Project Tin-pop underway!

[silverbullet]

Well I finally got over to spannerboy/eastfalia with my 9" makita grinder and set about an otherwise perfectly good (well, engine fire damaged write-off - not pretty) caravelle. Just for the roof panel!
Slashed through the pillars, inside first then outside to finish off. Tidy. I should be ashamed, but I'm not.
Suprisingly light; lighter than the Viking that I sold on and I've got all the roof perimiter frame to remove yet, so things are looking good so far. Hope that the final result turns out ok.
This is all to make my own, unique pop-top (as I've gone right off fibreglass) to cover a Viking-type slide-out bed frame (greatly improved by me) and canopy. There may be potential to take a mould from it before it goes for final paint, but that's a good way off yet.
Fortune favours the bold!
(Wasn't that in Star Trek?)
Monster Roofrack does the honours once again

[Steve P]

Good luck with the new project Ian, keep us posted

[silverbullet]

Cheers Steve,
All the pics and tales of distress will get posted here!

[jiffies]

Ian
Looking forward to seeing to project progress. Good luck
Cheers Jiffies

[jamesc76]

Sounds like you gonna be having fun!

[silverbullet]

Knocked up a couple of 3 ft high trestles from 4x2 and anything else laying around, shoved all the tools/bikes/garage junk into the middle of the garage and got the ol' fella to give me a hand to slide (? - make that drag!) the roof from it's resting place up the side passage.
Five minutes and two hernias later, it's in and I've still got space to walk past.
Freezer still accessable too so all clear on the domestic front
Found my spot welder too! Bonus!
Now for some alfresco carpentry...
Looks vast in this one, garage 16' x 8'6". Up & over door opens with 1/4" to spare...

bus roof 1.jpg

Plenty of space to work...if you can in a 3' corridor with a bike locked to the wall...

bus roof 2.jpg

[silverbullet]

I managed to get four contours of the roof made over the hols from shuttering ply (good enough)
Now it's measure and markup time to see how low I can get it and not squash the cushions when it's closed!

roof contour1.JPG

There's a long way to go, but it's a start

[silverbullet]

Here's my primary school style "cut and paste" concept using prints from the wiki and pritt-stick!
Aiming for no more than a 200mm / 8" lift in the roof profile, which will be enough to cover anything that's out there (the Viking is the bulkiest so if it will go over that...) hope that it will work out a bit less in the end.
Front end might be a bit shallower angled, rear will have a small reverse scallop to clear the tailgate rather than the "ice cream van" butttresses that you usually see. Will mean that the f/glass mold is trickier to make, but that's not my problem! Might never happen, but we'll see.

poptop concept 600pixel.jpg

[silverbullet]

Well it's been a long time coming, but over 200 spotwelds later and having unpicked the corner brazing, I've finally got this far:

roof unpicked.jpg

The roof perimeter frame weighs nearly as much as the roof skin itself! Not suprising as it's mostly made from 2mm pressings... I have now done the sums for roof area x 1mm mild steel (roof appears to be 19 SWG):
7.85 kg/m2, roof is 1.6 x 3.6m plus .2 all round so call it 2 x 4m...63kg.
Before it's got a frame, mechanism, boards or canvas. Doesn't sound too bad - The Viking took 4 of us to sensibly get it on and off the roofrack (without the boards!) and that was HEAVY.
I'm thinking of going to go for alloy box framed webbing hammocks instead of 3/4" chipboard to save kg's too.
Now to get back to the carpentry and get a buck built, then start working out how it's going to lift and how it's all going to fit underneath...finished for summer 2011?