Thread: Looking to build a camper

And here's a pic of the protective film pealed back revealing the silver side which has a good 'keyed' finish for paint. The other side is a bright white which is as good a finish as a car, truck etc. Sorry they're a bit 'grainy', iPads don't seem to take good pictures in unnatural workshop light!!

Whats the core material in that Sitec? And thickness?
Did you have any problems with the core crushing when you riveted it up?

One technique if you are going to be bolting/attaching through composite panels is to drill your hole through, then use something to dig out the core for about 10mm around the hole.
A small cut-off allen key in your cordless drill does a good job
Fill with epoxy filler and then redrill the hole when set. Sort of like a crush tube for composite panels!

Steve

Couldn't you just use a small piece of tube as crush tube? Same effect but not the messing around.

SteveG, no need. The black plasticky material that is in the center is best described as just like the material used to make high pressure mains water pipe. I used 5 mm countersunk rivets and it didn't crush at all. Just measured it now and it is 4mm overall thickness. Just like a piece of water pipe, a drill bit will go thru it like a knife thru butter. When building horse floats, using 25x50 and 25x25 rhs I buffed the rear side to give Sikaflex the 'key' required, pressed each panel into place and taped into position using masking tape. The following day I marked and drilled my 5mm holes, and then sharpened a 9mm drill to suit the CSK rivet head angle. Sharpen it so it does not bite and use it on a cordless on the slowest speed and you can get a very neat countersunk flush finish with no crushing or denting.....

Here's a pic of the capping material. I've had to draw a cross section pic of the corner capping as having just spent 10 min in the workshop looking for the off cut has given me the s***s!!! If I find it over the course of the weekend I'll pit a pic up!!

Thanks Sitec for the info on those panels.
I think i will be building it out of foam/fiberglass composite. (a sheet of foam sandwiched between 2 sheets of fiberglass) 20mm wide.
From the research i have done it will not require any additional support and should be plenty strong enough to hold itself together. (it is a material often used in caravan construction)
It also has excellent insulating properties (it is often used in the construction of freezer truck bodies)

Seems as though it is perfect for my application


Dizza

Originally Posted by Chops

Couldn't you just use a small piece of tube as crush tube? Same effect but not the messing around.

You could, but by the time you get the correct size tube, and cut it perfectly to length it still takes a bit of time to do - particularly if there are a few holes to do. A quick spin to clean out the core then mix and squeeze in some filler doesn't take long. If the core material doesn't like water you also need to make sure its sealed so that would be an extra step with if using a tube.

Crushing the core isn't a problem with the material that Sitec has used as its only thin, and by the sound of it has a solid core. The 20mm stuff that Dizza is looking at will need some thought put into structural fixings such as door hinges etc

When we were building the foam cored dinghies, we would cut out areas of foam and insert marine ply where there were going to be fixings for rigging etc. Since we were laminating our own panels we'd set it up before it was laminated. Not so easy when working with pre-made panels

Dizza, that 20mm sheet sounds like it would be great for what you are planning to do. Working with foam or honeycomb cored panels is great and they are amazingly strong. Do you have a link to the particular material?
There's probably a particular resin that works well with that panel so find out about that.

Glue for joining panels is usually made from resin with added filler material such as micro-balloons.

If you are planning to put glass tape/cloth around corners to strengthen the joins you will save yourself a lot of work if you get some peel ply. We used one that was like a fine polyester cloth, and you applied it over the joint after the resin and glass cloth was in place, and rubbed any air bubbles out using a rubber/plastic squeegee. Once it was cured, the peel ply could be pulled off giving you a nice smooth surface without the usual weave pattern or fibres poking out that you get if you just apply cloth/resin.

Steve