I'm trying for *reallllly* light.....

[Thomcat316]

Hi Whitney,
I applaud your desire for light weight. I too have similar desires. I don't know your ultimate weight goal, but mine is 5-600# total loaded trailer. I think this is doable and should not tax even a small car.
Here's my build journal if your interested:

http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?t=35852&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Nice!! Like the stripper in the background, too - Guillemot? My next project is a trio of S&G Night Herons...

I am wondering if your choice of materials will actually be as light as a lightly framed wood/foam core with 1/8" plywood skins. Your choice of 15oz. roving will require a lot of heavy epoxy to fill and fair. Also, my experience with honeycomb foam is it soaks a lot of epoxy, adding even more weight.

The Plascore I'll be using is a polypropylene hollow-cell with a film and veil on both sides so it can be vacuum-bagged without cells filling. Weight is 4-5 lbs. per cubic foot. As for fairing, I may or may not - my goals for this are a bit different than a lot of folks here, as I'm looking far more for functional than for attractive.

If I were you, I would assemble a small test panel of your proposed materials and alternate methods, then weigh each to see if the time /expense is justified.

Definitely planning on it, but you'd be amazed at how cheap this stuff really is. Panel weight is quite low, too.

One of the things I'll be testing is impact strength of various panel thicknesses with 6oz., 10oz., and 15oz. cloth/roving. All the talk of 1-1/2" floor and 1/2" body being "too thick" got me thinking, so I'll be testing 1/4" and 3/8" body panels as well.

My "heavy" limit for this trailer is ca. 1000 lbs. fully loaded weight, carrying an Abex 10x10 tradeshow booth weighing approximately 550 lbs. This leaves about 450 lbs. to make a trailer out of, but it needs to be fairly impact resistant on the inside. The "hauler" requirement is what's making the trailer so big - I want space aft of the doors for the booth and between/forward of the doors for me to nap in at rest areas. The booth takes up approx. 4'x5'x3' plus misc bags o' stuff.

There's been some concern voiced about cabinets, etc. - all I can say is that between cored panels with thin skins and foamed PVC sheet I think I can keep the full cabinet set down to under 50 lbs.

A further concern of mine is maintenance-free longevity - a nice white epoxy paint over a totally composite body and interior should mostly eliminate decay and the need for frequent maintenance. This is of major concern here in the tropics...

[Larry C]

Nice!! Like the stripper in the background, too - Guillemot? My next project is a trio of S&G Night Herons...

Good call... It's a Guillemot Expedition. A trio of S&G Night Herons?, good for you. I have paddled the stripper version (Nick's personal boat). Nice design!

I will be following your build with great interest. Pictures, pictures, please!

Larry

[ktm_2000]

since I posted about truck campers awhile back I am on the lightweight thing myself and here's my plan for accomplishing it.

The plan would be to

1. make the item in question out of 3/4" mdf (or flat surface)
2. hot glue 3/4 nida-core raw panels on to mdf
3. Glass the exterior with 1708 + 1.5oz mat
4. remove from mold
5. glass interior corners with 1708 extending 6" to 12" on either side of corner
6. Use Nida-bond putty to laminate 1/8" or 1/4" ply on inside

I had monday off so I bought some more nida-core and am building myself a fish box / livewell for my boat. I built a box 48"x24"x32" out of ply and cut the nida-core to fit the outside of the box. If I get some time I will glass the exterior this weekend.

While I was picking up the core material I messed with a sample piece which was made at the factory with glass on both sides and it was incredibly strong.

[Roly Nelson]

If you can build a rig lighter than my 1/4 Nelson Stacker, at 245 lbs, let me know, perhaps I gotta make another one even lighter.
Roly

[ktm_2000]

resurecting a post from some time ago, I've got some pics from my testing using nida core.

I haven't been around on the site for a while so I'd thought that I would share some of my winter project of creating a fixbox with integrated livewell. This box will solve a bunch of problems on board and is designed to be as flexible as possible. I'm using this project to try out using nida-core material which I will also use for my deck replacement on my project boat. Someday I plan on using a modified technique to build another camper.

So onto the build...

1. Went to home depot and picked up a piece of 3/4 ply and cut into pieces to build a male mold box 48" l x 23" w x 32" high
2. After Building the box, planned out the nida-core pieces and how the would cover the mold, then used packing tape to cover all places where resin could seep past the nida core and glue my part to the mold
3. I spent some time to figured out how to cut a decorative chamfer in the top piece of 1" thick nida core which would aid in having the glass go over a 90degree angle and look better as well.
4. Hot glued the nida-core panels to the mold
5. Layup - some pics

All the nida-core hot glued on


Wet out the nida-core scrim with resin before adding glass



A layer of 1708 with 3" overhang


Chamfered edge filled with thickened resin


Almost done with exterior glass, we are finishing up the top piece of glass paying special attention to the corners and overhangs

[ktm_2000]

Here's a detail of the mounting bolts, I used 1/2" C channel and drilled a hole for the bolt. I filled the c channel with thickened resil when it went in. Once the inside is glassed in, these mounting points are going to be incredibly strong.


The day after I removed the wooden mold, turns out I made the box a little too well so it took me almost an hour to break the box apart. Also I had to cut the top piece of nida core in half in order to chamfer the edge and forgot to put packing tape over the joint. Here you can see the piece of mdf stuck to the top piece and the dots are where the hot glue stuck.


I didn't take too many pics when I glassed the inside, it took 4 separate glassing sessions where I put the part on a flat table and clamped metal squares to the outside to keep the part straight. On the longer sides I used a 2x4 wrapped in plastic as a call. When I go and do this for a camper my plans are to only glass the interior corners 1' on either side of the edge then use nida-bond putty to bond in 1/4"plywood to the interior.

I cut the top hatches by using a circular saw and a throw away blade




A pic that show's the core material, I'm building an interior partition and the stuff inside is a temporary mold for another nida-core partition but you can see the thickness of the core material

[ktm_2000]

to give you and idea of weight and cost as others have stated that composites are out of reach of the average user.

This box 24"w x 48"l x 32"h weighs 26lbs

I used 1/2" nidacore for the sides and 1" material for the top.

Nida core was $61 for a 4'x7' panel of 1/2" and $26 for a 2x4' panel of 1"
I used, I haven't quite kicked through a 5 gallon pail of polyester resin which was $125 w/catylst and I really didn't keep track of fiberglass used but all together the box when complete will end up costing me about $350 to build and complete. I built a standie 2 years ago and If I were to build the same camper with this method, it would only cost about $1500 for materials as opposed to the $3500 that I spent previously.

I've got a ways to go finishing the outside but the part is amazingly strong and I've jumped up and down on the box before I cut out the openings.

If and when I build myself a camper I would use this material without thinking twice as it won't ever rot, once finished would be completely waterproof and is very light weight

[droid_ca]

I like this build good luck I'll be following it thanks for posting the pictures

[Miriam C.]

Looks great to me. Are you counting the cost of the molds? Need details please!

[ktm_2000]

I wasn't considering the cost of the molds but they don't have to be all that well built\finished as in a typical fiberglass molding. They are really only there to hold the shape of the part while you are covering the core material with fiberglass.

I haven't made any more progress on the fishbox as it has been quite cold here lately (got 3 more inches of snow today) I'm hoping this Spring season starts soon!!!

[Thomcat316]

Back to building - finally!

Having dragged my butt through the winter (best building season for composites in S. Florida) and spent a lot of intervening time digesting what Andy and others have said on here, I've finally got my order in for Plascore honeycomb core panels in sizes ranging from 1/4" to 1-1/2" thick and up to 60"x144" WxL.

I've decided to go ahead and build two of these little puppies - 4'x10' & 5'x12' - to absorb some of the fixed costs of shipping and mold tooling.

The A-frame tongue and floor-edge reinforcements will be structural fiberglass extrusions (square and L-angle respectively) which will be bonded directly to the box. The axle will be torsion. The axle will bolt through the edge reinforcement and the floor panel, with the A-frame starting directly in front of the axle mount.

I listened when Andy poked fun at my build plans, and though the plan I'd had initially worked out fine in a full-scale test I've decided to scrap some of the fancy work in favor of build speed now that I've built myself into a tight deadline. So - no roundovers from the sides to the top. It'll look traditional.

I'll still be forming the front and rear curves on a female mold, vacuum bagging down to Formica sheets over MDF ribs, and tabbing together the interior skins before skinning the entire exterior in one shot.

Fastener points will be high density foam plugs inserted in the core, or reinforced epoxy putty for small ones.

Should be quite the fun adventure!

Visit http://tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?p=830698 for further updates!