Upper Cabinets
I got a good start on the upper cabinets this week. Again, low weight being my primary goal, a lot of thought and effort has went into this portion. I know I've already said it, but up to this point I did a series of test for suitable light and strong building materials, which I'll detail in a later post. In the end, I decided to build the upper cabinetry out of 1/2" EPS foam, re-enforced in key areas with 1/2" lumber and laminated with a mixture of Titebond II woodglue and canvas. This is also known as "poor man's fiberglass", and many small boats and even campers have been successfully made with this technique. The test panels I did prior to starting the cabinetry were unbelievably light and strong (around 5 oz per square foot!) I'm just going to skim over what I've got done so far for now, but eventually I plan on covering the process a little more in detail.
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I had some bed slats on hand that just happened to be 1/2" thick
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I ripped them down into 1/2" sticks on my table saw.
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Using a mixture of the 1/2" lumber I resawed, and some 1/2" foam, I started building out the cabinets
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I used Gorilla Glue to glue the foam to the 1/2" lumber framework. I used masking tape to hold things in place while the glue cured.
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Then cut in door openings. These will be lined with 1/2" lumber also before being covered with canvas.
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It's hard to really describe just how much storage this adds, but this picture shows it pretty well. Each side cabinet is 14" deep at the bottom, and 54" long. The rear storage area is 68" wide and 20" deep. The storage areas are just over 13" in height. This adds up to over 20 square feet of storage area, and nearly 23 cubic feet of storage just in the hightop area, while still leaving plenty of head room where it's needed.
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The cabinet set was built as 3 pieces. All were removed so that I could trim excess glue, fill low spots, etc.
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Laminating with canvas is a bit of a chore, and pretty messy work. This section took me two days, as I had to wait for one side to dry before starting the other side. Actual laminating time was only a couple of hours, but it really takes a while to dry fully
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This is the only cabinet that I've laminated so far, and I just completed it yesterday. I checked it this morning, and it's incredibly stiff and light. I didn't actually weigh it yet, but if I had to guess right now the entire side cabinet assembly probably weighs somewhere between 5 and 7 lbs.
One thing to realize with this method is that it doesn't make for a perfectly smooth finish. Small irregularities are here and there, which I planned ahead for. When these are done, I'm going to do the "paper bag floor" technique on them, which looks great with such irregularities.
One other thing I wanted to mention. I will be making another test panel, as last night I had a great idea for a method that would not only be lighter and stronger yet, but also easier to manufacture. I just wanted to test the idea first, as I can't recall ever hearing of it being tried. I'll detail it when I get around to doing a building materials comparison post.