Soliciting opinions for a "skin"

[reible]

I'm working on a project that is still in the thought process and I'm looking for ideas as to what might be a good solution to cover it with.

Picture if you will a box that is say 10" wide and 60" long and maybe 2" thick that is hinged in half so it would open to 20" by 60" by 1" when opened.

It needs to be light weight, cheap and easy to work with and protective in the sense of impact and abrasion.

Some ideas that I have had for the skin would be 1/4" plywood or thinner if I could find it and afford it. Fiberglass came to mind but it is much to much work for this project. Masonite, or mdf might work as would that thin plastic paneling that I've seen, not sure what it is made of??? Some sort of plastic or sheet metal.... even thought about ripstop nylon but that isn't heavy duty enough. Am I missing anything obvious?

I had thought about a case for a bow(as in bows and arrows) but the ones I saw were expensive. I'm shooting for less then $40 for the whole thing including the hinges, building materials and "skin".

I wonder how paper mache would work??? Might suffer moisture and durability issues as well.

So feel free to post radical or practical or even silly ideas, I'm a bit stumped right now and need to get moving on this project.

Ed

[algale]

Care to share the purpose of this box? It might inform the answers.

[reible]

This is really early in the design phase but one idea is to use a frame like this made out of tubing. I've refined the dimensions somewhat, the inside will be some where in the 8" across by 56" long. Height now stands at 1-1/4" without the skin. Hinge is along one of the long sides.

It will hold rails.

ScreenHunter_170 May. 09 19.13.jpg (48.03 KiB) Viewed 5037 times

Again this is really early in the playing around with ideas phase. The finished design might not look at all like this.

Ed

[algale]

Well, I'm not sure what "rails" this is designed to hold, but what about tarp material? Think HF sells some inexpensive tarps and grommets.

[BuckeyeDennis]

Formica/laminate? This stuff certainly won't break the bank.

[reible]

The contents is worth in excess of $250 so it needs protection, should have mentioned before that I guess. Should not have to be water tight or need protection from wet conditions if that helps.

Ed

[roy_okc]

1/8" plywood, lauan (sp?) I think, appears to run about $10 at Home Depot; the 'utility panel' at http://www.homedepot.com/s/1/8+plywood?NCNI-5.

[benush26]

How protected?
Could you use ripstop or ballistic nylon cloth as the outer cover with flexible foam sheeting (neoprene or polyurethane) inside? Very light weight and reasonably abrasion resistant. Though the frame would need to provide all the structural integrity.

Just my thoughts.

Be well,
Ben

[masonsailor2]

You could make the entire box from one sheet of 1/4" plywood of your choice. You could even make the frame for it out of the same ply by gluing two strips together to make 1/2" ply. Make the frame and then glue the large panels to the frame.
Paul

[reible]

I've turned out two more designs, one with all 1/4 ply and the other with a mix of 1/4" and 1/8". These two are just plywood versions, the tube version I think I'll save for another project.

ScreenHunter_172 May. 10 21.18.jpg (45.37 KiB) Viewed 4877 times

ScreenHunter_171 May. 10 21.18.jpg (30.11 KiB) Viewed 4877 times

I have a couple more ideas I might draw up as well. Still getting rain so no way can I actually work on these so why not play in sketchup.

Ed