.

It Has a sort of 12 V system but im not convinced by it. All the vehicle lighting works so that will be salvaged but alas it has had some major leaks. All the timber studs work and a lot of the internal boarding is rotten.

Great fun was had on sunday starting the stripping out. Started out quite carefully salvaging the sink and hob/grill unit for the teardrop. The 3 way fridge and venting bits were also salvaged as was the cooker. The fridge will probably go in Tangerine Dreamer but not sure about the oven as we are not intending on doing a lot of cooking its primarily a mobile Bed and breakfast.

In my enthusiastic removal of internal walls and cupboards parts of the rotten studwork has disintegrated and the insulation boards have come down so we are left with the the aluminium shell in places. When we get to that far this will be stripped off and weighed in for scrap.

So about 5 hours of destruction resulted in the bathroom kitchen and wardrobe being stripped out and one of the end high storage cupboards.

Had to go out for dinner with the out-laws hence only getting 5 hours, had to let said dinner settle. More mayhem and destruction will ensue tonight.

[Wolfgang92025]

Andy,

Sound's like you are having fun. sure hope we get to see some of the destruction and salvage job.

Wolfgang

[Rigsby]

Make sure you get all the nails out of the ally, you will get a better price for it when you weigh it in

[Vindi_andy]

Thanks for the top tip rigsby.

I presume they knock you down if its not "pure" ali ie its got steel nails in it because they then have to spend the time taking them out.

Wife has taken some pics of the destruction but im out tonight so will see if i can get them on on wednesday

[Ageless]

Actually they don't take the nails out. When they remelt the steel sinks to the bottom. It's that steel weighs more that they deduct at recycling.

I love the idea of 'reuse/recycle', every bit helps both the environment and the pocketbook

[Vindi_andy]

Unfortunately the reuse side of things of this caravan and pretty limited. the appliances will get reused but most of the timber framing and boarding is rotten.

Pull the toilet wall out on sunday and a chunk of the wall lining and frame came with it as did a portion of the roof

As has been said previously having great fun on the destruction side

[Vindi_andy]

OK so more destruction ensued this weekend managed to get a couple of hours before the energy level faded






more destruction on sunday 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. Wife did about 5 tip runs just on sunday and has done 10 all tolled so far.



The left had wall was so rotten it collapsed under its own weight whe we started to remove the Ali so we pulled it over to prevent it hitting the house


Our 2 little helpers were helping out doing the tip runs and bagging up the rubbishSo here we are at the end of sunday, Phew that was hard work



I reskon one more weekend will see us with a bare chassis ready to be wire brushed and then shortened and painted

[kgingeri]

Hi Andy,

Not sure if your still considering composite walls but if you are, I did mine using vinyl cloth + corro-plast (like plastic cardboard used for signs) + a sheet of panelling + cedar wainscot. Each layer was siciloned to the previous. This mad a very strong yet light wall structure.
The best adhesive I found (after many experiments) was the pure silicon (as you'd used for house calking). It is near impossible to get pieces apart after they cure for a few days! There is an added benefit of temperature expansion and contraction with I believe the silicon handles better then other glues or adhesives.

My 2cents

[Vindi_andy]

No not doing fibreglass walls on this one going for ply stick sandwich walls for ease of construction combined with lightness.

The Fibreglass over foam is still in my mind and I might even go wet lay up fibreglass over the roof instead of ply not sure at this stage

Look at me not even half way through the first build and already considering a 2nd one.