Alpenlite Foamcore
Greetings. My 1989 29' 5th-wheel had a soft spot in the floor of the rear kitchen, so I am now in process of repairing that. A LOT of exploratory surgery revealed that most of the lower half of the r...
Forum Discussion
I don’t have any experience with Allenpenlite foamcore process or materials but we have made foamcore materials for show props where we wanted the finished prop to be light weight, robust, easily assembled and disassembled, and easy move and store. We cut the styrofoam with a hot wire, then coated the styrofoam surface with moisture activated gorilla glue, mist the surface with water, lay the plywood on top, weight it down, and allow to dry. Turn it over and bond the other side(s). For you, The psi rating of the styrofoam and the thickness of the plywood are key in developing a suitably sturdy finished floor/sidewall. I don’t have any advice on that - my prop building days are far away in my past.
Hmmmm, interesting reply. The info that you provided (thanks much!) fairly closely parallels the plan high points that I had come up with for re-creating the original foamcore. But about the "moisture activated gorilla glue". I should tell you here that even mentioning the "m" word (moisture) around an RV-er can strike fear into our hearts. 😂 When the rain leak moisture reached the wall/floor layers, it caused some unidentified layer to dissolve into a saturated, fibrous mess that was probably either some kind of a paper facing, or the outer de-laminated layer of the super thin luann ply, or some kind of adhesive that was water-soluble. On most RVs, the bonded foamcore panels provide both insulation AND structural strength. Any input as to the durability of your engineered foamcore, or the resistance to water of the cured gorilla glue? Thanks, again!
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