My day was open, so I put in a lot of work on the van. I started by test fitting the microwave into the cabinet that I installed into the van yesterday. I was concerned about how big that cabinet was and how it would block my view of the galley counter. After putting in the microwave, I figured that I could make the cabinet just over two inches shorter and an inch and a half less deep. I think that will make a big enough difference that I decided to remake that cabinet. If I don’t do it now, I’m not sure when it will happen. So, later in the day when my friend Pat stopped by to visit, I put him to work helping me remove the microwave cabinet from the van. I’ll work on it once I reach a stopping point on the galley.
The rest of the day I was focused on the galley. I started by mounting the folding table, because I had to disassemble the top rail extrusion to install the folding table. It fit fine. From there, I installed one wood panel at a time. I test fit the panel and for most of them I had to mark at least one cut-out to get around a bracket. After I cut out notches for the brackets, I test fit it into the frame to ensure it fit properly. Then I used 3/4″ wood screws to secure the wood panel to the aluminum extrusion frame. I repeated that process for each board, and after a couple of hours I had them all attached. Here is what they looked like. The orange clamp is holding the folding table up to keep it from crashing to the ground.
I then cut out a hole in the one panel for the 120V AC outlet that will be part of the galley. Unfortunately, I didn’t think about doing that before I had mounted that wood panel into the frame. So, I had to remove it, cut the hole out, then re-attach the panel to the frame.
You can see the cabinet door hinges on the right side of the frame on the pictures above. My next task was to make the door that goes on those hinges. I cut the door out of 1/2″ baltic birch plywood. But that wasn’t thick enough for the hinges, so I glued some 1/4″ birch plywood strips to the board to increase the board thickness to 3/4″.
I let that glue dry while I went to lunch. When I returned, I drilled out the hole for the European hinge in the door. After some adjustment of the hinges on the frame, I got the door attached. I was very satisfied that it closed without any interference and the door was centered in the cabinet frame. That was my first time making a door panel with this style of hinge. I was glad that I practiced on a scrap piece of wood before doing it for real.
My friend, Pat, stopped by again and I put him to work again. This time helping me lift the galley fabrication up into the van. The galley is a lot heavier with all these panels on it, and I wanted it to be in the van before I put the heavy counter top and refrigerator in it. I worked on the galley the rest of the day in the van.
The first thing I did was to re-bolt the galley to the unistrut to secure it in the van. However, some of my brackets and wood panels interfered with one of the unistrut connections. So, I had to move some brackets and also remove one wood panel to cut a notch out in it. Eventurally, I got the galley bolted to the van.
I then added a slam latch to the cabinet door, so it wouldn’t open while I was driving. This was my first time installing a slam latch, but I had practiced on a scrap piece of wood yesterday, which helped. The hardest part was measuring how far into the board to drill the hole for the slam latch. I triple checked my measurements before drilling that hole. It ended up in the right place. Then I mounted the catch for the latch. I used self tapping screws to bolt the latch directly to the aluminum extrusion. It took me three tries to get the catch in the correct location. But now I have a cabinet door that works well and latches when closed.
I drilled holes in a couple of the interior wood panels to route the electrical wires to where they were needed in the galley. Then I wired up the water pump for the sink, which also required a switch to be wired to turn the pump on and off when not in use. I also wired up the 120V outlet on the side of the galley. Here are some pictures.
After that, I called it a day. I had put in almost eight hours of work today and I think I made some good progress. I plan to continue work on the galley tomorrow. Next steps are the install the refrigerator and the counter top.