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Storage base

Posted: Mon, 02 Feb 2009, 9:45 pm
by anorakite
Hi Folks,

As a new member and new owner of an Ansfold, I am curious if anyone else out there in foldaland has a van with no middle floor locker at the front of the van. Mine appears to have a different base layout to the only other Ansfold I have seen.

Ciao for now

Al

Deleting front locker

Posted: Thu, 11 Jun 2009, 6:52 pm
by txfsealord
Hi all,

I've studied Al's front locker-less Ansfold, & having been out with ours on yet another very wet long-weekend (Never had good weather throughout a stay in it yet! Is it me?) I've decided to investigate modifying ours.

As the main reason for the locker's existance would appear to be to stiffen the hull for the A-frame loadings, well my chassis mods cover that. It's also to permit 3 or 4 people to sit round the table of course, there's only 2 of us now. So, it's just a question of chopping out the locker, & extending the sidewalls & floor forward. I'll re-bond the footwell's front face-panel in a new place further forward, giving a narrow shelf, or rebate, for supporting the front edge of the bed. This replicates the construction of Alan's.

Can anyone recommend a suitable material from which to make the side-panel extensions, & particularly the floor? It has to be light, stiff & capable of being bonded properly to the existing fibreglass. I don't fancy the effort involved in making a mould for laying up fibreglass panels in situ, as this would then entail working entirely within the locker areas - a nasty thought. Also, there's shrinkage to bear in mind.

Any advice from our non-metal users out there? I would prefer not to use aluminium, as it's sooooooooo cold & sweaty on wet, cold days/nights.......

Steve

Posted: Tue, 14 Jul 2009, 12:25 pm
by Ian
How about foam-sandwich construction? I appreciate that it still involves resin and mat to finish it off, but you could shape the pieces of foam to suit, stick them together (with a glue gun I think) before glassing it to finish.

I have to be honest and say that I have not actually used the stuff, but I have seen some quite complex boat bits made from it and the builders just dismissed it as straight forward (for them :roll: ) in foam-sandwich.

Perhaps there is a reader who does know the pros and cons better than I?

Ian

Foam sandwich

Posted: Tue, 14 Jul 2009, 4:47 pm
by txfsealord
Hmmm, certainly sounds as if it might be suitable, probably very light which is good. Could it be used as flooring, d'you think, at the extreme front of the footwell? There's not much foot-traffic there....

Steve

Posted: Wed, 15 Jul 2009, 12:09 pm
by Ian
Hi Steve - I do not see why not because the highly-stressed hulls of racing yachts were made using quite low-tech PU (polyurethane) foam until relatively recently - try Googling: 'Core materials for sandwich panels' for some really anoraky stuff. :roll:

The advantage of the low-tech foam sandwich seems to be the low cost, but I coulldn't see PU foam panels thinner than 1/2", but I'm sure I've seen PS (polystyrene) sheets somewhere which were much thinner.

I would like to use something like foam sandwich to restore/undo butchery by previous owners attempting to fit a fridge (their attempts were nowhere near as neat as yours) because I favour a simpler cool-box/eat-at-the-pub catering approach.......

Ian