Anyone used the Duralite system for camper fitout

[Iain_U1250]

I've just come back from the Brisbane Camping and Caravan show, and came across this product.

http://www.duraliteaustralia.com.au/applications.php

It seems to be the answer to everything I need for fitting out the interior - and it is incredibly light - a 3/4"x4'x8' sheet weights 11.5kg - and from the samples I saw and the materials it seems very easy and give very professional results. What's more, it looks very cost effective as well.

Love to hear from anyone who has used it and what the results were.

 

[dzzz]

For a one-up project I would use a real wood surface. Generally these type of companies sell production systems designed to minimize labor and material cost and are designed for production environments. Traditional boat cabinet building will have a similar learning curve for the homebuilder.
Structure and systems are the big challenge in an expo build. Not so much finish and cabinets.

 

[Iain_U1250]

Weight is most important thing at this stage. This stuff is very light, and the covering on the panels we saw at the show were real wood. The stuff feels very good quality - and robust.

I differ a lot on whether finish is important - I think that an amateur looking set up with plywood and a few brackets not only looks bad, but I doubt it would work as well as a properly developed professional system. I'm fitting Jaguar S-type seats in the rear, and Range Rover front seat. A nice leather and wood interior means that I'm not just driving an old truck with a bed in the back. This will be my home for a year or more - a bit of luxury can be the difference between enjoying the trip and just "toughin it out" . I'm for the enjoyment part - permanent queensize bed over bunks, leather seats over a foam bench - all makes the difference.

Boat building techniques might work for road going vehicle, but this system has been developed especially for the off-road caravan market here - caravans flex themselves to death on the road. Talking to the guys at the show, there system is designed to minimise the load concentrations, and have a bit of flex as well.


Corrugations are the main reason I did not even consider an aluminium frame for my Mog - work hardening on the welds guarantees that it is a matter of time before the frame cracks. The frames need to flex, and I think this stuff will have just the right amount of give. The mounting system seems to have a bit of give in it - to allow the body to flex around it without transmitting the movement to the cupboard. I'm always a bit wary of composites - I've spoken to two guys with composite bodies on their mogs - both have cracks in the shell and both leak like a sieve - and both come from the two most respected Mog body builders - one German and one American. Both owners say they will never touch a composite body again. Anyway that's a bit off topic. I give the system a try, as it is designed to be very forgiving in production - in other words you don't need to be a craftsman to get a good result. - Heck, I'm a civil engineer - we measure things to metres not millimetres

 

[Iain_U1250]

Interesting that you brought up boats - my theory is that off-road trucks are much worse off than boats. The frequency of waves hit are around one per second in a really fast boat but more like 2-3 seconds between waves - corrugations are around 0.5m apart on average, and at 60kph you are traveling at about 16m/s - so that around 30 hits per second. Taking a few averages, driving 300km of the Gibb River road @ 60km per hour before the grader comes through is the equivalent of 72 hours of hard wave hitting. :Wow1: We have thousands of km of corrugated roads out here in Australia.

I used to work at a Road research place - we did a lot of study into corrugations, how they are formed, how to prevent them, and what the effect is on vehicles. I also worked on developing impact compactors which create corrugations when working which can break tractors in half. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdHiDHIGH04 you can see a later development of my "corrugation blade" on the back of the roller. The forces are large and of a high frequency. Things need to flex - rigid things break.

 

[dzzz]

Weight is most important thing at this stage. This stuff is very light, and the covering on the panels we saw at the show were real wood. The stuff feels very good quality - and robust.

I looked at their web site and just saw vinyl. An engineered wood veneer product would be great. We don't have a lot of yacht building products marketed at RV builders in the states. There's way to much mdf based product used, even in more expensive vehicles.

 

[Iain_U1250]

This section talks about the sheeting being "
Panels consist of VHD Polystyrene sheets sandwiched between 2 sheets of veneer-covered ply."

It looks great in my opinion - I'll be trying some so I'll keep everyone posted on how it words. The more deceptive thin is the doors - when you see a 20mm thick door, you expect it to weight a bit - but the stuff is so light you end up slamming it

http://www.duraliteaustralia.com.au/panels.php

I looked at their web site and just saw vinyl. An engineered wood veneer product would be great. We don't have a lot of yacht building products marketed at RV builders in the states. There's way to much mdf based product used, even in more expensive vehicles.

 

[Iain_U1250]

I don't have any experience with boats at all - but I assume that leaking is a bd thing :Wow1:. I talked to the All Terrain Warriors guys at the show, their vehicle are a single piece mould by the look of things - and have all the internal "furniture" acting as part of the structure as well.

How well they work in the long run I don't know - but they made a lot of effort to separate the chassis from the frame. The other manufactures seem to us a flat panel composite panels with a rigid jointing system - at least on the ones I saw. They may be making them differently now, as both of the trucks were a few years old. I agree 100% that it is all in the design and fabrication. I know that I could not build a monolithic composite body by myself in my workshop - and I did not want to use a flat panel system due to it's inherit weakness in the jointing system. This is a bit off-topic, but the Duralight panel is a rigid composite with a flexible jointing system.

Time will tell whether my method works or not - I know I'll be testing it to extremes - my travel plans have at least 3-4000km of dirt roads and most of them are heavily corrugated. Who knows, the aluminium might fall off.

Great comeback- It's an essential issue for vehicles & a challenge for me coming as I do from a non-engineering boatbuilding background. The question of the effect of the frequency of the load or stress or vibration is something I can't address well in engineering terms. I CAN say that the composites used in a marine application have to withstand engine vibrations as well as dropping off waves. The engine, transmission, shaft & prop - are within & anchored to the cabin & hull structure often with minimal vibration dampening mounts do to the need to keep the engine & shaft in rigid alignment. In a dual engine setup they are rarely perfectly in balance so you have all these vibrational waves that sometimes cancel each other out & sometimes combine to thump like crazy...for days at a time...



Well that's no good as a "rule" - materials designed to flex should flex & rigid materials need to stay rigid. It's the designer who needs to blend them into a functional & enduring vehicle. Shock absorbers, tires, springs, pivots etc. etc all interface between rigid materials so they don't tear themselves apart - it doesn't matter if the rigid materials are steel or glass/resin/cored composites.

Given my limited experience with 1000 mile washboard roads I may be talking into my hat...but http://www.allterrainwarriors.com.au
use composite bodies are their bodies falling apart ?

Attaching a lightweight composite body to a flexing truck frame without effectively isolating from the flex it is a terrible idea. Attaching a metal framed, sikaflex'd outer panels, non-structural interior furniture camperbody that can tolerate flex is easier - no question about it - but the benefits of composites can be well worth using in rough road trucks...It's all a question of design - Peter

 

[GroupSe7en]

My boat background has a way of rearing its ugly head around here.
Flexy cabins are no good. A cabin that flexes transfers the stress to the bits inside it that don't flex. Bits like all the doors and drawers and tanks and plumbing and windows and on and on. The cab on the truck doesn't flex. If it did, you would never get the bonnet to stay on or the doors to close. It is rigid and it has flexible mountings to the frame which flexes underneath it. The cabin should work the same way for the same reason.

just saying...