Bus skin

[chazwood]

Is there a contact for getting a piece of side skin steel that's 35 ft long? My non-bus suppliers are all scratching their heads.
Thanks!

[robertglines1]

CK  IBP    in Appoka Fla

[superiormotors]

Check with your local heating and cooling store and ask who their sheetmetal supplier is. Contact the supplier and see if they will sell you a coil of sheetmetal the length, width and gauge you want. That's what I did, got mine from Ryerson Steel.

[robertglines1]

If your skinning over windows 18 ga is lowest I would go. 16 ga is better.  For wrinkles in sun.  Experience here.   If you want stainless with ribs IBP.   Bob

[buswarrior]

IBP Industries in Florida:

http://www.ibpindustries.com/

They will match the fluting on pretty much any coach made.

They have worked with many busnuts on custom work, large and small.

Give 'em a call and see if they can help with your idea, or give you some new ones to chew on.

Has anyone heard anything from Rich in awhile? He used to be with this company, and then moved on to something else that escapes me at the moment...

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[chazwood]

thanks for the info, I'll call in the morning. for now anyone know how much a steel skin for one side should run price wise? ball park would be fine.

[TomC]

No bus from the factory used a single continuous piece of sheet metal. You too should match the lower panels as to length-the bus manufacturers usually had many more engineers figuring these things out.  Good Luck, TomC

[robertglines1]

5 stainless  panels with correct pattern for banner area aprox 40 inches high $$2000.  Cold roll 18ga in 4 by 10ft  sheets about $160 each.  I like the cold roll just seams to hold paint better and sun wrinkle less;old lesson from hot rod days-still prefer 16 ga. The weight differance in the big picture is in?   I just bought the stainless for my damaged sideing on Prevost.   Bob

[Jeremy]

No bus from the factory used a single continuous piece of sheet metal.

Not wishing to be argumentative, but my bus certainly has full-length skins - one piece of galvanized sheet from front to back, held on with nothing other than polyurethene adhesive (ie Sikiflex or equivalent). I don't know how thick it is in 'gauge' terms, but it's at least 1mm thick I would say - I know that it's fairly heavy stuff to cart around beacuse I've had to cut large pieces out as part of installing the slideouts.

Jeremy

[chazwood]

Mine is a continuous piece also.

[chazwood]

I guess if I bought a 1000ft roll I could get a continuous piece.
I'm going to settle for tack welding on a 7 inch strip along the bottom and be done with it. I plan to bus-wrap our logo along that area anyway, so, as long as it's relatively smooth it should look fine.
Found a piece of 5x10' steel for $40 locally. Or better yet, a 20g piece of galvalume steel (which is what's on the bus now) for $70.
Looks like I will be tacking until Christmas.

[robertglines1]

Do it your way! with the gal make sure to rough (sp) the surface good to get good paint adhesion. You got to remember there is no rite or wrong for sure.  Just what works for you.!!Let me know how the adhesive works. I've been chicken so far with all the problems Prevost had with the XLII and have spent millions re-doing coaches ..  Bob

[chazwood]

That worked better than I expected. I just clamped the new piece over the rusty area and used a grinder with a cutting wheel to cut thru both pieces. This left me a perfect cut out with a 1/16 gap. Next I tack welded the new piece in with a spot weld every 4 inches on the first past then every past thereafter I just devided what was left until I had a solid weld.
Grind that down and put a thin layer of primer and bondo. Ride by on a fast horse and it looks pretty good!

[Scott & Heather]

I know some of you say aluminum waves, but we used 1/8" thick stuff. No waves. Come see ours. Looks amazing. Just our way.


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[zukmancdr]

When you install the metal, it needs to be on a hot day. If you put it on during a cold day, the metal is shrunk and during a warm day the metal expands to give you waves.

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