"The Test Mule" --11/22/11 Fab bench

[ohbugger]

Wow! Nice work on the fiberglass molds! All that work and materials for a plug, then a mold, then finally a usable part. No doubt the end product will be strong, light and it will look professional! Good work!

[RockyMountainTeardrops]

As far as your layout table, two thoughts come to mind. First, is the melamine on both sides of the sheet goods? If not a single ply can cause an imbalance. Second, you really don't need truss joists to build a flat table. If you build a stress skin or torsion box and then install the melamine on top of it, you'll have nice flat surface.

Ah, that makes sense. One would assume I would have thought of that after spending so many hours contemplating the floor construction.

What did you use for the core of the floor"

The core is Divinycell H45 (3lb PVC foam)
Here's a chart for the floor sandwich, based on 144 lbs/sf loading (1psi). The core fails at approx the same time as the skins will.

2.5 gallons of resin just for the floor panel? I understand it is light weight and strong but exactly how expensive is it to do this floor panel? That is like a $100 of resin in the floor alone. Not to mention the infills and the cloth. Yikes! It is really turning out very nice, your floor panel by the way. I am just freaking out about the cost.

Well, is was only $80 for the resin.
The real cost is in the foam and the fabric.
There is no doubt that this is an expensive way to make a teardrop, however, it will last forever stored outside.
I'm shooting for 0% wood.
We've all seen the threads where people are encapsulating the plywood in epoxy and fiberglass. This is doing the same thing, just without the wood.
Oh, and there will be no frame under it, the axle will bolt directly to the floor panel with an "A" frame tongue.
So that is a $$ saver there too.
Trust me, the cost of these things keeps me up at night.
I'm always trying to find a better, cheaper way to do it, without compromising.

Wow! Nice work on the fiberglass molds! All that work and materials for a plug, then a mold, then finally a usable part. No doubt the end product will be strong, light and it will look professional! Good work!

Thank you for your kind words!
I'm on a journey right now, and sometimes the road is hard to travel.
Everybody's complements and comments mean a lot to me.

More later,
Lee

[RockyMountainTeardrops]

Went ahead and built a heavy duty fab table.
TJI floor joists weren't too expensive, and a 10'-6" table doesn't lend itself to using plywood strips.

9-1/2" TJI's


4"x4" legs with a bolt foot for adjustability, cut to fit the TJI and the 2"x4" end support (beam).


3/8" plywood top and bottom "skins".
Everything glued with PL subfloor adhesive.


3/4" melamine top.


Finished with the fab table, I moved on to making templates for trimming the side walls.
3/4" cabinet plywood (on sale at Home Depot)


Cutting the core for the wall.


Rolling out the fabric.


Drystack with bag, ready for vacuum.


Under vacuum.


Resin (two buckets @ 96oz each)


First bucket.


Second bucket.


Resin front at the rear corner.


Rear corner, 5 minutes later.
Top wetted out, still waiting on resin to come out the bottom.
This was the last area for resin to come out.
Next wall panel will get the resin feed lines a little closer to the corner, to speed up the flow to this area.


I need to make a door template next, so I'm just going to leave the wall on the fab table for a few days until I get ready to cut the door out.

More later,
Lee