Overland Hadley
on a journey
That is great that you are driving around with the frame on the truck.
Keep the updates coming.
Keep the updates coming.
In case anyone is wondering why I have not skinned the frame yet. Driving around without the skin allows me to find any stressing in the frame and I manage did find one cracked vertical support. Once I feel it is fit for flex and strength, I will then skin, insulate, and start on the interior.
It will be via 3M VHB Tape. I am just afraid if any weak point were to show it's evil head after skinning.. repairing it would be horrible. I have never built anything from scratch on this scale that will incur unpredictable road conditions. I have followed and seen what others have done with aluminum framed campers but you never see or really hear about cracking after years of use. I would imagine because no one ever takes them apart again.
I guess I am just being extra cautious and really do not want to go through this twice. I guess after the skinning I need to hold off on insulation until I log miles on it to verify integrity. Honestly, it is really nerve wrecking at this point.
Your careful approach will pay off, I'm sure. VHB tape is a good choice -- fershure it lives up to its "very high bond" name. With long lengths of your skin bonded to the framing there likely won't be much flex.
One thing to look for in the design are stress risers. Those can be significant changes in cross sectional area, as in where something thins down or narrows down, and especially where sharp corners meet. I'd try to have a radius on just about everything stressed. Your welds look like the have some fillet to them, and this will be good to manage cross section changes. Don't cut any sharp notches in anything -- make sure they're all rounded. VHB tape saves a lot of holes from say, blind rivets, and that will help with stress risers too.
Aluminum is sensitive to fatigue, the catastrophic failure at stress-strain levels well below the ultimate strength of the material due to the accumulated damage of many thousands of lower stress-strain cycles. That'll never show up in the realistic amount of testing you'll be able to do, so it's best thought through like you're doing. Look especially where the stress will go on things like your cantilevered section. Your corner piece there now will certainly help. That point could need reinforcement with a separate plate or similar.
Great work, and a truly interesting project to follow along. Thanks for the updates and all the pix.
Honestly, it is really nerve wrecking at this point.
The looks we get are priceless... everyone that spoke to us about it think it is a cage for people or animals.