Alu Box Tube or Wood

Wild Sprinter

Guest
Hi All, Just looking into the best way of constructing the frames of my units (Kitchen, bed, cupboard, locker) for the back of my van. I'm looking at using Aluminum box tubing (25mm x 25mm) with plastic connections rather than wood. Has anybody had experience of constructing units using this. If so, how does it compare in weight to using wood?

Thank You, Wild Spirinter
 
Plastic knock in jointers used with aliminium tubing would save a little weight but the framing to units is only a small percentage of the overall weight.The sheet materials used would have much more significance on weight. Unless you're using sheet ali. of course.
Consider what may be disadvantages:
What happens at curves and bends, do you have an adjustable joint for the resultant angles.
How do you neatly fix sheet material to frame... adhesive or mechanical
Door construction... double skinned or solid how do you make neat edges and fit the catches/hinges.
Aliminium is fairly pricey compared to wood
I have selfbuilt several vans over the years using several methods:
Reimo kit- which uses solid 18mm poplar ply with plastic corner fixings expensive but lightweight.
Solid coventional 12mm ply interior grade lighter than exterior grade- cheap but heavy.
Wood frame with glued on 3.5mm single face veneer ply- this was lightest method but you have to carefully plan on where to place fixing battens cheap method but labour intensive.
 
i find steel angle as good as anything .9mm ply for boxes and 12mm for seat tops use the steel as the frames. some put the steel on the outside as a feature. weld the joins looks ok. cheap ply for walls cover in washable wall paper. i used cheap ply for ceiling and painted /rollered in bathroom paint like eggshell. aluminium is ok but harder to fix if away from home .need a tig to weld it really. most things plastic break at the most awkward times .
 
There are two easy approaches - use single sheets of laminations or build frames and then cover the frames with thin laminates.

The advantage of single sheets is that you can cutout radius corners which are a lot stronger than square corners/joints. Often the cutouts can be used as doors. Butt joints can easily be reinforced with basic woodworking joints. Plastic beads are used to "hide" the cutout edges. The disadavantage is mainly size and accuracy of cutting. Most boatbuilders will use rounded cutouts for strength - good quality motorhome builders as well. Fitment upto curved walls is easy and can be glued (auto panel glue) onto side walls with little problem.

Beds - have a look at the VW Rock n Roll beds, good space saving and can double as seats/dining area.

The advantage of frames is that they are quick to build and box in. They rely on the boxing to make them rigid and can use lighter laminates, downside is that you never know what guage metal will really do the job so tend to overbuild (heavy).

Go and have a look at few old VW Kombis campers and see how they have stood upto 30 to 40 years of use - take photos and then mercilessly copy the good ideas that you like.
 
My present van and previous were constructed using thin single sided ply and wood frames,but it is a labour intensive method, all the cutouts have to be framed, including doors. If you edge with "T" type knock iin plastic mouldings it's surprising how many metres will be required, A special electric drill attached grooving tool can be bought, but has to be used very accurately.

As I mentioned in my previous reply it requires careful planning regarding batten placement, because once a unit or panel is finally fixed there's only maybe 3 or 4mm thickness to work with and who wants to remove unit once fixed in place?

Nevertheless it's the cheapest method I know of.
 
we used to make vw units from 9mm birch ply .using cut strips as corner supports if nec.use wider strips around seat lids etc. bit of 1x 1and half as a table support on front edge..we found 24inch seat units and 24inch wide table gives 6ft bed used to fit nice in a vw. make the table a little shorter than the seats to allow access get plastic or aluminium table supports on wall easy to lift table off. all the bits are around cak do a good catalogue reimo if you can get one. i try to use parts you can get anywhere if you use one offs it can cause trouble later if it breaks. let us know how you get on . cheers alan.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. Very useful information.

Yeah - saving up for the RIB Rock & Roll bed for us, and building bunk beds for the kids. Was thinking about the alu box tubing with a thin ply sandwich as I thought it would be easier and I could hide the electrical cables for my lights and switches better. But looking around I might just go for the thicker shiny laminated stuff with the plastic blocks in the corners. The design I've knocked up have rounded corners to some units but I struggling to see how I can do this with the extra thickness. Not seen anything that I can buy - How do the professional guys do it?

One of the other things I was looking into was having plastic roller shutter doors on the cupboards, lockers and bathroom doors rather than open-out doors as space is a bit of a premium. Found a company on the internet that manufactures them and I've banged an email off to them but do any of you guys know if I can buy 'off the peg'?? I can change the sizes of my openings to suit if needed.

Found the delights of the CAK Tanks catalog - Not put the thing down for two days now!!!

Anyway - Thanks again for the replies, a few questions again I know.

Many Thanks,
Wild Sprinter
 
if you cant put down the cak.cat. then you must try and get a reimo cast .its much more info. with all the bits of plastic to make a real pro job.you will want to go to bed with it. try the manchester people mcc. tel 01618391855 .mines abit old now 2000.but believe me its the catologue.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who viewed this discussion (Total:0)

Back
Top