What Gauge Steel?

[Twigg-SKO]

What gauge of sheet steel are folk using to skin-over windows?

I was planning to use 18-gauge, but I noticed that dzlfreak used 20-gauge and he had more distance to span than I have.

I have quotes of $75 for a 8 x 4 sheet of 1008 at 18-gauge and am assuming the 20-gauge will be about $60, and a lot easier to cut and handle.

 

[BurlKing]

What gauge of sheet steel are folk using to skin-over windows?

I was planning to use 18-gauge, but I noticed that dzlfreak used 20-gauge and he had more distance to span than I have.

I have quotes of $75 for a 8 x 4 sheet of 1008 at 18-gauge and am assuming the 20-gauge will be about $60, and a lot easier to cut and handle.

i used 20 and it worked great. we had used a metal gauge on the original bus body. the skin was 19 gauge and the hat channels were 15...I'm pretty sure best way to figure your situation out is measure it quick, then go to the shop and get that size or +/- 1 gauge from the metal you want to match up.



I have the receipt in front of me, and paid $30 a panel 4'x8' sheets. needed 8 total to cover my bus, which was raised.

 

[Twigg-SKO]

i used 20 and it worked great. we had used a metal gauge on the original bus body. the skin was 19 gauge and the hat channels were 15...I'm pretty sure best way to figure your situation out is measure it quick, then go to the shop and get that size or +/- 1 gauge from the metal you want to match up.



I have the receipt in front of me, and paid $30 a panel 4'x8' sheets. needed 8 total to cover my bus, which was raised.

I'll go with the 20-gauge.

I think steel prices have risen some.

 

[Ninjakitty]

I bought 20 gauge galvenealed 4 x 10 sheets for $48~ a sheet plus 1.50 a cut.

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[Mgulley82]

We used the interior roof panels we removed

Not sure what gauge but seems decent


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[TrailLifeBill]

My interior was 20 gauge cold rolled - I used all that and bought more of the same to finish.

 

[Dead pirate]

I used 20. Trump just raised the price on steel tho.

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[Twigg-SKO]

We used the interior roof panels we removed

Not sure what gauge but seems decent


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My ceiling panels are full of tiny holes. It's ironic. That was an expensive option that is now less useful than a solid ceiling would have been.

 

[Mgulley82]

My ceiling panels are full of tiny holes. It's ironic. That was an expensive option that is now less useful than a solid ceiling would have been.

That’s a bummer

Only the one over our cab was like that


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[stixNstaples]

Scrap is up so imagine these panels will be higher now.

 

[Santa-SKO]

We used the interior roof panels we removed

Not sure what gauge but seems decent

I never thought of this..hmm time to research.

 

[Twigg-SKO]

I never thought of this..hmm time to research.

I would have done the same had that option been open to me.

 

[family wagon]

I've fully re-skinned my bus, top to bottom and front to back. Below the floor I've built storage bins and used 20 gauge sheet because that's what I could comfortably work with in my metal brake to form the doors and jambs. Hopefully the bends will stiffen it much more than 20 gauge would ordinarily be.

From floor level up 4 feet I've used a band of 16 gauge, the thought being that's the area most likely to interact with mailboxes, street signs, bushy trees, people leaning on it, etc. From there up to the roof I have a 3 foot wide band of 18 gauge. Less need for it to be strong, and I need to form a bunch of window openings in it.

 

[2martins]

I've fully re-skinned my bus, top to bottom and front to back. Below the floor I've built storage bins and used 20 gauge sheet because that's what I could comfortably work with in my metal brake to form the doors and jambs. Hopefully the bends will stiffen it much more than 20 gauge would ordinarily be.

From floor level up 4 feet I've used a band of 16 gauge, the thought being that's the area most likely to interact with mailboxes, street signs, bushy trees, people leaning on it, etc. From there up to the roof I have a 3 foot wide band of 18 gauge. Less need for it to be strong, and I need to form a bunch of window openings in it.

On top of what was there or did you remove all the old stuff? Did you replace the rub rails? This seems very expensive. Did you scrap the old stuff or are you using it for something else?

 

[Twigg-SKO]

I'm going to use 18-gauge for the window skins.

It's reasonably priced, my nibbler will cut it and the heaviest piece I will have to move into place is only 35 lbs when cut to size.

The thicker steel wiil help reduce the tendency to "oil-can".

I must have looked at a dozen ways to do this. In the end, simply cutting the panels and screwing them into place the way Thomas did with the original panels seems easiest.

 

[family wagon]

On top of what was there or did you remove all the old stuff? Did you replace the rub rails? This seems very expensive. Did you scrap the old stuff or are you using it for something else?

My project has included a roof raise (required 16" of new vertical coverage all the way around), delete 2/3 of the windows (required 30" vertical coverage over the back half), delete the front service door (new metal in lower wall, plus build skirting too), and create storage bins between the axles (replace most of the rest of the skirting). At that point there's so much new metal being hung here and there it would turn out to be quite a patchwork and I just didn't think there'd be a reasonable way of making it look good.

If I remember correctly it cost something like $1500 for the stack of 16 ga and 18 ga sheets, mostly 4x10 feet with a few 4x12. Probably $800 of it was required spending because it was to cover places where there was no sheet originally. The other $700 was "optional." I guess it could be viewed as expensive, but when I thought about spraying $2000 of foam on the inside and $3000 of paint on the outside, and all the labor going into it too, I just couldn't invest all that money and work only to have the final project look patched together. It made a lot of sense to go all the way with it, and that actually made my roof raise easier in a way too.

 

[2martins]

My project has included a roof raise (required 16" of new vertical coverage all the way around), delete 2/3 of the windows (required 30" vertical coverage over the back half), delete the front service door (new metal in lower wall, plus build skirting too), and create storage bins between the axles (replace most of the rest of the skirting). At that point there's so much new metal being hung here and there it would turn out to be quite a patchwork and I just didn't think there'd be a reasonable way of making it look good.

If I remember correctly it cost something like $1500 for the stack of 16 ga and 18 ga sheets, mostly 4x10 feet with a few 4x12. Probably $800 of it was required spending because it was to cover places where there was no sheet originally. The other $700 was "optional." I guess it could be viewed as expensive, but when I thought about spraying $2000 of foam on the inside and $3000 of paint on the outside, and all the labor going into it too, I just couldn't invest all that money and work only to have the final project look patched together. It made a lot of sense to go all the way with it, and that actually made my roof raise easier in a way too.

Oh, roof raise, yeah, I'm not doing that. I just never heard of anyone doing that much new metal.

 

[Genghis-SKO]

I took apart my seats and saved the sheet metal. Was thinking of using this if I needed to skin something over. Anyone know what gauge they may be?

Genghis sends.

z

 

[2martins]

I took apart my seats and saved the sheet metal. Was thinking of using this if I needed to skin something over. Anyone know what gauge they may be?

Genghis sends.

z

I don't understand. I thought the only metal in the seats was the brackets really and those I have seen used for mounting solar on the roof. I saved the interior skin sheet metal that * I removed * but the bus was mostly gutted when I got it. I hope to use some of it to cover my seat bolt holes in the floor using sikkaflex to stick that on well all around the holes. I have a couple of places where the floor actually has a small rust hole and I was going to use the heaviest guage bits of metal in those areas. I bought one roll of painted galvanized steel roof flashing also. It should cover the holes that my bus skin won't. I hope. At the very least if I roll it over a whole row of holes it's going to be faster to cover those than ones that I do 2 at a time with small pieces of metal. I also have an area around the stairs that clearly has more rust issues (most seem to be where it was welded). This is one of the reasons that I would rather avoid welding for fixes anywhere I can use an alternate method that is less likely to rust. Ok, that and the fact that I own no equipment for welding and don't know how. My son wants to learn and I'm sure there will be opportunities to do that on the bus but in many cases it doesn't seem to be the best option due to rust later.

Even a welder by trade said he was using allthread and unistrut to hang or reinforce storage under his bus because it would be an easier fix if it got knocked on the road.

So much to figure out still.....

 

[Genghis-SKO]

There was tubular steel framing the seats, but there was sheet metal on the backs under the Upholstery between the framing. The sheet metal was the size of the seat backs, ~ 3' x 2'. I recovered about 30 + pieces from my 77 pax Thomas.

Genghis sends.

z