LRCC

RMS wrote:I'm sure Wayne and/or John will be along to confirm/refute this

If not, I can at least confirm that I am the owner of the vehicles mentioned. :)

Julf wrote:

RMS wrote:I'm sure Wayne and/or John will be along to confirm/refute this

If not, I can at least confirm that I am the owner of the vehicles mentioned. :)

Aaahhh - sorry Julf, I think someone did once tell me, but I had forgotten it was you

Any chance of getting the Carawagon back up this way again? It was quite a hit at the shows up here

Cheers,
Robin.

RMS wrote:Aaahhh - sorry Julf, I think someone did once tell me, but I had forgotten it was you

I know - I am such a forgettable chap :)

Any chance of getting the Carawagon back up this way again? It was quite a hit at the shows up here

Well, the fixed-top one (that lives in the UK) will probably make a couple of shows in support of the Cold War Electronic Warfare Group. Not sure about the folding-top one that lives here in Amsterdam - I might bring it over this summer, but still working on show schedules.

RobW wrote:Think John was driving that until fairly recently.

Anyone on here get it?

It was me, fetched it this afternoon
I would like to have a go at replacing the damaged aluminium roof (unless anyone has a spare they don't need) or failing that any ideas on where to get the aluminium and what grade to go for.

Regards Christine

Well done Christine

As I said earlier in this thread, the roof isn't aluminium, but a special alloy called Duralumin.
I did hear that there might be a manufacturer in Europe, possibly in Holland or Germany, which still produces this in small quantities, at very high cost! to repair vintage aircraft, but could never track a source down myself.
I would suggest that you need to be looking for an alternative material.

I did consider that the plastic coated steel used to make industrial profile roofing might be worth trying. This stuff comes to the profilers in large flat sheets, 0.6mm or 0.9mm thick, and is very flexible.
It would probably need more bracing along its length than the original and could be more difficult to work with as it will crease more easily than the alloy, but it should be very cheap!!
If you go that way, you will probably need to copy the original profile, with the hollow double section overlap along the top, and the double thickness sections at the ends, as much as possible, with perhaps some full lengths of 1" aluminium angle for additional strength.

Don't forget pictures as you progress - we all like pictures

Cheers,
Robin.

I wouldn't fancy using any sort of steel for that roof... there is enough weight up there as it is IMO. Even at that thickness, there will be considerable weight over the aluminium (which too is rather thin) I would also be worrying about the plastic coating, as although it is designed to be out in the open under all sorts of weathers, is it designed to be bent repeatedly?

As for fatigue-resistant alloys there are plenty of them about nowadays... In all honesty I would think the 'demands' of a Carawagon roof are pretty low as far as material specs go. Indeed, Duralumin is quite an old 'mix' as it were, and rather primitive by some of today's alloys so I would think there would be no trouble in sourcing a suitable aluminium alloy. Thinking in hindsight, it would have been interesting to test my roof skin and find out what exactly was in it - we have a Radiograph material tester at work which is a very cool piece of kit and lists all the elements present in the given sample you zap it at! Unfortunately with paint on it'll now give a misleading result.

Would you like me to send you a sample? I have a scrap roof, it really is too far gone to repair and it really would be good to find out what to use. We moved a 109 normal roof and then a carawagon roof without the bendy aluminium and half the plywood missing, I was amazed at how much heavier the carawagon roof was (it did have the awning pole arrangement but I did not expect it to weigh that much more)

So far I have found out that the modern equivalent to duraluminium is AA2024 used in aircrafts and grade 2036 seems to be used in car body manufacture, any other info. would be very welcome, I am just a simple chippy not a metalurgist.

Regards Christine

Last year at Billing i met a german who had renovated his
carawagon roof using "ordinary" aluminium.Had been using
it for 10 years with no problems or deterioration.

Regards

Phillip

Phillip

I would have no hesitation at using 'standard' aluminium sheet for the Carawagon roof

I also spoke to this German about his aluminium roof and was surprised how good he said it was,maybe this is the way to go as using plastic or plastic coated steel my concern would be roof vibration whilst travelling.