: thanks everbody for your intrest on this topic, and maybe i should give you a
: little background on my expertise for past number of years i have been
: working as a aircraft structural tech. in a heavy aircraft mod. center. i
: know a great deal about aluminum and composite material. let me give you
: some details of my idea for the outside skin i plan on .050/.063 thickness
: and frames and stringers .040 thickness this will make the structure very
: light and rigid. as for fasteners welding is out because it tends to crack
: when hit and focus's stress to one point, the use of solid rivets is
: preferred because they obsorb impact in their sheer numbers. after
: structure is completed the use blown in insulation will used for sound
: deadening, floatation and protection from cold/heat.

instead of blown in insulation, why not just use the insulation of a sandwich cored aluminum composite panel? comes in 3,4, 5 mm panels bonded w/ .020" alum on both sides.

to save wt(rather than intermittent rivets requiring stiffish panel), use some of that new flex epoxy (that is purported to glue aluminum [g-flex?]) to glue to the .050 stringers(if necessary?) and layer down another .02 or more alum only layer in outside high wear areas. and then lap .020" x 1" wide alum 'tape' all the seams (w/ the epoxy or p/u sealant).

just might work. the difficulty will be getting the right size composite panels, but if you have expertise and equipment, you might be able to engineer/order them up for yourself.

like the others, i think you'll cry the first time you dent the nice beautiful polished flat fragile surface but i just love the idea and encourage you to go for it. many of us will go nuts.

another idea for just frame and sheet is to hammer the sheets or random cell hammer so that the surface texture does not really show normal wear and tear damage. that might be just totally cool. maybe really cool in that it'd look like ice.

[one of my many dreams is to take one of my surf or play designs and instead of 3mm ply only for the many panels - use alternating ply and diamond plate chromium steel.
except the diamond plate is actually one of those light plastic panels that just looks like diamond plate. cover all inside and out w/ glass and who's to know?? that would get some real chuckles, heh heh heh.]

but it wouldn't be the real thing like you're contemplating, so good luck.

mick