Any Suggestions Welcome

jav9956 · June 06, 2016, 12:35:47 PM

Hi all. I am going to be slapping the skins on the bus this coming weekend (or two). I am contemplating whether or not to add more metal to the frame in the walls. The location in question is below the window frames that I installed. The gap between the bottom of the new window frame and the bottom of the old window frame is 21". This seems like a decent size gap and I do not want excessive noise from the skins not being adequately supported. My thought is to potentially just add a vertical square tube splitting the middle length wise to make two smaller rectangles. It is extra material, time, money and work so I am just wondering if anyone has an opinion on whether it is worth it or not? I am leaning towards just knocking it out as it wouldn't take that long and should, if anything give me piece of mind.

Thoughts?

Scott & Heather · June 06, 2016, 12:43:20 PM

Bjorn,

Here's my take on this and I'm right in the middle of our second conversion so this is kind of fresh in my mind. I don't think it's a really big structural issue, but it does two things number one it allows the outside skins to have something else to brace against which will keep them a little bit more stable/stiff The second thing really that is more important for us is it gives us more interior places to anchor the interior wood that you're skinning the interior with. I kind of actually wish we had even more bracing on the interior because a lot of the wood is just floating. Where It floats it flexes.

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Scott & Heather · June 06, 2016, 12:45:02 PM

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jav9956 · June 06, 2016, 01:08:46 PM

My thoughts exactly. I always have those two voices in my head, to do or not to do. Hearing a couple voices outside of my head every now and again helps

. Thanks for the input Scott. And your bus is looking sharp! I hope ours looks half as nice when we start doing the interior...

Scott & Heather · June 06, 2016, 01:50:00 PM

You guys are doing an amazing job. You've earned some
Serious bus man points with me just for raising your roof. Only a small group of us have actually done that ourselves.

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HB of CJ · June 06, 2016, 04:04:40 PM

Definitely "X" in the aforementioned spaces? Also consider reinforcing the roof? Also consider adding to the vertical supports? My old pre 1975 Crown Supercoach 10 wheeler had heavy 4130 vertical side wall supports about every 26" between each side window, plus a matching 4130 roof roll bar. Just a comparison. My opinion only. Respectfully.

Oonrahnjay · June 06, 2016, 04:10:24 PM

Quote from: HB of CJ on June 06, 2016, 04:04:40 PMDefinitely "X" in the aforementioned spaces? Also consider reinforcing the roof? Also consider adding to the vertical supports? ...

That's pretty much what I was thinking. You've got long runs of unsupported small-dimension tube there.

jav9956 · June 06, 2016, 05:08:44 PM

Ha, thanks Scott. It was definitely a stressful experience raising the roof being that it was just Lauren and I but went about as well as it could have gone; definitely worth it too. It is all downhill from here as the rest of the project won't stretch me as far out of my comfort zone.

HB and Oonrahnjay:
I can see where X'ing under the windows would be beneficial. I will take a closer look at exactly how I would to accomplish that. Maybe just a 1 3/4 horizontal tube directly under the 1 1/4 tube that makes up the bottom of the window frame. It would be easy to "X" under 1 3/4 tube with either the same dimension or 1 1/2.

Thank you for the suggestions. Now that I have a decent amount experience with metal working because of this project it seems a lot less daunting to take a few additional steps to reinforce everything. Learning a lot, thank you all for the advice!

TomC · June 06, 2016, 06:32:33 PM

It's too bad you're making those wonderfully huge windows on that the 102A3 has smaller. My wife and I enjoy the ability to bring the outdoors in with huge windows. Everyone that comes inside comments on how light and airy it is. But-I assume you have your reasons for reducing the size down to less than half. Good Luck, TomC

bevans6 · June 06, 2016, 06:39:09 PM

My first thought was to suggest triangulating the boxes with a diagonal, but if you put a skin on the outside of structural material and bond it to the frames, that skin becomes the structural triangulation and stiffens the chassis. Putting in a vertical member won't add much strength in and of itself, but may well add a lot of strength once the interior and exterior paneling is applied.

jav9956 · June 06, 2016, 07:00:06 PM

Quote from: TomC on June 06, 2016, 06:32:33 PM
It's too bad you're making those wonderfully huge windows on that the 102A3 has smaller. My wife and I enjoy the ability to bring the outdoors in with huge windows. Everyone that comes inside comments on how light and airy it is. But-I assume you have your reasons for reducing the size down to less than half. Good Luck, TomC

I hear you! I would love to keep the same size windows but we wanted to keep close to the same number of windows, reduce heat transfer and we simply can't afford larger ones. If we could go to Peninsula Glass we would do it in a heart beat but we will have to make more $ for our second conversion

. Our hope is that by having 10 windows that are a little smaller (4 on one side and 6 on the other) we will be able to still bring the outdoors in with plenty of light. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we are right. We got the windows that are "escape" windows, half slides with screens for $48 a window (with the clamp ring) from a local RV shop. Some of them are a little beat up but with a little TLC it should work out great. We'll see how it turns out!

How many large windows do you have on your bus?

jav9956 · June 06, 2016, 07:03:59 PM

We have made the decision to add more support by adding diagonals under the windows. We are going to do it the same way I replaced one of the sections in the lower part of the wall that worked quite well.

After I cut the section out I cleaned the wall and the piece of metal I was installing. I applied 3M VHB tape over the majority of the length and slid it into place, applying pressure once at the spot I wanted. From there the metal held itself and I welded the ends into place. For under the windows we will skin the sides and then do the same VHB trick. We can have all the metal in place and just "run" down each side with the welder making everything fixed. I was very happy with the results. I did end the tape about 6 inches before the weld joint. Obviously there is some concern with heating the VHB but I did not find an issue with it in my application.

TomC · June 07, 2016, 09:09:48 AM

I had Penn glass make my single pane glass. Because of the size and shape, these windows actually are attached from outside. I had 6 large (78 x 38), 2 small, and 1 driver's window made. Since the windows were flip up emergency windows, all I had to do was cut 2-3/4" plywood to fill in the hole and skin the outside. The windows are so tight, that if I close all windows and roof vents, when the front door is shut, will pop your ears. So I have the bathroom vent open all the time. I hope you use spray foam for insulation. Good Luck, TomC