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Project Rhocaravan


richyb66

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With the extrusion fitted on the jig, it was obvious that it wasn't going to bend easily due to the stiffness of the extrusion. The answer was to anneal the aluminium to soften it and increase it's formability.

 

This was achieved by marking out the area that would need to be bent with Sharpie marker and then using a blowlamp to heat the marked out area.

 

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Basically you heat the extrusion starting from one end and keep heating until all traces of the marker have burned off. In this case we're annealing a 200mm long section and this takes about 5 minutes with the blowlamp. Once the extrusion has been heated, it's left to cool naturally back down to room temperature.

 

The extrusion was put back on the jig and while Jackie held the Workmate steady, I pulled on the extrusion and formed it around the aluminium plate. The plate slots inside the extrusion as it bends and stops the channel collapsing. The annealed extrusion bends quite easily and you end up with this:

 

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There was quite a bit of springback in the extrusion so the former was re-cut to give some overbend space to allow for the springback and with another pull on the extrusion, the bend is complete.

 

The second bend was completed the same way. The only difficult bit was carefully marking the start of the bend and positioning the extrusion accurately on the jig so the frame ended up the correct width. Here's one of the finish bent frames, the left hand side panel window. We also made the large and small window for the right hand side panel. The final shape will be tweaked a bit when we cut the Lexan for the windows but for now, these are perfect and a big worry has now gone.

 

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Edited by richyb66
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Final job for today was to make a small jig to cut the rubber extrusion we will be fitting to the body. The rubber is caravan window seal that we've recycled and given a good clean. On a normal caravan, the windows have 4 round corners so a single length of seal is used with a butt joint.

 

We need a straight piece across the top and long length for the sides and the bottom with 45 degree mitred ends to make the corner. I knocked up a simple wooden jig that I can fit the end of the rubber on to and then cut it with a long craft knife blade. It's simple but it works well

 

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Edited by richyb66
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Yes, a line perpendicular to the start of the bend passes through the centreline of the bend radius.

 

The critical measurement is how far apart the two starts are.

 

For a 600mm wide window it will be 400mm because the corner radius of the hole is 100mm. The radius on the former is 125mm to allow 15mm offset between the edge of the hole and the inside edge of the extrusion plus an additional 10mm for the depth of the extrusion channel.

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  • 5 weeks later...

It’s been so long since I last posted that I’d forgotten where the build thread has got to without referring back to it. Work has been progressing, but we’ve not been as active as we could be, partly due to other commitment but also because Stoneleigh is fast approaching, and I’ve been side tracked doing a gearbox swap on the kit.

 

I’d realised that if I didn’t fit the box before Stoneleigh, it probably wasn’t going to get done this year and looking at the work remaining on the caravan, that wasn’t going to be finished in time for the show, so we’ve decided to get the kit ready and just carry on with the caravan and not rush things unnecessarily. Realistically the caravan is probably a 12 month build so if it finished for Summer, we’ll be happy considering we only started in October.

 

Carrying on with the caravan interior, the upper part of the rear panel had the 3 wooden roof bows fitted and the panel had now been clamped in place for a few weeks.

 

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At the front, the area either side of the cooker / sink unit needed extending to meet the side panels. On the right-hand side, we made a small worktop area underneath which we will ft a 12v fridge. The worktop was made from cut down panels from the original trailer tent the edge of the worktop still needs to be trimmed off flush with the front of the unit and we will probably add a stainless steel edge to it so that it matches the sink unit.

 

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On the side panel we cut some additional pieces of wall board to cover in the area in front of the side window. You may remember that the wallboards were 7’ long and on the RHS, start of the back of the caravan so we were a foot short at the front end. The infill piece actually has a horizontal join in the thickness of the worktop so we could use offcuts for the panels rather than cutting a bigger sheet.

 

On the left hand side we made a smaller worktop and put some shelves in. Again, the worktop is made from old trailer tent parts with a wooden perimeter frame covered with decorative plywood either side. As this panel was rather small, we had to make a smaller frame and then glued on the plywood.

 

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Edited by richyb66
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The pointy front of the caravan means we’re left with a gap in front of the cooker /sink unit. This was filled in with 2 pieces of triangular wall board screwed to the wooden framework. Eventually we will seal all the edges with silicone sealer so they can be wiped down easily without water getting in to the edges.

 

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Elsewhere on the interior, Jackie has been continuing with making the seat cushions and backrests.We'd done a lot of thinking about how the backrest can be laid flat to fill in the whole floor area for sleeping. She's had to make a few extra pieces that will be stored underneath one of the seating benches. For now, this is what the main seating areas look like.

 

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All of the cushion covers have zip fasteners on the underside so the covers can be removed for washing. The foam has been re-used from the trailer tent mattresses which I can personally guarantee were 100% pi55 stain free - probably due to the waterproof covering on them and careful previous owners.

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The front interior panels were next on the list and we decided to make these a two halves with a join down the center. At the top, the panels need to be curved to match the roof shape so we started by using some thin strips of wallboard clamped in place to see where the panel will go. The wall boards have the laminate grains running the same way so the board will only curve in a single direction. As we would be using 2 roof bows on each panel and we wanted to match the curvature of the side panel, it was important that the curvature of the roof bows match each other.

 

25mm x 3mm aluminium strip was used for the bows. Here at the front, the shape of the roof exterior only follows the interior at the sides. In the centre the roof is higher, so there will be a bigger void between the interior and exterior panels

 

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Above the left hand window you can see we've added the wooden strip the same as we did on the side windows.

 

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In the picture above, the rectangular hole that the clamp is fitted through will be made in to a small cupboard. The exterior roof panel will be above this and will curve down to front panel like on the full size caravan.

 

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Rivnuts were fitted to the centre of the roof bows so that the panels can be pulled tight against them.

 

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With much struggling and pushing, the 2 panels were cut to shape. Being smaller than the rear panel but with a similar radius meant that a lot of force was required to form then to the desired shape. However once screwed on place, they look pretty good.

 

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With the front and back largely completed, our attention turned to the roof. The roof frame has spent the last couple of months languishing in the dining room and rather than try and work overhead, we decided to make the interior panels with the frame flat on the floor. On slight problem we had was a lack of wallboards.

 

I'd bought 4 (the minimum order quantity) and had considered ordering 6 but I wasn't sure exactly how many we'd need so decided against it. Rather than order another 4 and have 3 left over, we've decided to cover the horizontal areas of the roof with white hardboard and use the wallboard for the vertical parts for a colour contrast.

 

The hardboard isn't anywhere near as durable as the wallboard so we have to be extremely careful handling it but we're hoping that as the only thing likely to be rubbing against it will be our heads, it should be OK.

 

The first job on the roof actually necessitated refitting it so we could make some shaped piece for the dropped areas at the sides. These were cut from 19mm plywood and then screwed to the frame.

 

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With these fitted, we took the roof frame back off (6 bolts) and headed in to the kitchen where the frame was placed on top of the hardboard and drawn around.

 

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Edited by richyb66
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Ideally we'd have done the panel in a single piece but as it's sheer size makes it difficult to handle and we couldn't easily get panels wider than 610mm, we'll use 3 pieces. At least if we have to remove the interior panels at a later date, multiple panels will make this much easier.

 

The panels needed to be screwed on to the inside of the frame were we couldn't get access to drill so we partially dismantled the frame to get in with the drill

 

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The panels were then fixed in place with self tapping screws. We didn't used rivnuts and button screws because none of the screws are visible and hopefully we'll never be removing them. 2 pieces of wallboard were then trimmed to shape to fill in the vertical areas.

 

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The roof frame was then bolted back in place.

 

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At the sides we still need to fit 2 long horizontal pieces which will be formed in a S shape at the rear end. We will fit these later as they will need to be held with panelk pins at the sides so they're a last minute fit - if they go in now we're bound to need to remove them. The S shape bend will be challenging, so to give us a fighting chance, we routed a series of slots in the back of the hardboard to help it bend.

 

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With the roof back in place, we did notice a small amount of flex at the front corner. To reduce this we bolted some 3mm angle plates on to the framework like this.

 

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This seemed to cure the problem and the screws were cut to the proper length. At the back of the roof we still had a large hole that needed to be filled with Tee shaped panel 1500mm wide and around 500mm front to back. The panel needed to be placed on to of the roof to be marked off to size so rather than risk marking the white hardboard, we used a scrap piece of trailer tent board and made a template that fitted exactly before drawing around this on the hardboard.

 

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The template isn't the full size of the finished panel, it needs to be extended forwards which we marked off with a rule.

 

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Along the sides of the roof we needed some timber battens to nail the roof panels to. These were screwed in to the aluminium framework with self tapping screws. Once again the sides of the roof frame had to be unbolted so we could get in to drill the holes. Just glad we didn't rivet the whole frame together!!

 

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The roof frame appears to have a wobble in it. I'll go around and 'adjust' these out before we fix on the skin panels.

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With all the roof panels with the exception of the 2 long side pieces in place, the interior panelling is complete. We rolled the caravan outside to give the garage a good clean and get ready for the next jobs. The kitchen area is ready for the wiring and piping to be finished off and we need to add a support for the fridge and possible a bit of storage space to the side of it.

 

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We need to add an aluminium cover strip down the centre of the front panels. As I won't pay B&Q prices for ally strip, I'll order the metal for this when I order the sheets for the outside (and some more channel for my window frames). That way I get good value for my £20 delivery charge from Aluminiumwarehouse.

 

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We'll also be using the cover strip for the 3 joins in the roof which will pull the panel edges together. These will be painted white to match the roof so hopefully they won't be too visible.

 

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Last thing for now, the hardboard panels were treated with varnish on the back sides. This should keep the moisture out and stop then sagging. I had some coloured varnish spare so we used that - at least the colour made it easy to see where had been covered.

 

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Hopefully we're back on track for weekly updated now. I can't put my gearbox back in yet because I've ordered a clutch and it's not been made yet. With luck it'll be back together ready for the Stilton Run.

Edited by richyb66
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  • 1 month later...

Well it's been a good few weeks since I posted and new pictures, mainly due to getting the kit ready for Stoneleigh. Now that's all done and dusted we're making a big push to get things back on track.

 

On small job we did back in April was to make a table. This needs to be removable because it will actually fill in some of the bed area. The side of the table would slot in to some key hole slots which were cut in to two pieces of stainless steel plate.

 

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these plates were then screwed to a length of aluminium box section which would be added to the side frame below the window level.

 

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Fixing the box in place was easy, what was tricky was cutting out 2 neat rectangular holes in the inside trim panel so that the locator plates would fit flush with the panel surface.

 

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The table itself was made from plywood with a batten fixed in the underside which holds bolts that locate in to the keyhole slots. The screws are adjustable so the table will fit snugly against the side panel.

 

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The table is supported on a single removable leg. The top surface will be covered with melamine veneer later, we didn't have enough wood effect panel left to cover it in a single piece and as it's likely to have hot things on it, melamine is more durable.

 

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We also need to add a small shoot bolt on the underside of the table to stop it lifting vertically off the wall plates. I don't want to stand up in a hurry and end up with dinner in my lap.

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