HMS Beagle wrote:
Fiberglass isn't a light material, if you made a structural shell only from solid fiberglass it would weigh much more. You would need to double or triple the shell thickness (and still reinforce high load areas), that would add ~500 - 1000 lbs to the camper. The sandwich construction takes advantage of the foam (already needed for insulation) and interior paneling (already needed for finish) to accomplish the needed stiffness without that increase in weight, and wood is a weight efficient (and cost efficient) reinforcement for areas that need it. Unfortunately it will rot. Ideally fiberglass hat sections or other methods would replace the wood, or a real structural foam would replace the styrofoam. And you can get that in a $200K camper - but not $50K camper. Bahn for example actually does build a camper shell like a boat - fiberglass inside and outside skins with structural foam core. The bare shell starts at about $50K.
acording to big foot, they are a structural fiberglass shell. and seeing the different stages of construction I beleve it. now have they changed there moderen day builds after they reopened, I don't know. I do know they sold off a lot of there molds to a couple companies and are just runing a handfull of sizes now. when they were putting one togeather they had all the walls and such in the bottom half then they lowered the top half onto it. cut a hole big enough for a little guy to crawl through where the door goes and ge juet went in and screwed the interior walls to the glassed in wood baking. so the wood walls are not bonded to the foam or the fiberglass they are just screwed to it. it didnt look like the foam was bonded to anything either as he said it was all cnc cut and hooks to the next piece, they may have used an adhesive to hold it in place. I spent two hours with the owner going around and seeing them in various stages ofconstruction.. I was very impressed just wish they would use a full size queen mattress;)
Steve
