I wasn’t feeling well on Tuesday, so I rested the entire day. Still wasn’t feeling well on Wednesday, but I was itching to work on the van. So, I put in a short day of work. Took a Covid test that night, and it was positive. That explains the sickness, as I rarely get sick. I did a short day of light activity work on the van on Thursday as well, so that is why I’m combining these two days into one post.
What I wanted to do on the van was to install the linoleum floor, as that task is holding up several other activities. However, that task is too physically demanding to do while I’m sick. The linoleum install will also take several continuous hours to complete. I’m basically working of tasks that I can put in an hour, or less, at a time with long breaks in between.
So, I did some lighter activity. I started out with installing four missing pieces of insulation in the van. One was the piece I took down on Sunday to install the wire gland for the solar panels. Two other pieces were in the ceiling around the MaxAir fan. These had been missing for a while, mostly due to my apathy. The last piece of insulation was inside the van wall. I discovered this piece was missing when I was running some wire harnesses. Now, all the insulation is in the van.
The next item I tackled was to fill a seam in the subfloor where two of the boards meet, but didn’t match up exactly. It was minor, and I was going to let it go, but now I had the time and it was an easy fix. I filled the seam with wood puddy, and sanded it down after it dried overnight. It’s hard to see, but here is a picture of it (the puddy runs vertically in the picture below).
Then I decided to make a furring strip for the ceiling at the front of the van. I wasn’t sure that I would need this furring strip, but since I had time, I decided to make it. The roof in the front of the van is not flat, it curves with a high point in the middle. This curve doesn’t match the rest of the van, and I am worried that the pine slats that I put in the ceiling will look weird if they twist up by the driver’s seat. So, I cut out a piece of 1/2″ Baltic Birch plywood to length. Then I marked it up and used a jig saw to cut the top of the piece to the curve of the roof of the van. on the bottom of the furring strip, I cut it to match the rest of the beams in the ceiling of the van. So now, the pine slats won’t twist, and I also will have a furring strip to secure the end of the slats to. I openned up two small holes in the van to install rivnuts and used these rivnuts to secure this final furring strip. Here is what it looks like installed.
The next task I took on was another task that I wasn’t sure I wanted to do. But, again, since I had some time I decided to do it. The task was to create a small cubby hole for the person in the upper bunk to use to store some items (e.g., cell phone, wallet, etc.) There was a spot in the wall of the van where I felt I could create a cubby hole. Here is what it looked like.
There is a 3+” gap from the insulation in the wall of the van to the inner wall of the van, which I felt would be sufficient to put a little cubby hole into. I also had two holes in the inner wall of the van here that I could put rivnuts into to hold the cubby to the van. I sketched out a design and used some scrap pieces of plywood to fabricate a cubby. I mostly just used glue to hold the boards together, and I’m pretty happy with the results.
I’ll now have to go back to the wall panel and cut out a hole to match it. So, the wall panel will be the face on the cubby hole.
I then took on a project that I find tedius and boring. I cut out the two boards for the lower bunk/bench out of 1/2″ Baltic Birch plywood. I then drilled 1 1/2″ holes into these boards every four inches to serve as an air release when someone sits or lays down on the lower bunk. These holes are needed, because I’m using a vinyl fabric for the lower bunk and the air won’t escape well from the mattress through this vinyl fabric. Here is what the bench back board looks like with the holes drilled into it.
The drilling of the holes is a tedius process, because the glues from the plywood gum up the drill bit. So, I have to clear the gunk from the teeth of the drill bit about four times for each hole. But, it’s a good project for when I’m looking for easy things that I can easily put down when I need to take a break. by the end of the day, I drilled 76 holes and have 50 more to do.
Now I’m just praying to feel better, so I can take on some more challenging work. I’m also worried that I’ll run out of small stuff that I can do….
Also, I went over 200 hours of build time for the van today. So, that was interesting.