Blinds

My working environment .......

This part is a bit of personal choice. Our previous camping experiences lead us to be very clear in our mind that thermal silver backed blinds make a huge difference to night time heat loss and comfort in the evening and at night. But, these puppies don’t come made to measure so this involves a bit of work.

Most important they need to be thin so that they fit between the sliding door and the bodywork, next they need to be adjustable, we want the maximum visibility out of our van when the windows are open so each blind is adjusted accordingly.

We chose the SEITZ SUPERMINI ART 1302 and got them from Autocraft in Staveley near Chesterfield

I am putting them in a frame mounted as close to the glass as possible on the door so as to allow it to open without fouling the side of the van. On the off side however they are going on a frame face fixed to allow for the wardrobe that will cover half the off side rear window.

So having bought the blinds, the foam card templates (see Oct blog) needed some fine tuning. Also the timber mounting points were attached using Sikaflex …. My oh my that stuff is sooo strong I am well impressed ! Note the timber strips were chamfered to give a vertical face for the frames – lucky me, I got a band saw.

Then the templates applied to the ply and a weekend of sawing with the good old jigsaw and then offering the panels up and screwing in place. Note the holes not yet cut in the ply. My motto …. measure 3 million times and only make a couple of cock ups !

Then the blinds need to be cut to size – “they” say they are not adjustable but if you are doing a van conversion this will not be a problem. A couple of screws (pozidrive or star depending on age of your blind ) will release the mechanism, off come the end caps and slide out the spring mechanism, the blind (fly screen or blackout) may have a drop of super glue holding it in the aluminium strip – a long finger nail run down the groove should find it then a Stanley knife scraped over it a few times should release it and let it slide out. Measure the case, tube and aluminium strips 3 million times and cut off the excess. Don’t forget to cut of equal lengths left and right of the aluminum strips so the blind/screen still clip together when closed. Stanley knife comes in again to cut the fly screen/blind. Reassemble.

I wanted a real small blind for the half width window by the wardrobe – this required the actual spring mechanism shortening … slide the spring out of the way and play at blacksmith ! Beat the metal rod flat so it will engage in the end cap and saw off the required amount. Then I found that in another blind there was a shorter mechanism that would have avoided the need for playing with a hammer!

Having reduced the blinds to size – fix all in place to check previous measurements and then back to the jigsaw to cut out the holes..…… cant be long now before the carpet starts to be installed … ooer!

Rock N Roll Bed - Cannon Forge

Same weekend and just after the roof went on we headed down the M1 to Worksop for the bed installing by Dave from Cannons Forge. He has a couple of web sites right now … one may disappear soon….

Cannon Forge and Cannons Forge .... :-)

Dave Cannon is a really friendly and helpful guy, answering all sorts of dumb questions with tremendous patience. When we bought the bed he only had a couple of choices for foam and cushion coverings so we are getting them from another supplier.

Here are a few thoughts for you to consider though when debating what density of foam to use on your bed.

Blue foam is hard / firm and is ideal for sitting on but rock hard for sleeping on (some folks add memory foam toppers to compensate for this)
Yellow foam is soft and ideal for sleeping but you sink right through it when you sit on it and bottom out (sorry) on the boards beneath.
Solution …. Use both … blue on the seat part of your RnR bed and yellow for the rest of it. Lets face it there will only be your feet on the blue stuff if you sleep with your head at the back of the van.

High Top Roof from Drivelodge

Wow – its an age since I posted here, well I’ve been busy when weather permitted.

The new High Top Roof is now on … Thank you DRIVELODGE :)
I took out the headlining to save for later. There are two key jobs here ,1 remove the trim in the middle of the van – it just pops out but you have to be firm with it and the second was removal of the interior lights.

Again they just pop out.

Some folks have had problems here with wires snapping because they took the headlining down with lights still in place … WOOPS :( … thanks for the warnings there folks. So pop them out and shove them back above the board.

Then the fun part - taking out the VW trim clips – again I had less problem here than many other folks report – I have a hex key in my Halfords socket set that’s a perfect fit.

Then just lower the boards nice and gently (two pairs of hands make this easier) store for later and drive off to Keighly.

A few days later – it’s a new van ! ..... and I think you can just see the Cannon Forge RnR bed in there too .... more later.