Cabinet Materials and hardware et al for offroad camper
- Thread starter GR8ADV
- Start date
Overland Hadley
on a journey
I used Baltic Birch and L brackets. The L brackets hold up to the rattling, shaking, and flexing of the camper.
Baltic birch is great if you can handle the weight. A cheaper alternative that you can often find is lauan with a structual 3ply in 1/4 inch for cheap. By structural I mean 3 equal thickness plys just like you would get with birch but for about half the price. You can also get crap lauan so you have to be careful. If you want to go lighter then it gets expensive with pre-made composites or you can make your own by skinning pink foam with plywood, plastic, fiberglass, whatever you want for the outer material.
I think this video has a fascinating virtually hardware free system. I am not sure if I like the look, but I am considering something similar to this for my build.
I think this video has a fascinating virtually hardware free system. I am not sure if I like the look, but I am considering something similar to this for my build.
mhiscox
Expedition Leader
I think these would work well in a camper where you made your rectilinear box to your own specifications and could optimize it for this sort of cabinet. I've been trying for years, though, to get something like the Moduline cabinets to work in a van and it's just too hard to work with the fixed dimensions and curves. And those custom cabinets are really pricey, though if you value your time, a lot of the cabinet cost could be balanced off against the substantial time savings.
My experience has been that if you are attending to it from the get-go, you can make your construction hold up OK. Extensive gluing, screwing and fastening will hold things to the wall well; and you can kind of predict whether your construction is going to do the trick. But the one thing that needs more attention than you might think is how to keep the stuff you put IN the cabinets and drawers from beating itself to death. You can make a sturdy drawer or cabinet, but then if you're just dumping stuff in it with nothing to keep it from flying around and bouncing together, you still have a problem. As an example, I never had the slightest failure with the construction of the interior of my Unimog's cabin, but since there were no "holddowns" for any of the stuff in the cabinets and drawers, crawling over a bunch of boulders (particularly with the Mog's flexi-mounted cabin) would fly stuff around pretty good. It was kind of "contents may have shifted during flight" times ten. (Not to mention that the noise of all your stuff beating on itself gets really annoying.)
So build your cabinets strong and attach them well, but if you are going to be bouncing the truck around a lot, don't forget some organization for the stuff you'll carry.
nick disjunkt
Adventurer
I used baltic birch plywood for non structural cabinetry, using 12-18mm sheets with rebated joints, waterproof PVA and lots of 4mm or 4.5mm spax screws.
For structural applications, such as seats with seatbelts, the bench with 400kg of batteries under it, and the bed with a 440 litre water tank in it, I used a box section steel frame with thinnner birch plywood laminated to it. All furniture is fixed to the floors and walls with Sikaflex, and screwed using angle brackets where necessary. The steel frames are also welded to the floor of the truck.
This is all heavy construction and can be made much lighter if you have the time or money. I wanted something that I knew would outlast the truck and hold up to the hard suspensión and bad roads. No problems withy any of the furniture except for one cabinet latch in 7000 miles of roads in Mexico and US deep south.
For structural applications, such as seats with seatbelts, the bench with 400kg of batteries under it, and the bed with a 440 litre water tank in it, I used a box section steel frame with thinnner birch plywood laminated to it. All furniture is fixed to the floors and walls with Sikaflex, and screwed using angle brackets where necessary. The steel frames are also welded to the floor of the truck.
This is all heavy construction and can be made much lighter if you have the time or money. I wanted something that I knew would outlast the truck and hold up to the hard suspensión and bad roads. No problems withy any of the furniture except for one cabinet latch in 7000 miles of roads in Mexico and US deep south.
highdesertranger
Adventurer
nice nick got any pics. highdesertranger
Iain_U1250
Explorer
My experience with building my own is decide which drawers will carry the weight, in my land rover I have a steel drawer system, made from 1mm sheet metal and covered in marine carpet. They have survived 40,000km of corrugations. The drawer runner are rated at 120kg, and I have about that in the drawer all the time.
On my truck, I made the main drawer from 1.2mm sheet metal. I have two pairs of runners rated at 90kg each on it as it can hold around 180kg - it is the main food storage drawer and will carry all the cans, etc. I have two catches, however they are only 25kg each. I will probably need a locking pin to take the load to ensure the drawer stays put when off-roading and does not break the catches. The folded sides really stiffen them, and I have internal bracing to stiffen the drawer front. The clothes drawers are made from 0.8mm steel but I had to reinforced the front around the lock, I used the same 25kg latches but that should be adequate for clothes.
The kitchen drawers are 3mm aluminium as I wanted a flat side to maximise the space in the drawer and are very stiff and not too heavy. I put two catches on them, they are rated for 15kg each, so should just be enough for pots and pan etc. Drawer runners are rated for 50kg for the pair, and are on the bottom of the drawer to spread the load into the frame.
My fridge and freezer runners are rated at 100kg, the latches on them are anti-burst door latches, rated for 300kg.
I used a custom laminex/plywood/foam composite panel for the lining and cupboards , it is very light weight but pretty difficult to work, and expensive, in hindsight it is a bit over the top, but very strong- the whole interior lining, cupboards etc out weighs less than 100kg. The big steel drawers and the fridge slides are heavy, but they need to be robust as the freezer will weight around 60kg and the fridge around 80kg when full and they need to be robust.
For hinges, I have used stainless steel piano hinge, as it spreads the load across the whole panel, to minimise stress concentrations.
I used Sikaflex 252 to stick it together - each joint has a 3mm minimum rebate into the panel, as you need a decent amount of Sikaflex - too thin and it doesn't have enough strength. I also used epoxy resin on each screw, just a drop but it reinforces the plywood and should help from pulling out.
Hope this helps
On my truck, I made the main drawer from 1.2mm sheet metal. I have two pairs of runners rated at 90kg each on it as it can hold around 180kg - it is the main food storage drawer and will carry all the cans, etc. I have two catches, however they are only 25kg each. I will probably need a locking pin to take the load to ensure the drawer stays put when off-roading and does not break the catches. The folded sides really stiffen them, and I have internal bracing to stiffen the drawer front. The clothes drawers are made from 0.8mm steel but I had to reinforced the front around the lock, I used the same 25kg latches but that should be adequate for clothes.
The kitchen drawers are 3mm aluminium as I wanted a flat side to maximise the space in the drawer and are very stiff and not too heavy. I put two catches on them, they are rated for 15kg each, so should just be enough for pots and pan etc. Drawer runners are rated for 50kg for the pair, and are on the bottom of the drawer to spread the load into the frame.
My fridge and freezer runners are rated at 100kg, the latches on them are anti-burst door latches, rated for 300kg.
I used a custom laminex/plywood/foam composite panel for the lining and cupboards , it is very light weight but pretty difficult to work, and expensive, in hindsight it is a bit over the top, but very strong- the whole interior lining, cupboards etc out weighs less than 100kg. The big steel drawers and the fridge slides are heavy, but they need to be robust as the freezer will weight around 60kg and the fridge around 80kg when full and they need to be robust.
For hinges, I have used stainless steel piano hinge, as it spreads the load across the whole panel, to minimise stress concentrations.
I used Sikaflex 252 to stick it together - each joint has a 3mm minimum rebate into the panel, as you need a decent amount of Sikaflex - too thin and it doesn't have enough strength. I also used epoxy resin on each screw, just a drop but it reinforces the plywood and should help from pulling out.
Hope this helps