A beautiful day for working on the van. I started out by installing the microwave cabinet into the van with help from Elizabeth. It sticks out from the wall a little farther than I would like, but I’m going to let it go for now. It’s really solid in there. You could hang from it. I have it bolted to the upper unistrut channel on the wall and there are two wood screws into the furring strip in the top corner of the wall, and one screw into a furring strip in the ceiling. At the time I installed the cabinet, I didn’t have the switch for the under cabinet light, so I moved on to work on the galley fabrication for the rest of the day. But during the day, the switch arrived. So, I’ll be able to go back anytime and finish the microwave install. Here is what it looked like hanging in the van.
The rest of the day, I worked on the galley fabrication. I removed the fabrication from the van and worked on it in the garage. I disassembled most of it, so that I could add the necessary brackets and fasteners to secure all the stuff that gets bolted to the aluminum extrusion frame. As I was doing that, I had to make some decisions on how everything was going to be bolted together. I also moved one of the vertical pieces over one inch to give me room to mount the sink in the counter.
There was some time spent investigating how some of the aspects of the build were going to work. For example, I plan to use “slam latches” in the van. These latches are going to be on all the drawers and doors and will hold them shut when the van is in motion. Slam latches are used a lot on boats. But, I have never installed one. So, i usee some scrap lumber to test out how to install one and the spacing that I need to use so it works properly. There was some trial and error, but I was able to figure out a good method.
I also tested out how to install a rivnut into a wooden board. I’m doing this in a few places on the galley, but had never used one of these before. So, again I used some scrap wood to test out how they worked. The are pretty simple, but I didn’t want my first time using one to be on a finished piece for the van.
Finally, I also am going to bolt a wooden board directly to the aluminum extrusion without brackets. I hadn’t done that before, so I tested that process out on a scrap piece of wood.
With all the brackets and fasteners installed on the aluminum extrusion frame, and all the testing of different attachment methods, I’m ready tomorrow to assemble the wall panels to the extrusion.
No picture of the extrusion today, as it looks quite like it did before with more brackets on it. Tomorrow I’ll post a picture of it with all the panels on it.