Icebox Liner

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Idon84
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Icebox Liner

Post by Idon84 »

I have completed just about all of my icebox. It' is a 1/2" plywood box with 4" foil & foam and another 1/2" plywood liner. The 1/2" liner was installed in thickened epoxy with high density fillits on every corner.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/4q ... directlink
The picture in the link does not show the pieces yet installed in epoxy.

My question is this. Most places I look talk about using fiberglass to line the inside of the plywood box. Is this really necessary and why? I would think about 3-5 coats of neat epoxy on a 1/2" piece of marine grade plywood would be sufficient (many references talk about a 1/4" liner in which case the fiberglass would be needed to support the 1/4" ply). The thought of using even more epoxy to install cloth and then fairling compound to smooth it out has been on my mind for over a month now and would be quite the chore. Any nix or dings in the epoxy coated plywood would be easy enough to repair if something got to it. Am I missing something?

Opinions?
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Re: Icebox Liner

Post by Tim »

Blocks of ice are heavy and tend to slip (ice being slippery and all) and fall into the icebox. Fiberglass protects the box from the inevitable impacts.
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Re: Icebox Liner

Post by Quetzalsailor »

Sure is a lot of work to make the inside of something like that neat and pretty; been there and it was just a trash box.

You surely will ding the box sooner or later; all sorts of things can be dropped in there to bad effect. You might consider glassing only the bottom, and that only within the fillets. My standard mistake is to fillet using microfiber fillers rather than the filler made for the purpose; the microfibers are stronger, but much harder to work with adequate neatness.

I hope that I do not have to do any of this to Q. She's got formica-covered panels in the 'fridge which look fine; don't know what the substrate is, or why it's fine after 40 years.
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Re: Icebox Liner

Post by galleywench »

I thought the same thing and was the reason I didn't glass the liner when I FIRST built my icebox... Someone (it couldn't have been me) dropped a big block of ice into it and it cracked the laminate. I didn't notice it for a few seasons, but evidently it was done more than once because the icebox eventually started leaking and made a nice stinky mess when someone overturned a bottle of milk and I couldn't get the smell out weeks later. It had seeped into the plywood and surrounding foam liner and spoiled. I didn't completely rebuild the box, but I had to replace all the foam and then glassed the interior. I think you'd be fine just glassing the bottom and tabbing the bottom few inches of the walls.
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Idon84
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Re: Icebox Liner

Post by Idon84 »

Thanks for the opinions. I'll put the cloth down for protection. I may just put it on the bottom.
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Re: Icebox Liner

Post by mitiempo »

You could glass the bottom and use Formica for the sides, using epoxy. It would be easy to clean and durable as well as good looking.
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Re: Icebox Liner

Post by Triton106 »

Byron,

I paid a lot attention to how Tim and Nathan did their icebox when I was working on mine. I remember Nathan's post mortem on his icebox design:
There are two things I wish I had done differently however. First, I should have continued the luan all the way up all sides of the box, and then used a layer or two of biax with a single layer of finish cloth on top. While I haven't had any issues yet, I sometimes feel that the interior of the box isn't quite as tough as I might like. Second, I should have taken the time to thoroughly and carefully fair the interior of the box. A perfectly smooth finish would make cleaning the box easier, as there would be no place for mildew to get a toe-hold. That said, the box is still moderately smooth, and it is mostly just the weave of the glass that shows through, and any mildew has been extremely minor, and relatively easy to remove. It has only showed up at the end of our cruises and I just give the box a quick scrub with Simple Green, then give it a light spray of 10% bleach solution.
Just food for thought.
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Re: Icebox Liner

Post by jhenson »

Bryon,


I would offer one other possibility, similar, but more robust than formica. The recent construction of my icebox simply made the traditional method virtually impossible due to the confined space and complexity of two doors, two drains, a divider, ect. The original box was located under the cockpit seat and was placed there by the factory before the deck was joined to the hull. There was simply no practical way I could ad insulation and layup a liner after the outside liner was constructed So, I needed to build a rigid liner first and then then construct the outer liner and insulation around it, which was a real pain.

For the liner, I used the white FRP panels that are available in the home centers. This stuff is the same stuff you see in the worst gas station bathrooms out there. It has a revolting pebble grain finish, You can special order a smooth version of the same material, but my Home Depot only orders it in quantities of 10 sheets. However, the back of the pebble grain sheet is virtually smooth,. Actually, it has a very slight non-reflective texture that I like better than the glossy smooth panels available through special order.

The product is called Sequentia and the specifications are here:

http://www.cranecomposites.com/sequentia/index.asp


If you sand down the “pebbles” nearly flush, you get a nice gluing surface. The back of the material then becomes your finished (exposed) surface. The resulting material is a little less than 1/16", but still very tough. In my case, the panels were joined together to make the box, and I added two layers of 1708 biax on the outside to make a very rigid liner. In your case, you can just glue the panels to your plywood, You can mask off the panels about ¾” from the edge of the seams and add more fillet material. I used West System white colorant, and the fillets are very close to the color of the panel material.

Image

One added benefit to this would be that you don’t need to paint the inside of the box when you’re done. This material, when glued to a rigid substrate, is very strong.

Joe
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