Another nice day to work on the van, but time with the family limited me as to the amount of time I had. I also continue to wait for some wire lugs and aluminum extrusion fasteners that prevent me from doing quite a bit of work. The wire lugs should be here later today (I hope) and will allow me to complete the electrical cabinet wiring. The fasteners were sent via USPS, so with tomorrow being Labor Day, they won’t be here until Tuesday.
My first task was to install the safe under the lower bunk and in front of the heater. I started out by installing the bottom panel slide rail into the extrusion that goes along the floor. This rail is what I will use to hold the panel that will hide the safe from view. Once the rail was installed, I measured the thickness of the board that I needed to put under the safe so the door to the safe would open and clear the rail.
I used a jigsaw to cut a piece of 3/4″ plywood to size and used some 1 1/2″ wood screws to fasten the safe through the plywood board and into the floor of the van. It’s solid. I then installed the top rail into the opening. Here is a picture of the safe where you can see the two aluminum rails installed in the lower bunk extrusions.
Those aluminum rails are supposed to be used to install a set of sliding doors into an opening. But I’m using them to just hold one panel. The nice thing about them is that when you cut the panel to the correct size, you can slide it up into the upper rail and it will swing into the lower rail when you drop the panel. I then cut the panel to hide the safe. It took a few times to get the sizing right and I had a bias to cutting it too large at first as I could always remove material until it was correct. After a few cuts, I got the panel to be the correct size and here is what it looks like installed.
This is how I plan to leave it. You’d never know that there is a safe behind that panel. And, it is doubtful that someone would even know that this panel can be removed.
I then moved on to making similar doors for the large openings in the electrical cabinet. Having the experience with the opening for the safe definately helped. I installed the rails and cut the panels to size with less rework. I fit the panels into place, but had to notch the lower panel for the brackets that hold the extrusions together. Here is what they look like fit into place.
I then took them down and applied some Minwax paste to the surface. On these two panels I will also put some handles to make them easier to remove and install.
That was all I had time for today, but was happy to make some additional progress.