3M Scotch 5952 VHB Tape: 1 in. x 15 ft. (Black)

Name: 3M Scotch 5952 VHB Tape: 1 in. x 15 ft. (Black)
Price: 16.1 USD

gregoryx · Feb 10, 2022

Edit: just barfed on your build thread. I'll kill this and move it to mine if you like.

I was concerned about the non-square aspects of the ceiling extrusions AND the wall extrusions (even /closer/ to square t the floor... but not square).

I'm super, super happy with the way we ended up doing it. And yours would work even better than ours because you don't have the angle-brackets on the ceiling extrusions. I /thought/ I'd posted this stuff, but it doesn't look like it's posted in our build thread. I'll have to address that.

You're already right-on with the 1/4" sheet inserted into the roof extrusions in the middle. Just pull those up with bolts through them into your rivnuts and you're good to go, obviously. Ours is pulled up with wood screws into 1x2 pieces that are held up with the rivnuts. Your only challenge here will be that you /might/ need/want a spacer depending how tight the panel pulls up with your setup. I, for one, think you should /not make it square to the floor; the center screws pull it up into a slightly dome-shaped setup and that looks better, I think; and the angled extrusions help that happen - with the shape of the roof.

Wherever there are roof seams, there will need to be a cover to tie them to each other. We used 1/2" baltic birch routed to clean it up a bit. I figured it would be temporary; but have grown to like it. As you know by now, this is the easy part. Yours will turn out looking even better than ours.

Okay... on to the part I'm super stoked about. First tested it on the front of the driver's side and it seemed viable. Then executed it on the passenger rear and it's better than expected. The small section of roof between the wall is stuck into the slot of the roof extrusion (just like the center panel - though ours had to be cut since we have brackets there and yours will not). Then the upper wall piece (which covers the electrical cables - get rid of that plastic cover on the driver's side) drops into the bottom rail and duo-lock velcros to the upper wall, which holds the ceiling piece in place.

In this photo, I took the panel back off to show how it's held on at the top.

Here's the side panel. Duo lock on the top, these z-clips on the bottom. Initially, we were going to screw the z-clips on but they held great with just VHB. That much cleaner. They have thick UHMW tape on the bottom where they drop into the extrusion slots to assure they don't rattle. We went with making these side panels flush with the extrusion so they would be clean as the back of the cabinets as well as look clean where exposed.

Here's the panel installed. Super clean. It holds the ceiling section up with a perfect seam - even though the top is actually hanging loose until the side panel goes in and the side panel is just resting in the slot then duolock holds it in at the top. Super maintainable to get back behind the cover. Remove cabinets, pull the panel off. No rattles observed, either - which is primarily why the Thinsulate is there.

Then bolt the cabinets up and it's clean as can be. I still have to decide how I'm doing the lower section (probably fabric wrapped) but you're probably on a cleaner route there than we are - since we did the 1/2" ply setup behind everything and you won't have that problem.

Cabinets are also in the, "so proud of how clever we are," category. They ONLY bolt to the rails using 90-degree angles between the extrusions where the angles are allowed to pivot. This is true at all three cabinet heights and depths: meeting the side and top rails (back cabinet); just past side and top (middle cabinet); and extended beyond and below the side and top (front-most cabinets).

Here's a shot where you can see the middle and front. The rear in this was an even smaller one that we abandoned. It's a little hard to envision... but every point where the cabinet connects to the top or side rails is able to be pivoted /just a bit/ to accommodate the non-square-ness. End results: cabinets at perfectly squared-up angles and only need to cut the side-panels to accommodate any minor changes.

Here's the passenger side before installing the outlets and without doors or sides on the middle cabinet.

Yeah... I need to put this in our build thread. Hope that was helpful. Or... just me blathering, I guess. 😏 🤣

eranrund · Feb 10, 2022

Bajabound said:
I think I watched someone overcome that by using the miter saw to cut a angled spacer. Just an idea. Truth is I have yet to tackel the project, so I have no experiance just ideas.

This is doable but tricky, since without an "opposing" spacer, the bolt head will be going against the angled surface, not evenly touching it. The L brackets idea will be easier in that regard but it will occupy the side of the extrusion which will interfere with the ceiling panels, so its a tradeoff.

gregoryx said:
Edit: just barfed on your build thread. I'll kill this and move it to mine if you like.

I was concerned about the non-square aspects of the ceiling extrusions AND the wall extrusions (even /closer/ to square t the floor... but not square).

I'm super, super happy with the way we ended up doing it. And yours would work even better than ours because you don't have the angle-brackets on the ceiling extrusions. I /thought/ I'd posted this stuff, but it doesn't look like it's posted in our build thread. I'll have to address that.

You're already right-on with the 1/4" sheet inserted into the roof extrusions in the middle. Just pull those up with bolts through them into your rivnuts and you're good to go, obviously. Ours is pulled up with wood screws into 1x2 pieces that are held up with the rivnuts. Your only challenge here will be that you /might/ need/want a spacer depending how tight the panel pulls up with your setup. I, for one, think you should /not make it square to the floor; the center screws pull it up into a slightly dome-shaped setup and that looks better, I think; and the angled extrusions help that happen - with the shape of the roof.
View attachment 167023

Wherever there are roof seams, there will need to be a cover to tie them to each other. We used 1/2" baltic birch routed to clean it up a bit. I figured it would be temporary; but have grown to like it. As you know by now, this is the easy part. Yours will turn out looking even better than ours.
View attachment 167025

Okay... on to the part I'm super stoked about. First tested it on the front of the driver's side and it seemed viable. Then executed it on the passenger rear and it's better than expected. The small section of roof between the wall is stuck into the slot of the roof extrusion (just like the center panel - though ours had to be cut since we have brackets there and yours will not). Then the upper wall piece (which covers the electrical cables - get rid of that plastic cover on the driver's side) drops into the bottom rail and duo-lock velcros to the upper wall, which holds the ceiling piece in place.

In this photo, I took the panel back off to show how it's held on at the top.
View attachment 167026

Here's the side panel. Duo lock on the top, these z-clips on the bottom. Initially, we were going to screw the z-clips on but they held great with just VHB. That much cleaner. They have thick UHMW tape on the bottom where they drop into the extrusion slots to assure they don't rattle. We went with making these side panels flush with the extrusion so they would be clean as the back of the cabinets as well as look clean where exposed.
View attachment 167027

Here's the panel installed. Super clean. It holds the ceiling section up with a perfect seam - even though the top is actually hanging loose until the side panel goes in and the side panel is just resting in the slot then duolock holds it in at the top. Super maintainable to get back behind the cover. Remove cabinets, pull the panel off. No rattles observed, either - which is primarily why the Thinsulate is there.
View attachment 167029

Then bolt the cabinets up and it's clean as can be. I still have to decide how I'm doing the lower section (probably fabric wrapped) but you're probably on a cleaner route there than we are - since we did the 1/2" ply setup behind everything and you won't have that problem.
View attachment 167030

Cabinets are also in the, "so proud of how clever we are," category. They ONLY bolt to the rails using 90-degree angles between the extrusions where the angles are allowed to pivot. This is true at all three cabinet heights and depths: meeting the side and top rails (back cabinet); just past side and top (middle cabinet); and extended beyond and below the side and top (front-most cabinets).

Here's a shot where you can see the middle and front. The rear in this was an even smaller one that we abandoned. It's a little hard to envision... but every point where the cabinet connects to the top or side rails is able to be pivoted /just a bit/ to accommodate the non-square-ness. End results: cabinets at perfectly squared-up angles and only need to cut the side-panels to accommodate any minor changes.
View attachment 167035

Here's the passenger side before installing the outlets and without doors or sides on the middle cabinet.
View attachment 167037

Yeah... I need to put this in our build thread. Hope that was helpful. Or... just me blathering, I guess. 😏 🤣

This was helpful! Thank you. I don't mind it being on my thread - but I do think you should also put it on yours

Your result is super clean! I like your different-sized overhead cabinets, and it's good to know that the angle of the long beams was not an issue. I agree that a curved ceiling will look better, but is harder to accomplish (I think? getting more bolts to align is always a pain for me). I see you placed your long rails closer to the side walls than I did, which makes it possible to have the narrower cabinets, and a smaller "side ceiling" panel (the ones you showed with the velcro and Z clips). I'll need to think about that since I do like the end result.

My current plan for attaching my ceiling panel so it doesn't rattle is perhaps overly complicated. I just ordered brackets that look like this:

The idea is that they sit on top of the long extrusion pieces and are bolted using that big hole to the extrusion. Then a wooden spacer that has a thread insert in the middle is bolted under the extrusion, and the ceiling panel bolts to that (if I manage to get the holes to align - seriously hate that part of the build...)

Perhaps this sketch explains it better:

On one hand I like the idea of bolting the panel closer to the center so that it will end up curved, but I also like the idea of only having fasteners close to the extrusion and not in the center of the panel. Separately, with my 8020 beam being ~37" away from each other, the 1/4" BB ceiling panel is too rigid to bend in any meaningful way. To get it into the 8020 slot I had to creep on it with the tablesaw until it was just a tad bit wider than the space between the inner slot of the extrusion and the outer slot on the opposite side:

This allowed me to snap it in and then carefully adjust it so it is still hanging inside the slot on both sides. I started with a panel that was the full width between the inner parts, but that was not going to happen. I think if I wanted a domed ceiling I will have to move the beams closer to the walls like you did, and maybe that will give the panel enough flex. @gregoryx did you use baltic birch for the 1/4" panel or perhaps a different type of plywood that is lighter/more flexible? Do you have any tips on how to get the dimensions right, and how to accurately locate the fastener holes?

A big TBD is what I am going to finish the panel with, and how the potential extra thickness will affect things. I am currently debating the following options:

Landau foam + tweed fabric - this is likely the lightest and easiest to do, although I have never upholstered a thing in my life. This will be a good opportunity to learn as the shape and cut outs are fairly simple. I think seam between panels with this trim will be elegant and not require a trim piece.
Decorative laminate (Formica or such). Ordered a bunch of samples of Wilsonart from Home Depot last night to evaluate. I do like the cabin in the woods look but I am not sure this will give that to me or just look cheap. Also a fairly light option and should be easy to execute on. This will require a trim piece between the panels.
Figure out a way to do tongue and groove cedar paneling. This will be the most labor intensive and likely heavy. I do like how it looks, and thats what I did for my previous van. Current thought on that route is instead of having a 1/4" BB panel, I will build a panel out of the tongue and groove planks, with some backing cross pieces to hold it together. That might actually end up being more flexible than the 1/4" BB piece I experimented with, which might make it easier to work with?

Thank you and cheers!

gregoryx · Feb 12, 2022

Upper-wall / ceiling post.
This is one of the more cool things - at least the way it ended up working.

Making the center of the ceiling install got pretty easy by leaving out any concerns of the side walls - how to meet the off-angle setup and variations as the wall meet differently where there are cross-members or not.

It's a little hard to describe... so here's a shot of the rear driver's side with cabinet frames in place but no wall or ceiling behind them. The lower long extrusion (nearly 12 feet long running from rear to near-front) happens to be /pretty close/ to perpendicular to the floor if you go straight up. Maybe it makes sense to look at the panel on the far right of this photo. It meets the extrusion at the front edge but meets a small spacer (like 3/16") at the top and thus becomes "straight" relative to the floor. That's what inspired the final method.

While trying to figure out how to best attach that side panel AND how to hold the ceiling in place, we noticed that the panel above IS holding the ceiling in place... meaning if we really do it right, this could be done with little to no visible hardware. New goal!

So... pull the cabinets down (started with the driver's side) and make a white ceiling panel that fits into the slot on the ceiling extrusion and fits perfectly up against the upper 1/2" ply on the wall. THEN the trick / cool part; make the wall-panel so that it is held into the wall-extrusion and magically STICKS to the wall at the top, thus holding the ceiling in place. All well and good... but rattling a bit, of course. Add Thinsulate to both top and side and the tension holds it all perfectly solid.

Here's the side panel. Duo lock on the top, these z-clips on the bottom. Initially, we were going to screw the z-clips on but they held great with just VHB. That much cleaner. They have thick UHMW tape on the bottom where they drop into the extrusion slots to assure they don't rattle. We went with making these side panels flush with the extrusion so they would be clean as the back of the cabinets as well as look clean where exposed.

Popped that thing up with both pieces and did the happy-dance. So cool how clean it came out!

There are two elements that aren't as /perfect/ as they could be: the 90-degree mounts that hold the extrusion on the wall had to be addressed - that's the little notches at the bottom. And there are similar notches on the ceiling extrusion as well - not at all visible here or even if you try, really. So... yay!

Here's a shot with the piece of Thinsulate on the back.

Added outlets to be accessible inside each cabinet.

Then re-installed the cabinets.

Funny part, of course, is that all of that is only visible if one opens the cabinets mostly. But now we need to replicate it three more times: the opposite side, then both sides in the front.

You can see at the back of the shower here (doesn't have the water-proof piece in place) that the original test-case is still in place and looking half-decent.

3M Scotch 5952 VHB Tape: 1 in. x 15 ft. (Black)

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