TheAlmightySam
Adventurer
Hey all. This is going to be rambling and only semi-sensical, so I apologize in advance.
So I'm contemplating building a shell for my W250, since I can't find what I want on the used market for a reasonable price. Somehow being extremely picky and extremely cheap hasn't worked out in my favor... go figure :sombrero:
So, I'm gonna build one, I guess. I've been researching on here trying to figure out how I wanna do this thing. The two building methods I'm kicking around right now are a foam sandwich build a la the POD, and a wood build along the lines of the Sawtooth XL. I've ruled out a metal frame on three counts: cost (have you priced steel lately?), skill (I am a crap welder fo' sho'), and thermal characteristics (a steel frame is a horrid insulator, no matter how much bloody insulation you pump into it).
Here's my goals:
1. Cheap
2. Cheap
3. Water-tight and warm. If you're not familiar with the northwest corner of the country, it's wet and cold here.
4. Strong as hell and resistant to vibration. A W250 rides like a military truck - it's rough, and just about anything will shake itself to death on the back of one.
I do not care (much) about weight. My truck already clocks in at nearly 8000 lbs - what's another few hundred? I could use more weight over the back axle anyway :bike_rider:
In my head, I envision a wall structure like this:
...where the sidewalls are a sort of honeycomb filled with insulation, like so:
You may recognize the idea being that I straight up jacked it off the Sawtooth XL. Great artists steal, or something. The only modification I plan to the Sawtooth structure is to laminate the wood front and back with a couple plys or so of fiberglass cloth, making a (hopefully) waterproof structure, with the exterior aluminum skin existing only for cosmetics. For the record, no, I will not be sanding and painting the fiberglass if I can avoid it. I hate bodywork.
So, the other option, one I'm not nearly as familiar with, is a foam laminate construction, like the POD. There's something really neat about how space age that all seems, and surely 60psi foam has a much higher R-value than plywood, but I know very little about how it handles extended vibration and rough roads, nor do I know anything about how the cost compares to wood construction. Any thoughts on these subjects?
Just in case you're interested, here's some sketches of what I intend this thing to look like, basically an old-fashioned camper, only with non-crappy construction.
I know it seems odd to build something I can probably find on Craigslist, but it's nigh impossible finding exactly what I want that's not all rotted out or way overpriced. All the old wood shells are junk (don't ask me how I know), and the Callen shells are steel frame (which I'm hesitant about) and everyone seems to think they're gold (I am NOT paying $800 for some old camper shell). Plus, what can I say, I like to build stuff, and I've got a bunch of old camper windows in my junk pile
Thanks in advance for any thoughts you have!
So I'm contemplating building a shell for my W250, since I can't find what I want on the used market for a reasonable price. Somehow being extremely picky and extremely cheap hasn't worked out in my favor... go figure :sombrero:
So, I'm gonna build one, I guess. I've been researching on here trying to figure out how I wanna do this thing. The two building methods I'm kicking around right now are a foam sandwich build a la the POD, and a wood build along the lines of the Sawtooth XL. I've ruled out a metal frame on three counts: cost (have you priced steel lately?), skill (I am a crap welder fo' sho'), and thermal characteristics (a steel frame is a horrid insulator, no matter how much bloody insulation you pump into it).
Here's my goals:
1. Cheap
2. Cheap
3. Water-tight and warm. If you're not familiar with the northwest corner of the country, it's wet and cold here.
4. Strong as hell and resistant to vibration. A W250 rides like a military truck - it's rough, and just about anything will shake itself to death on the back of one.
I do not care (much) about weight. My truck already clocks in at nearly 8000 lbs - what's another few hundred? I could use more weight over the back axle anyway :bike_rider:
In my head, I envision a wall structure like this:
...where the sidewalls are a sort of honeycomb filled with insulation, like so:
You may recognize the idea being that I straight up jacked it off the Sawtooth XL. Great artists steal, or something. The only modification I plan to the Sawtooth structure is to laminate the wood front and back with a couple plys or so of fiberglass cloth, making a (hopefully) waterproof structure, with the exterior aluminum skin existing only for cosmetics. For the record, no, I will not be sanding and painting the fiberglass if I can avoid it. I hate bodywork.
So, the other option, one I'm not nearly as familiar with, is a foam laminate construction, like the POD. There's something really neat about how space age that all seems, and surely 60psi foam has a much higher R-value than plywood, but I know very little about how it handles extended vibration and rough roads, nor do I know anything about how the cost compares to wood construction. Any thoughts on these subjects?
Just in case you're interested, here's some sketches of what I intend this thing to look like, basically an old-fashioned camper, only with non-crappy construction.
I know it seems odd to build something I can probably find on Craigslist, but it's nigh impossible finding exactly what I want that's not all rotted out or way overpriced. All the old wood shells are junk (don't ask me how I know), and the Callen shells are steel frame (which I'm hesitant about) and everyone seems to think they're gold (I am NOT paying $800 for some old camper shell). Plus, what can I say, I like to build stuff, and I've got a bunch of old camper windows in my junk pile
Thanks in advance for any thoughts you have!