MB 1120 Coming to America! Purchase, Build and Now Travel!

[Victorian]

Totally agree on the hardware. I'm a furniture maker by trade and thought I found some good push button locks for our camper. Turns out that in cold temperatures they fail... had the cabinets empty on me several times... Now that the holes are drilled it's very difficult to find better ones that fit the drill pattern. In other words: Buy the best you can get!

I have been thinking of installing a guard around the top ours also.... But I'm a bit worried about center of gravity and added weight overall. In any case, here is a picture of the Acela.

 

[Wyuna]

If you are worried about thermal bridging, Evo motion in the UK make some nice Black latches, I had them shipped to Aus.

I used them on my cabinets, as I'm not a fan of round Chrome latches and i wanted black, although they do Chrome plated as well

Im a Cabinetmaker by trade, and all it requires is a little bit of routering, or you could use a jigsaw

Just another option, i've been enjoying your thread

 

[Victorian]

If you are worried about thermal bridging, Evo motion in the UK make some nice Black latches, I had them shipped to Aus.

I used them on my cabinets, as I'm not a fan of round Chrome latches and i wanted black, although they do Chrome plated as well

Im a Cabinetmaker by trade, and all it requires is a little bit of routering, or you could use a jigsaw

Just another option, i've been enjoying your thread

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Very nice latches! I see you are hooked on the festool too

 

[Iain_U1250]

I like those little latches, ours are the push button style, and we have double latches on all the drawers and cupboards. Our interior is made from a very lightweight composite - but I made the smaller drawers from aluminium, and the larger ones from steel - they all have heavy duty sliders, and we carry a lot of weight with all the drinks, UHT milk, and food. Our truck could be a bit lighter - we are right on the GVM when fully loaded, but since we take it off-road and into pretty remote areas, I wanted to make sure the interior did not fail. If you assume everything will be thrown around, and design the cupboards for the load you will be OK. We have also lined all our cupboards and drawers with marine carpet. This reduces the rattles and stops things from sliding around. Also, velcro straps stick to it nicely, so you can attach light things to it easily. When designing the shelves and drawers, I also measure up the more popular plastic storage containers so they fit in nice and tight. Everything liquid stored in one of them, as spill could really ruin your day. We had one disaster with a tin of evaporated milk in a storage drawing in our Land Rover, the tins were rattling on the corrugations and one wore a hole in it and all the milk leaked out. We don't want that to happen ever again.






The windscreen bars are a must in my opinion, they have saved our windscreen numerous times.

 

[Iain_U1250]

Totally agree on the hardware. I'm a furniture maker by trade and thought I found some good push button locks for our camper. Turns out that in cold temperatures they fail... had the cabinets empty on me several times... Now that the holes are drilled it's very difficult to find better ones that fit the drill pattern. In other words: Buy the best you can get!

I have been thinking of installing a guard around the top ours also.... But I'm a bit worried about center of gravity and added weight overall. In any case, here is a picture of the Acela.

I made my roof bars from 25mm Gr450 pipe, the whole lot weighs around 10kg and has done it's job time and time again. We only have a few cupboards at roof level inside, and don't store anything heavy in them. We don't have that much storage, but everything fits and we carry a lot of stuff. Our narrow wheelbase and very soft coil suspension means our truck leans over a lot, but we have had it over 30 Degree tilt - way to scary for me but we just drive really slow.

 

[Wyuna]

Very nice latches! I see you are hooked on the festool too

Just a little, i've got four Festool Ports units full of their tools, you can't beat quality, im a Felder fan as well

 

[Victorian]

Just a little, i've got four Festool Ports units full of there tools, you can't be quality, im a Felder fan as well

You certainly know quality

 

[VerMonsterRV]

I made my roof bars from 25mm Gr450 pipe, the whole lot weighs around 10kg and has done it's job time and time again. We only have a few cupboards at roof level inside, and don't store anything heavy in them. We don't have that much storage, but everything fits and we carry a lot of stuff. Our narrow wheelbase and very soft coil suspension means our truck leans over a lot, but we have had it over 30 Degree tilt - way to scary for me but we just drive really slow.

The current plan is a cab roof rack out of aluminum. If you look closely at the cab you will see aluminum plates mounted right below the windscreen and at the top back corner. I needed to get these rolled to fit so did is soon after we painted as there was a shop nearby that could do it. My plan is this rack will only carry lighter stuff and a row of off road driving lights. Plus some "clearance lights". I wanted to wait on the roof rack until the habitat was mounted as I wanted it to visually tie into the leading edge of the box. So it will have the windscreen protector bars.

Hopefully the wood walls that the drawers will me mounted in will be ok. The walls are 1/2" baltic birch with another 1/2" glued/screwed where the drawer slides will go, so a total of 1". The drawer slides are the typical ball bearing 100lb slides. The drawers will be used mainly for cutlery/pots and pans. The overhead cabinets will have to be fairly small due to the height of our windows. These will have lighter stuff, melamine dinnerware, plastic glasses, dry goods. The heavier canned,wet stuff will go on the shelves beneath the refrigerator. I think we will have enough storage, not anywhere near as much as the boat but we probably haul too much stuff around anyway. Good hints on the drawer linings, for the boat we currently use the rubberized non skid shelf linings. I am guessing though that we will get more jarring motion with the truck but similar off angle stuff (the boat is a monohull).

 

[Iain_U1250]

I would not use aluminium on the roof rack, main reason is that aluminium cracks from fatigue, they just don't stand up to the job on long corrugated roads, Alumium has no fatigue stress limit, so it is always a matter of when it will fail, not if. One long stretch of heavily corrugated road at 1 hz frequency would be many years of wave motion in a boat.

One trick I used with the screws in wood is to dip to screw them in, then I remove them one by one and dip them in epoxy before reinstalling them - it was absolutely necessary for the composite panels I used in my build, but I also use the same method on normal wood. A lot of my cupboards are glued together using Sikaflex, the minimum thickness for Sikaflex is 3mm, so each panel had the edge rebated by 3x4mm, this increases the bond area as well. Where I needed to take it apart, I have used aluminium angles or flat incorporated into the composite panel, then it is all tapped and bolted together.

I also used stainless steel piano hinge for all doors, as individual hinges would cause the screws to pull out in the long term. The drawer runners are on the bottom of the drawers so that the load is carried by the cross panel that makes up the bottom of the drawer. This means each drawer has it's own box, so nothing can bounce out and stop the drawer from opening.

 

[Jostt]

I agree 100% whit Ian, Alu is not the BEST material for roof rak and protection bars, I Will use stailess steel or steeI , welding alu like 6061 in T6 is strong but even if you compare whit normal steel tubes is not enought for long time extres...

 

[JED THE SPREAD]

I just pulled up a seat to check in on this build after a Total Composites heads up and nice work so far. I am pretty much there on my own truck build and just fixing and backing up some truck mechanical issues (we call anything over 7.5 tons here in the UK a truck, anything lighter is usually thought as a 4x4 car) on our truck after a few months of shake down travel I put it through after the main convertion progress made over the last 12 months.

I think one of the best things that worked out on my build was to fit the roof out with the most effective solar panel lay out then work out if you need to cut holes out for roof vents after that and where they will go, otherwise nothing fits up top solar panel wise. You then also have only a fraction of the solar harvesting ability due to fitting miss matched panels all over the place trying to make the most of what is available after you chop all the holes out first and fit vents and roof windows.

I found having high level extractor vents inside the truck that runs through ducting and a fan that exits out through the floor works quite well so far. Sliding windows up front in the dining area are great as you can have them open when driving and top hinged windows in the rear in the sleeping area are nice as you can leave those open at night if you want to feel you are sleeping outside.

I know this is just me but I don't personally find the sound of waves crashing up on the beach at night soothing.. I live in the UK and we have huge tidal ranges and if I hear the sea I think it is getting closer and it worries me. I also find the tippy tappy noise of the rain on a trucks roof to be annoying and having a layer of solar panels to dampen that noise helps loads too so I can sleep. If I ever do feel like I need to hear nature I just open the top hinged windows and I can hear it all.

Sorry for the ramble but I hope it might help in some way.

Jed

 

[Sitec]

I just pulled up a seat to check in on this build after a Total Composites heads up and nice work so far. I am pretty much there on my own truck build and just fixing and backing up some truck mechanical issues (we call anything over 7.5 tons here in the UK a truck, anything lighter is usually thought as a 4x4 car) on our truck after a few months of shake down travel I put it through after the main convertion progress made over the last 12 months.

I think one of the best things that worked out on my build was to fit the roof out with the most effective solar panel lay out then work out if you need to cut holes out for roof vents after that and where they will go, otherwise nothing fits up top solar panel wise. You then also have only a fraction of the solar harvesting ability due to fitting miss matched panels all over the place trying to make the most of what is available after you chop all the holes out first and fit vents and roof windows.

I found having high level extractor vents inside the truck that runs through ducting and a fan that exits out through the floor works quite well so far. Sliding windows up front in the dining area are great as you can have them open when driving and top hinged windows in the rear in the sleeping area are nice as you can leave those open at night if you want to feel you are sleeping outside.

I know this is just me but I don't personally find the sound of waves crashing up on the beach at night soothing.. I live in the UK and we have huge tidal ranges and if I hear the sea I think it is getting closer and it worries me. I also find the tippy tappy noise of the rain on a trucks roof to be annoying and having a layer of solar panels to dampen that noise helps loads too so I can sleep. If I ever do feel like I need to hear nature I just open the top hinged windows and I can hear it all.

Sorry for the ramble but I hope it might help in some way.

Jed

Is that a Mercedes bumper I see on your VW truck?

 

[JED THE SPREAD]

Is that a Mercedes bumper I see on your VW truck?

It is an MAN one but it does look allot like yours.

 

[VerMonsterRV]

Hey all, another update. We muscled in the Spendide WD2100XC washer/dryer (who would think it should weigh 150lbs). Involved some up/down/sideways movement to get it in place but we did, barely. My plan is to do all the cabinet doors last.


Next shot is all the bed slats in place and the frame painted. There are 3 plywood panels that drop in right above the washer cabinet. You can see the marine 6 gallon water heater on its shelf on the right under the bed.

And lastly is the dinette area has started. It will be U shaped with an 6" elevated floor (not there yet). The freshwater tank will go against the forward wall under the seat. As of today I think we will place the electrical panel on the face of the right seat base. I am planning on putting a piece of the walnut plywood on the backside of the maple frame so the panel will be recessed 3/4" of an inch. Will likely go with a custom panel from Front Panel Express with Blue Seas rocker circuit breakers. In the right seat base will go a Dometic CFX40 cooler that will be our freezer. We will need to access it from above by removing the seat. I am planning on putting some ventilation slots in the composite panel, just need to find some that look right.


We are also having a little warm spell so hope to work on the solid surface counter top tomorrow. Hopefully will get all the gluing done while it is warmish.

 

[Victorian]

Looks amazing!
Is your washing machine an RV version? Can you secure the internals while driving? Wondering as someone asked me the other day... Cheers