Thank you for making these videos, for those of us copying you techniques you make it so much easier to follow and not do so much by trial and error. I love your framing, I’m using thin ply too as away of keeping the weight down.
Finally good to see someone address the weight issue. I’m planning on kitting my work van out with insulation so it can be a makeshift camper when I need it to be and weight is a big issue as I use my van for deliveries so fuel consumption plays a big part
You make an extremely valid point! Everyone else seemed to be able to build with a bunch of heavy wood, so so did we. But we weighed it, and it is overweight to the point that we are actually going to rip it all out and start over with lighter materials and different methods. So yeah, 6 months of intense labour to hell. We are going to experiment with 4 mm canal plastic, and vinyl over it. It weighs 0.8 kg/m². I liked your take on wallstyle too!
Ohhhh, 0.8kg/M2 I am intrigued 😂 Can you send us a link? I feel your pain over the weight, it was a pretty stressful time when we figured out how much things are actually going to weight before we seriously thought about the weight. We had to give up on some ideas and reorganise our priorities 😎
@@FreedomStrider Im swedish, so I think my swedish links wont do you much good. But I did realize after posting that in english it is called corrugated plastic, my initial translation was incorrect 😊 It exists from 4mm thickness and up. Also worth mentioning is that we dont have a traditional van, ours is more like a boxtruck where the box is two layers of fiberglass with a 5 cm foam core, wich we have added another 2 cm of insulation to (sweden you know...). So the way we insulate will be slightly different than in a van, since fiberglass is quite different from metal in conductivity. We are going to check out a few different thicknesses of corruplastic and see wich one is stiff enough. And then figure out the best way to attach it and cover it. It wont be strong enough to attach our furniture to it, so we will have to use the beems behind it for that. I do have an IG account if you want to see what a way too heavy van looks like 😆 Its @larssonbecky and the pics are under highlights in "van".
Sorry hadn’t finished, called Corflute in Australia. Becomes brittle in sunlight( about 5yrs) so build panels that can be removed and replaced as required, but may be fine if covered. I built a kids play house and a very cheap chook house with it. Aust sun is terrible so a good test
Hi Guys. Nice video as usual. You are the only van builders that talk about weight. It is so easy to add things without realising the weight you are adding and the effect on your fuel consumption. If you want screws look at Ebay. Prices are very competitive.
Yes usually we do pre-order stuff, but just wanted to get these walls up, and tool station wasn't that expensive :D Fuel effeciency is key for us, hopefully the weight we have already added doesn;t affect it too much, we haven't been anywhere to test it though xD
Loving the progress guys. In terms of lightweight panels, I've used double sided smooth hardboard as they are on budget and lightweight. I built my walls like you with studs on top of insulation and vapour barrier. I've said before my focus was on access so i can easily modify things as my ideas change. My panels are individually cut to fit between all the fixed items on the walls and ceiling. To fix the panels I've used decotative flat headed screws and just a few per panel. I can easily whip any panel off to repaint them, fish a cable or inspect for moisture. Love the idea of the fabric strips for aesthetics and also air flow, very smart.
Hmm hardboard, we only had access to the reguar 2mm floppy stuff near us, but yes being able to take off the wall if needed is what we were going for :)
PVC interior wall and ceiling cladding is much lighter than ply. No need to paint. Hollow cellular construction so very strong and insulative. Easy to fit, just staple one edge then slide the next one in to cover the staples. Self extinguishing in a fire. Also a variety of flexible edging and corner profile strips. Very popular here in France, not sure if readily available in the UK.
The PVC interior walls do look very nice, and they are lighter than the equivalent thickness of hardwood ply, and they might be a good option for the shower area, but looking at the weight, they still seem to be around 2.2kg/m2 and our 3mm poplar ply is 1kg/m2. The PVC is a good idea, we'll keep it on our radar and we might use it somewhere, thank you 😊
Love the white walls, that's exactly what I'd kinda hoped to have. I'm not a fan of the usual campervan cladding or carpet but after messing about and putting up plywood really poorly I came to the realisation that carpet would hide that mess quite nicely. 😅
Carpet works but in our opinion, we don't like carpet EVERYWHERE, especially if you have a cat! That being said, carpeting overply makes the aesthetic styling much easier because you don't have to worry about scratches or dirty fingerprints or stupid screw holes!!! It will cover all of that very easily. 😂
Such.a good point! Thanks for making this, I have been trying to find options to have lightweight material. You see all these awesome builds but they hae heay wood lining the whole thing! And then they wonder why their suspension is not up for the task
Hi, did you calculate the weight of screws used 😎😁😂? A novel approach, definitely thinking outside of the box but you are correct, weight, weight, weight should be on every van builders mind. Aside from the extra wear and tear on the van, safety, fines for being overweight. I’m sure the insurance company would find a way to wiggle out of paying out.
😂 Well we used around 2 boxes of screws, each one was about 400g, so nearly 1kg in screws alone for the wall, but considering how lightweight the ply is, I think we can live with it (well, I don't think we have a choice). So far, the walls are holding up perfectly fine, and that's with us still using the van as a worksite, so it seems to have paid off. But yes, a 100kg saving on wall weight is worth it, and van weight is one of the most influential things in our build (and should be in everyone build since many people go overweight) 🙃
One of the advantages of the VW Crafter CR50 twin rear wheels is the 5 ton weight limit. Downside, need a different driving license and more intensive mot. That’s what I am planning on. An out of the box idea for cladding, sail cloth stretched into place and doped like a ww1 aircraft wing. Extremely lightweight and flexible and rip proof. Sounds crazy but how often do you touch a wall, it is after all just an attractive surface if you use battens to mount to. Steve P.s. have you considered wallpaper over the ply for a great finish?
In hindsight we might have actually gone with a 5Tonne van despite the extra drivers licence and extra MOT checks but oh well Interesting idea about the aeroplane cloth, just need to look into it 🤣 As for wallpaper, ehhhhh, we've discussed it, neither of us are completely sold on it but we haven't discarded the idea for a future upgrade, cheers for the ideas 👍😎
@@FreedomStrider the sailcloth is pretty tear resistant but will flap even if taught but doping , is like varnishing, it stiffeners the material like ultra thin plywood. Trouble is CR50’s are a bit rare. Steve
Glad you enjoyed it! We bought it from a company in Southampton (bit.ly/2Nfxv4d) they sell all thicknesses from 3-18mm. All are lighter than their hardwood counterparts most sold in hardware shops. 👍
@@FreedomStrider thanks, but I was hoping you’d found somewhere with national shipping. We are in Norfolk and none of our local merchants sell poplar throughout ply. I’ll keep looking as, like you both, I’m wanting to keep the weight as low as I can. Thanks for replying. 😎
yeah, a lot of our brackets and screws are from Screwfix and actually, tool station is sometimes even cheaper. We have a Wickes, BnQ, Screwfix, Toolstation, Homebase, Halford and a few others within 10minutes drive so we always have plenty of options 😂
I like the slats and the 'breathable' aspect, very well thought out! I cant help but mention the elephant in the room however....FAR TOO MANY SCREWS !! my god!
Haha you see that's what we thought too, too many damn screws right?!? We tried with much much less bit because the ply is so thin, any less screws and there was more bounce in it so we have to stand by the amount of screws but for a thicker wall, that is a crazy amount of screws 🤣
I know what you mean, I mean we have to do the build, then we go through all the footage we took and edit that, so we relive it and it brings back similar feelings 😂😂 Hope you're getting on well!
Lol the weight is a big issue, i calculated my weight using aluminium extrude without my shower and bulkhead at the time, i used 750KG off my 950KG weight i had to play with lol, i ended up updating my van to 4.8T so now i can have a full van with my 250L water tank and still have room to play with :-). I just need to take my practical test for C1 licence once the restriction is eased lol
@@FreedomStrider well I can drive it at the moment, because I haven’t actually put the plate on the van yet. Once I put the plate on the van it’s then legal. As far as I don’t have any water in my van when I drive am still within the 3.5T weight 😁
This is a very serious mistake many people make. They build their vans but dont realize they only have about 1000kgs including fuel, water, batteries, heater, insulation, cladding, bedframe, mattress, food, toilet, clothes, seating, cupboards and then add 2-4 people and the total weight of the complete build goes way over 3.5 tonnes.
Yep, we didn't consider it at first and panicked a bit when we did the maths, then we had huge delays in the building process as we were digging for materials and ways to build more lightweight... It is a serious van build point ☺️
Why so many screws in each panel? Because the panels are so light you could of used construction adhesive and glued the panels to the framing and eliminated the screws all together for a cleaner look.
We decided on no glue because we wanted a less destructive option for disassembly (if needed), which meant that we need the amount of screws to make use the ply contourred. Any less and there would be a bouncy buldge, as the 3mm poplar ply is super light and bendy.
Removability. If we ever needed to take off the walls to repair or replace something behind the wall (wiring, damage to the van metalwork, rust, a leak etc...) we'd rather not destroy the wall in the process so screws makes it easier to do that 👌😊 If it weren't for that we might have just used sealant and not have to deal with any filling of holes 🤣
I don’t think you guys need to worry about weight . I think you have one of the lightest builds Iv seen so far . Keep going guys
Well, I'll tell you in a few months when we go weigh it whether we should worry or not, kinda scared to go check at the moment 🤣🤣
@@FreedomStrider your no where near what we are weight wise . I think when your finished you’ll be no where near the weight
Thank you for making these videos, for those of us copying you techniques you make it so much easier to follow and not do so much by trial and error. I love your framing, I’m using thin ply too as away of keeping the weight down.
Yes the weight is annoying present in a van build - the 3mm walls are holding perfectly fine so far no issues at all which is good to know 😊
Finally good to see someone address the weight issue. I’m planning on kitting my work van out with insulation so it can be a makeshift camper when I need it to be and weight is a big issue as I use my van for deliveries so fuel consumption plays a big part
Yep that's pretty much it. Plus to fit any cargo in the work van, you need some leftover from the 3.5T limit.
You make an extremely valid point! Everyone else seemed to be able to build with a bunch of heavy wood, so so did we. But we weighed it, and it is overweight to the point that we are actually going to rip it all out and start over with lighter materials and different methods. So yeah, 6 months of intense labour to hell. We are going to experiment with 4 mm canal plastic, and vinyl over it. It weighs 0.8 kg/m². I liked your take on wallstyle too!
Ohhhh, 0.8kg/M2 I am intrigued 😂 Can you send us a link?
I feel your pain over the weight, it was a pretty stressful time when we figured out how much things are actually going to weight before we seriously thought about the weight. We had to give up on some ideas and reorganise our priorities 😎
@@FreedomStrider Im swedish, so I think my swedish links wont do you much good. But I did realize after posting that in english it is called corrugated plastic, my initial translation was incorrect 😊 It exists from 4mm thickness and up. Also worth mentioning is that we dont have a traditional van, ours is more like a boxtruck where the box is two layers of fiberglass with a 5 cm foam core, wich we have added another 2 cm of insulation to (sweden you know...). So the way we insulate will be slightly different than in a van, since fiberglass is quite different from metal in conductivity.
We are going to check out a few different thicknesses of corruplastic and see wich one is stiff enough. And then figure out the best way to attach it and cover it. It wont be strong enough to attach our furniture to it, so we will have to use the beems behind it for that.
I do have an IG account if you want to see what a way too heavy van looks like 😆
Its @larssonbecky and the pics are under highlights in "van".
How sad Becky, is that the thin plastic that looks like a card board box? In NZ & Australia it is only $10 a 2400x1200 sheet and c
Sorry hadn’t finished, called Corflute in Australia. Becomes brittle in sunlight( about 5yrs) so build panels that can be removed and replaced as required, but may be fine if covered. I built a kids play house and a very cheap chook house with it. Aust sun is terrible so a good test
Hi Guys. Nice video as usual. You are the only van builders that talk about weight. It is so easy to add things without realising the weight you are adding and the effect on your fuel consumption. If you want screws look at Ebay. Prices are very competitive.
Yes usually we do pre-order stuff, but just wanted to get these walls up, and tool station wasn't that expensive :D
Fuel effeciency is key for us, hopefully the weight we have already added doesn;t affect it too much, we haven't been anywhere to test it though xD
Loving the progress guys.
In terms of lightweight panels, I've used double sided smooth hardboard as they are on budget and lightweight.
I built my walls like you with studs on top of insulation and vapour barrier. I've said before my focus was on access so i can easily modify things as my ideas change.
My panels are individually cut to fit between all the fixed items on the walls and ceiling. To fix the panels I've used decotative flat headed screws and just a few per panel.
I can easily whip any panel off to repaint them, fish a cable or inspect for moisture.
Love the idea of the fabric strips for aesthetics and also air flow, very smart.
Hmm hardboard, we only had access to the reguar 2mm floppy stuff near us, but yes being able to take off the wall if needed is what we were going for :)
All coming together slowly but surely
Thanks, it sure is coming along. 😄
Doing a fab job guys, I think it's is going to look amazing. Excited for next weeks edition, take care and stay safe xx
Cheers! We're working on next week's 👍🙂
PVC interior wall and ceiling cladding is much lighter than ply. No need to paint. Hollow cellular construction so very strong and insulative. Easy to fit, just staple one edge then slide the next one in to cover the staples. Self extinguishing in a fire. Also a variety of flexible edging and corner profile strips. Very popular here in France, not sure if readily available in the UK.
They are available on Amazon but can't post a link. Search: 5 Twin White PVC Bathroom Cladding Shower Wall & Ceiling Panels.
The PVC interior walls do look very nice, and they are lighter than the equivalent thickness of hardwood ply, and they might be a good option for the shower area, but looking at the weight, they still seem to be around 2.2kg/m2 and our 3mm poplar ply is 1kg/m2. The PVC is a good idea, we'll keep it on our radar and we might use it somewhere, thank you 😊
Love the white walls, that's exactly what I'd kinda hoped to have. I'm not a fan of the usual campervan cladding or carpet but after messing about and putting up plywood really poorly I came to the realisation that carpet would hide that mess quite nicely. 😅
Carpet works but in our opinion, we don't like carpet EVERYWHERE, especially if you have a cat! That being said, carpeting overply makes the aesthetic styling much easier because you don't have to worry about scratches or dirty fingerprints or stupid screw holes!!! It will cover all of that very easily. 😂
Love your videos, they are precise !
Thank you ☺️
It like a thriller can’t wait to see what you do with the open wall space
Haha 😂 We like keeping you on your toes - we can't wait to see how that turns out too! 😄
Such.a good point! Thanks for making this, I have been trying to find options to have lightweight material. You see all these awesome builds but they hae heay wood lining the whole thing! And then they wonder why their suspension is not up for the task
It's was quite a pickle to solve 😂... But a year one and we are still holding up
nice one you two looks great
Thanks Robert, we love the look 😎
Lol the cladding, you look excited about the cladding, its like a 1000 piece puzzle :-)
Oh we were ecstatic about the 1000 piece Tetris puzzle, luckily Polly is very good at Tetris 🤣
Hi, did you calculate the weight of screws used 😎😁😂? A novel approach, definitely thinking outside of the box but you are correct, weight, weight, weight should be on every van builders mind. Aside from the extra wear and tear on the van, safety, fines for being overweight. I’m sure the insurance company would find a way to wiggle out of paying out.
😂 Well we used around 2 boxes of screws, each one was about 400g, so nearly 1kg in screws alone for the wall, but considering how lightweight the ply is, I think we can live with it (well, I don't think we have a choice). So far, the walls are holding up perfectly fine, and that's with us still using the van as a worksite, so it seems to have paid off. But yes, a 100kg saving on wall weight is worth it, and van weight is one of the most influential things in our build (and should be in everyone build since many people go overweight) 🙃
One of the advantages of the VW Crafter CR50 twin rear wheels is the 5 ton weight limit. Downside, need a different driving license and more intensive mot. That’s what I am planning on.
An out of the box idea for cladding, sail cloth stretched into place and doped like a ww1 aircraft wing. Extremely lightweight and flexible and rip proof. Sounds crazy but how often do you touch a wall, it is after all just an attractive surface if you use battens to mount to.
Steve
P.s. have you considered wallpaper over the ply for a great finish?
In hindsight we might have actually gone with a 5Tonne van despite the extra drivers licence and extra MOT checks but oh well
Interesting idea about the aeroplane cloth, just need to look into it 🤣 As for wallpaper, ehhhhh, we've discussed it, neither of us are completely sold on it but we haven't discarded the idea for a future upgrade, cheers for the ideas 👍😎
@@FreedomStrider the sailcloth is pretty tear resistant but will flap even if taught but doping , is like varnishing, it stiffeners the material like ultra thin plywood. Trouble is CR50’s are a bit rare. Steve
Wow very interesting video. 👌
Thanks 👍😊
Very interesting and thanks for posting. Where did you buy your poplar ply from please?
Glad you enjoyed it! We bought it from a company in Southampton (bit.ly/2Nfxv4d) they sell all thicknesses from 3-18mm. All are lighter than their hardwood counterparts most sold in hardware shops. 👍
@@FreedomStrider thanks, but I was hoping you’d found somewhere with national shipping. We are in Norfolk and none of our local merchants sell poplar throughout ply. I’ll keep looking as, like you both, I’m wanting to keep the weight as low as I can.
Thanks for replying. 😎
Stripes look very good, hope your buying screws and L brackets from screwfix rather than B&Q they are much cheaper from screwfix.
yeah, a lot of our brackets and screws are from Screwfix and actually, tool station is sometimes even cheaper. We have a Wickes, BnQ, Screwfix, Toolstation, Homebase, Halford and a few others within 10minutes drive so we always have plenty of options 😂
I like the slats and the 'breathable' aspect, very well thought out! I cant help but mention the elephant in the room however....FAR TOO MANY SCREWS !! my god!
Haha you see that's what we thought too, too many damn screws right?!? We tried with much much less bit because the ply is so thin, any less screws and there was more bounce in it so we have to stand by the amount of screws but for a thicker wall, that is a crazy amount of screws 🤣
Looking good, tho seeing all your effort does bring out in us a little PTS from our build! 😅👍😂
I know what you mean, I mean we have to do the build, then we go through all the footage we took and edit that, so we relive it and it brings back similar feelings 😂😂 Hope you're getting on well!
buen video
🙂
Lol the weight is a big issue, i calculated my weight using aluminium extrude without my shower and bulkhead at the time, i used 750KG off my 950KG weight i had to play with lol, i ended up updating my van to 4.8T so now i can have a full van with my 250L water tank and still have room to play with :-). I just need to take my practical test for C1 licence once the restriction is eased lol
Does that mean that you can't actually drive your van at the moment, since you have to upgrade your license? 🤔
@@FreedomStrider well I can drive it at the moment, because I haven’t actually put the plate on the van yet. Once I put the plate on the van it’s then legal. As far as I don’t have any water in my van when I drive am still within the 3.5T weight 😁
I see..sneaky seanky - at least you can still drive it 😉
This is a very serious mistake many people make. They build their vans but dont realize they only have about 1000kgs including fuel, water, batteries, heater, insulation, cladding, bedframe, mattress, food, toilet, clothes, seating, cupboards and then add 2-4 people and the total weight of the complete build goes way over 3.5 tonnes.
Yep, we didn't consider it at first and panicked a bit when we did the maths, then we had huge delays in the building process as we were digging for materials and ways to build more lightweight... It is a serious van build point ☺️
Why so many screws in each panel? Because the panels are so light you could of used construction adhesive and glued the panels to the framing and eliminated the screws all together for a cleaner look.
We decided on no glue because we wanted a less destructive option for disassembly (if needed), which meant that we need the amount of screws to make use the ply contourred. Any less and there would be a bouncy buldge, as the 3mm poplar ply is super light and bendy.
@@FreedomStrider ok, I didn't realize the surface had a lot of contour to it.
bravo, for at least trying different ideas, and concentrating on being lightweight. its often overlooked.
That's our plan, knowing how much the weight would be otherwise, it is worth a shot to see if this works. It looks great and is working well so far 😊
Why screws over nails??
Removability. If we ever needed to take off the walls to repair or replace something behind the wall (wiring, damage to the van metalwork, rust, a leak etc...) we'd rather not destroy the wall in the process so screws makes it easier to do that 👌😊
If it weren't for that we might have just used sealant and not have to deal with any filling of holes 🤣