| Author | Message | ||
| marty Rating: N/A |
has anyone successfully applied this to the exterior walls. If so what glue did you use? Thx Marty | ||
| captain ron (Captain_ron)
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Exterior walls? as in outside of the bus? big no no. not realy made for that. you would end up replacing it in no time. even if the water didn't ruin it the sun would reactivate the glue and it would delaminate. ruining the subsrate it was applied to. but if your talking about devider walls in your bus by all means go ahead. just use any contact adhesive on both surfaces let dry and stick it. | ||
| H3 (Ace)
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Marty, we have installed formica on all our interior walls inside the coach including the shower top and bottom making it look like it is built in, the homemade pocket door made from a simple piece of plywood, all the cabinets, and the counter tops, even the bed pedestal and mattress frame! To get a idea, You can see our progress if you go here... http://groups.msn.com/AceRossiMotorsports/foolsgold.msnw?Page=1 There are about 6 pages now the pics are from start to present with more to come soon! You can apply the formica using commercial contact adhesive which is spray ready. Store bought contact will be to thick to spray and will cause you headaches trying to. If you brush or roll it on, yes, that can be done but very time consuming! HTH Ace | ||
| ChuckMC9 (Chucks)
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Niiiiiiiiiiice job on the laminate, Ace. Marathon won't have anything on you. Any web resources for beginner instruction, especially applying to curved surfaces? | ||
| Pat Bartlett (Muddog16)
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Looks very good Ace, what can you tell me about your hot water heater?........ Pat | ||
| Pat Bartlett (Muddog16)
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I had to come back  , I started thinking about formica laminate, compared to laminated (hard wood like oak or Cherry)plywood and staining. There probably isn't any savings going either way but I thought I would ask anyway! Does the glue hold up well in conversions, over a period of time?..........Thanks Pat! | ||
| H3 (Ace)
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As for my hot water heater, I took the same approach my friend (yes I have one) Bill Phelan did and that was to install a tiny TITAN found at Lowes. Far less than a home water heater, took up much less room, simple to install and the water stays hot a long time. Just plug it in. It used in homes too, but mostly for wet bar applications and such! Thanks for the words on our progress! I should have more pics to post soon! Kitchen area will be posted next IF everything continues to go as planned. That is IF I can keep from using the bus to get er done! LOL Ace | ||
| H3 (Ace)
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To add... Chuck it's not as hard as one would think. First you need a freind in the business that does MOST of the finish work! As for the rounded corners? They are pre made at any good cabinet supply shop. You just need to give them the dimensions your going to be working with. You may have to order them but they can be found! I used them to keep from chipping off edges which is what I found in many coaches I looked at from heavy use! The formica is also easy to clean helps to keep it clean. A little baby oil here and there and it shines like new! Ace | ||
| captain ron (Captain_ron)
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rounded corners are easy to make using bending ply or as some call it wiggly board. you want to use virtcal grade laminate as apposed to general perpose grade. If your bending real tight radiuses you can use post form grade. a heat gun helps with some radius work also. over all laminate is very easy to work with once you figure it out. the biggest issue is getting it rolled down good, not burning edge with router or file. a trick to keep from screwing up when sticking it dow is use some dowel rods to lay on your substrate every 2 or 3 inches so it doesn't stick till you pull the out one by one, you can also slide the laminate into position easily. | ||
| Jim (Jim_in_california)
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Yo Ace: here's an interesting point to ponder. What if you used two of the Titans in series? Here's why: first, these are small and cheap - 2.5gal, $160ish, small enough that two can fit in an enclosure/area designed for one six-gal propane water heater. Problem is, 2.5gal ain't much of a shower and the "recharge rate" is 6 gallons per hour, so figure each person will get a 3gal shower and you have to wait at least 20 minutes between showers. Now if you double them up, then the first heater in the string is doing 90% of the work. It's set to put out water that's...I dunno, call it 105deg F. The second heater is set the same way. Because the water it's taking in is already that hot, all it has to do is keep it at that temp. You really DON'T double your amp draw but you DO double your available shower length. Now...it may be better to "spread the load", set the first to output water that's...say, 70deg F and set the second to 100/105 or so. That way the first spits out SOMETHING quickly for the second to start chewing on. Probably best off getting an AC amp-meter draw tester and play with the different settings to see which works best. I'm sure they're fairly reliable but you'd also get some "failure redundancy" this way - it would be annoying to live on just one of these but not at all impossible. OH yeah, one other thing: am I right in thinking that an electric water heater element wouldn't much care whether it gets "low-grade modified sine" or the "pure sine good stuff"? If so you could use a single crappy 3000w Coleman or whatever inverter to drive these puppies and isolate them from all the other AC subsystems. | ||
| H3 (Ace)
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No bendable ply used in my application. All straight regular ole plywood with a sanded finish! I also did not use any heat on any of my formica but I have heard that some need to if they don't use the right tools! As for not allowing it to stick before you get it into position, you can use a regualr piece of brown grocery bag, (NOT plastic) and lay it ON the glue until it is JUST away from your edge that your using to line up your work. Once you have your piece in position, simply pull out brown paper bag material and roll the remainder with a good roller. It also doesn't hurt to use a flat piece of wood and mallet to tap the complete area of formica into the adhesive! Ace |