Their signature series was way beyond my expectations. I haven't tested it as far as it'll go but I've has a single bag of ice in it without pre-cooling and gone back 5 days after and it was still more than 50% ice
There are building companies around that are making 2 story homes and the top floor pod has walls made out of foam sandwich. They are about 100mm thick sheets with hard inner/outer. I have seen plenty of large offcuts in their skip bins.
Fibreglass with closed cell foam beats all the moulded ones hands down. Always has. The moulded ones are a mixed bunch, I had one once that literally wouldn't last a day with a 15kg bag of ice.I'v had a number of glass ones over the years, both professionally and self made, and two weeks on bagged ice is certainly not out of the question in an Exmouth winter , with daytime temps always at least 25 deg, fish being put on it every day. My rigid box is currently a Waeco 111 litre moulded, because I didn't have the time to make a glass one. Filled it with two large blocks, after a pre-cool with a small bag, was down to 30% after two weeks at Winderabandi. Dropped a half dozen of the small blocks supplied by Bluewater Tackle at Exmouth in it, lasted another two weeks.
If you are thinking of making your own, DO NOT use that iceroom metal foam sandwich stuff. it is utterly useless. Tough, yes, but the fact you are thermally joining the inner lining to the outer shell by using ali angle and channel means you are constantly transferring the outer heat to the ice.
If you have any fibreglassing skills , they are not hard to make. Use a minimum 50mm wall thickness, 75mm is good, 100 mm best but obviously you are reducing capacity for the same external dimensions. Cut all your pieces nice and square, and use timber dowel to hold them all in place before you laminate strips of glass and resin around the corners to hold it rigid. Getting the seal right around the top will require you to have it all very even on the top of the walls, so the last one I made, I cut out a plywood frame to match the top dimensions, glassed that on, perfect fit for the seal when it is all finished. Remember you will need something to screw your hinges and catches to, no good rushing that part of it, so work out where they will be, and glass lengths of 45x20mm hardwood in to screw into.
A tip for finishing off---old, worn flap discs are great for knocking the imperfections off your finished job.
Ranmar 850 cheers for all the info got told by a few people to use the coolroom sandwich panel as youve said about heat transfer makes sence where could i get the 75mm foam from cheers daniel
have got the tropical and its ok but the big fibreglass engel is far superior,not being tight with the ice also helps heaps.made one out of a broken chest freezer about 1400mm long cut it down to 600mm high then reattached lid that badboy would last 3 days in a Meekatharra summer and cost a few angle grinder blades and some screws
go and see APFT Fibrefurn on Dobara road in bibra lake. They make the foam sheets on site and supply to boat builders for stringers etc.
Good info from Ranmar above, you can dowell it (shish kabab sticks work well) or just hot glue the pieces together.
Lightly sand a round on the edges before you glass, timber for hinges + handles etc and resin coat the whole thing before you fibreglass are the main points
Its easy if you've worked with glass before but have a chat to them and you might be able to get them to glass it up if you make the esky
Made our own using coolroom panel, works just fine for what we use it for, ive often put large fish in there after a night fishing off the rocks with just a couple of bags of ice, in the morning they are very well chilled and the ice has hardly melted.
But that's all. Unless you have a way of breaking the connection between the inner and outer panels you are constantly transferring heat into them. I should have added that, if you can have an insulating material as the cap on top of the walls, and around the edges of the lid, and don't run any bolts all the way through to mount handles, etc, they are definitely better. But most people just seem to use ali channel or overlapping ali angle for that purpose.
For homemade, we're limited by the price of materials that are avail to each of us. Pricing gets to a point where it's no longer economical to build your own unless it's just enjoyment of making something unique for yourself. As Ranmar said typical is using coldroom panel which I have done but it's not as good as the better rotomould ones out there. However, even these have their own problems as the lids can still warp.
Ranmar, forgetting the price, what about fibreglassing the coldroom panels? Where edges join remove the metal on the inside before butting up. Fibreglassing will provide the strengths inside and out.
The metal sandwich foam does work well if you cut it properly, all 45° angles so that it's all foam on foam joins and no internal metal makes its way to the outside. If it does it'll act just like a heat sink pulling the outside heat in.
and I said in my above post, you need to insulate the inside from the outside if the sheets each side of the material are metal. This isn't too hard on the corners, but hardest is the" tops" of the walls, if you like , the bit the lid sits on. If you can find a non-metallic, plastic/fibreglass type material that will cover them and provide a good flat surface for the lid seal to sit on, you are good to go. And remember, same thing for the lid, unless you fab a lid out of sometning else altogether. Doing the outside and inside angles of the tops and bottom with ali angle won't be a problem, as you are just effectively joining them up into one big sheet. The trick is not to then join the inside to the outside by how you finish off the top.
Typically, this material is in 75 and 100mm thicknesses, please correct me if I'm wrong, so a plastic channel extrusion which would fit over the thickness would be perfect. Does anyone know where you would be likely to get something like this? Surely someone would supply it?
.thumbnail.jpg "Sherberts winning Flathead on the lie detector :)")
backlash
Posts: 335
Date Joined: 12/10/10
Tropical
The Best one I've used is the rotomolded orange tropical icebox
rock solid
tough
kept ice for 4 days in Karratha/Dampier heat
they're not cheap, but can be had for OK price on gumtree
next one of choice not plastic is evakool (fibreglass)
backlash
Posts: 335
Date Joined: 12/10/10
Tropical
The Best one I've used is the rotomolded orange tropical icebox
rock solid
tough
kept ice for 4 days in Karratha/Dampier heat
they're not cheap, but can be had for OK price on gumtree
next one of choice not plastic is evakool (fibreglass)
Moist and Salty
Posts: 102
Date Joined: 28/10/14
Techni-Ice every timeTheir
Techni-Ice every time
Their signature series was way beyond my expectations. I haven't tested it as far as it'll go but I've has a single bag of ice in it without pre-cooling and gone back 5 days after and it was still more than 50% ice
Marineboy
Posts: 844
Date Joined: 14/03/14
Iceboxes
i think this guy wants to make his own not buy a pre made one !
My spots are so secret even the fish don't know about them !
Oldbull
Posts: 179
Date Joined: 21/09/15
foam sandwich
There are building companies around that are making 2 story homes and the top floor pod has walls made out of foam sandwich. They are about 100mm thick sheets with hard inner/outer. I have seen plenty of large offcuts in their skip bins.
ranmar850
Posts: 2702
Date Joined: 12/08/12
You simply can't beat fibreglass
Fibreglass with closed cell foam beats all the moulded ones hands down. Always has. The moulded ones are a mixed bunch, I had one once that literally wouldn't last a day with a 15kg bag of ice.I'v had a number of glass ones over the years, both professionally and self made, and two weeks on bagged ice is certainly not out of the question in an Exmouth winter , with daytime temps always at least 25 deg, fish being put on it every day. My rigid box is currently a Waeco 111 litre moulded, because I didn't have the time to make a glass one. Filled it with two large blocks, after a pre-cool with a small bag, was down to 30% after two weeks at Winderabandi. Dropped a half dozen of the small blocks supplied by Bluewater Tackle at Exmouth in it, lasted another two weeks.
If you are thinking of making your own, DO NOT use that iceroom metal foam sandwich stuff. it is utterly useless. Tough, yes, but the fact you are thermally joining the inner lining to the outer shell by using ali angle and channel means you are constantly transferring the outer heat to the ice.
If you have any fibreglassing skills , they are not hard to make. Use a minimum 50mm wall thickness, 75mm is good, 100 mm best but obviously you are reducing capacity for the same external dimensions. Cut all your pieces nice and square, and use timber dowel to hold them all in place before you laminate strips of glass and resin around the corners to hold it rigid. Getting the seal right around the top will require you to have it all very even on the top of the walls, so the last one I made, I cut out a plywood frame to match the top dimensions, glassed that on, perfect fit for the seal when it is all finished. Remember you will need something to screw your hinges and catches to, no good rushing that part of it, so work out where they will be, and glass lengths of 45x20mm hardwood in to screw into.
A tip for finishing off---old, worn flap discs are great for knocking the imperfections off your finished job.
Daniel 82
Posts: 51
Date Joined: 20/01/14
Ranmar 850 cheers for all
Ranmar 850 cheers for all the info got told by a few people to use the coolroom sandwich panel as youve said about heat transfer makes sence where could i get the 75mm foam from cheers daniel
mark64
Posts: 90
Date Joined: 20/05/13
ranmar spot on
have got the tropical and its ok but the big fibreglass engel is far superior,not being tight with the ice also helps heaps.made one out of a broken chest freezer about 1400mm long cut it down to 600mm high then reattached lid that badboy would last 3 days in a Meekatharra summer and cost a few angle grinder blades and some screws
mark64
Billcollector
Posts: 2084
Date Joined: 16/05/09
Foam sales Norma road
Foam sales
Norma road Booragoon
chris raff
Posts: 3257
Date Joined: 09/02/10
Closed cell EVA is
Closed cell EVA is ridiculously expensive new
https://www.foamsales.com.au/products/eva-foam?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=googlepla&gclid=CJzmtNSUoNMCFQwAvAody2YLhQ&variant=10852875329
“Intelligence is like a four-wheel drive. It only allows you to get stuck in more remote places.”
swarf
Posts: 58
Date Joined: 07/08/13
esky foam
go and see APFT Fibrefurn on Dobara road in bibra lake. They make the foam sheets on site and supply to boat builders for stringers etc.
Good info from Ranmar above, you can dowell it (shish kabab sticks work well) or just hot glue the pieces together.
Lightly sand a round on the edges before you glass, timber for hinges + handles etc and resin coat the whole thing before you fibreglass are the main points
Its easy if you've worked with glass before but have a chat to them and you might be able to get them to glass it up if you make the esky
mjohns
Posts: 337
Date Joined: 11/01/07
Made our own using coolroom
Made our own using coolroom panel, works just fine for what we use it for, ive often put large fish in there after a night fishing off the rocks with just a couple of bags of ice, in the morning they are very well chilled and the ice has hardly melted.
ranmar850
Posts: 2702
Date Joined: 12/08/12
They are OK for overnight or a couple of days
But that's all. Unless you have a way of breaking the connection between the inner and outer panels you are constantly transferring heat into them. I should have added that, if you can have an insulating material as the cap on top of the walls, and around the edges of the lid, and don't run any bolts all the way through to mount handles, etc, they are definitely better. But most people just seem to use ali channel or overlapping ali angle for that purpose.
kknlk
Posts: 200
Date Joined: 30/12/08
For homemade, we're limited
For homemade, we're limited by the price of materials that are avail to each of us. Pricing gets to a point where it's no longer economical to build your own unless it's just enjoyment of making something unique for yourself. As Ranmar said typical is using coldroom panel which I have done but it's not as good as the better rotomould ones out there. However, even these have their own problems as the lids can still warp.
Ranmar, forgetting the price, what about fibreglassing the coldroom panels? Where edges join remove the metal on the inside before butting up. Fibreglassing will provide the strengths inside and out.
Stefan
Posts: 55
Date Joined: 01/11/16
The metal sandwich foam does
The metal sandwich foam does work well if you cut it properly, all 45° angles so that it's all foam on foam joins and no internal metal makes its way to the outside. If it does it'll act just like a heat sink pulling the outside heat in.
ranmar850
Posts: 2702
Date Joined: 12/08/12
As Stefan says
and I said in my above post, you need to insulate the inside from the outside if the sheets each side of the material are metal. This isn't too hard on the corners, but hardest is the" tops" of the walls, if you like , the bit the lid sits on. If you can find a non-metallic, plastic/fibreglass type material that will cover them and provide a good flat surface for the lid seal to sit on, you are good to go. And remember, same thing for the lid, unless you fab a lid out of sometning else altogether. Doing the outside and inside angles of the tops and bottom with ali angle won't be a problem, as you are just effectively joining them up into one big sheet. The trick is not to then join the inside to the outside by how you finish off the top.
Typically, this material is in 75 and 100mm thicknesses, please correct me if I'm wrong, so a plastic channel extrusion which would fit over the thickness would be perfect. Does anyone know where you would be likely to get something like this? Surely someone would supply it?