Well I thought I'd give you a quick update.

Jeff was pretty quick on getting the engine put together and Laura has settled into her new home nicely.

I have had a tough time at work lately , main the work life balance was way out (has been for some time) and so I have put it right by going part time.
Aswell as the want to get Laura done there was also the fact that I sold my flat and bought a house with garden AND garage. Up until 3 weeks ago I was hardly there, consequently the back grass in nearly 2 foot high !
Part time will mean I can have time to do this. (I found myself weeding the front garden at 10pm a few months ago as this was the only time I had. Either that or it didn't get done).

So any way.

I am now slowly making progress on Lauras OG interior.

I am trying to keep as much of it as I possibly can but some bits are just so rotten theyre not much more than dust.

Lots of pics coming soon.

J

Looking forward to the pics

rusty1962 wrote:Looking forward to the pics

I must catch up on Rusty's thread too. Last time I got up to page 70, so there's a bit to do !
J

Glad your back on it, looking forward to more progress bud!

so I got a load of stuff back from my barn and into my garage, remade the metal shelving units and started tidying up but after a couple of goes at it I wanted to get Laura's interior started and to put back together.

The OG interior, some of it , is REALLY fragile and has got knocked about and broken ( more later ) and the longer I leave it out and getting moved about , the more likely damage will result.

So 1st I wanted to replace the long panel,

I made this a long while ago. If I'm totally honest with you , it's not as good as I make them now.

Here's the thing, I can be a real perfectionist. The stuff I make I like to be spot on. I want a good reputation and want people who buy my stuff to recommend me.
Laura is an old hippy van, and in BJ1's words. " if you over restore her you'll lose the character" . So this long panel that isn't the best and has a water stain from the leaky window is perfect for Laura.

I started in the corner where it won't be seen with a 50/50 mix of the 2 stains, this was too light - you can see the 1st attempt around the to grain rings in the 1st photo.
I then added a bit more dark, more of which you can see out side of teh 2 grain rings in the 1st photo and all the 2nd photo.
More Dark was needed and this time I was happy - 3rd photo.

I then stained the whole panel , but when I cam back to the prt where I started and over lapped the stain got really quite dark. It's a bit of a mistake , but this is where the seat behind the bulk head will be with a cushion on top so won't really be seen, and even if it is, it's a hippy bus

and as you can see next to an OG piece ( which I'm not sure I can save ) it looks the part

All in all I was pleased with how thing had gone and it got me ready to tackle the next job of getting the main components out of the "2nd" barn,

and this I knew was going to be GRIM

As I mentioned I wanted to get the OG interior out of storage and back into Laura.

not a pleasant task.

a while back I noticed there was a pigeon in the barn so I did my best to cover every thing, well everything that was worth saving , but some bits I missed. I missed but the pigeon/s didn't.




I decided to start with the under RnR bed kick board, and as you can see it's in a pretty sorry state, although the damage was done in California due to leaky windows, the birds just gave it a covering.







Anything that I coul remove and clean and use again was taken off








I found a piece of wood that I had an angle cut along like the OG still in good condition, cut the notch out like the OG but the other end had rotted away, judging by the end it looks like it had a similar notch but at this moment I'm not sure of it's final length.






I took measurements and made a copy out of 6mm birch ply, in the second photo you can see that the OG seems to be not square, I cant think of a reason, so I made it square.






In this pic you can see that I have left the copied piece over sized. The OG piece has rotted away so I can t copy the curve of the long panel, I'll do this later when it come to fitting.





I then used impact adhesive to fix the strengthening strips instead of the OG pins, as these were under the birds mess and , well nothing wrong with using modern tech a little on a job like this.




That's it for now, but tonight I have been out in the garage making the last of the metal shelves and getting the place in order.

Busy day tomorrow.

going to collect the last of the OG furniture - the RnR bed.
undo the fabric from cushion and go to the foam shop and get some new Foam, and have a look for some seat material.
go to wood yard collect some oil impregnated hard board ( for new cab door cards ) and some Varnish ( to preserve the OG interior ).
collect some more birch ply to make some more interior copies
make copies
stain and varnish
try and repair the rear shelf
try and make some room in the garage






***** mods*****
there is a pic here but I can't get rid of it , it does not show on screen when I use the edit button so therefore can't delete it ???? below this line.

Jason - photo removed, it was in the attachments but you hadn't placed it "inline" so it puts it at the bottom of your post - Richard (8 8US)

So I managed to get a lot of the bits done on Friday and most parts are at my place and I even selected a matt varnish to use to help protect the interior panels from crumbling further but with out the unwanted shine.

I wanted to start fixing the OG panels back to the bus but this inner corner panel has rotted away at the bottom corner and what's left is ( as ever ) very brittle and fragile.
I want to fix a piece of flexi ply behind it to replace what's rotted away and then maybe glue some OG veneer to it to replace what's missing - don't know how it will look but I think it will be better than having a hole with the white polystyrene showing through.
So 1st off the flexi ply isn't that flexi in small pieces and clamping to really really fragile curvy pieces isn't really an option, so I think impact adhesive is going to have to be the way forward, but again there's the fragile curve piece to the relatively flat piece.

Answer - curve the flat piece




a couple of days with the flexi pli strapped to a shape similar to the curve in the wood will hopefully make the flexi take on a bit of a bend and there fore not put too uch of a strain on the OG piece.


next up is my inner corner shelf that will fit over the piece above.

This has got knocked about a bit and believe it or not broken. This really pi**ed me as really it shouldn't of happened but it has and now I want to fix it. not only that there is also a crack in the front veneer - it's falling to pieces.

To repair this I have decided to stick a piece of flexiply behind the strip along the top but there is a small 1x1 block that is nailed to both sides of the corner.
I have to remove this, but in doing so, even though I was as carefull as I could the piece broke slightly. Veneer just come away, and nails were pulled through the wood instead of out of the block.

I started by gluing the veneer back together so the strengthening strip would be sitting flush and therefore the outside would be flush as well.



All was clamped together but again, more damage was done as the piece was moved around and this large splinter came lose. It's quite a dark piece and the wood behind is quite light and as this is on a corner that faces into the van it's going to have to be glued back in.







In this last photo you can see where the nail has been pulled through the wood and also where the splinter will be glued back.

I got back home tonight and took the clamps off and I am pleased to say that the piece is much more solid now and much less likely to brake further.



The crack is still visible when seen straight on, but some of it will be covered by the tassel strip.

It s back on with the wood work for Laura again.

It's been a while since MOT and I'm getting itchy feet to drive her but also not wanting to until the interior is finished and in, and if I am to varnish and repair everything there's a LOT to do and it doesnt help when you try to repair something it brakes in another place

but these are my challenges and I shall over come, it's just time.

so 1st up was the corner shelf cabinet.

I didn't take much in the way of photo's but needless to say it's a bit more sturdy now and despite the splinter that came out splitting in 2 I repaired it and reused the old nails, but I had to glue the block in as it was to fragile to be swaying around and then hammered !




next up is the rear corner piece with the bottom that's crumbling into dust

I was going to glue a piece of flexi ply behind it and then maybe stain it but then thought I could stick on some OG ply from one of the old door cards that had pretty much rotten away but there was still some og ply that might match and I only need a little bit.

I got as far as strapping the piece of ply to a paint tin but it didn't bend it enough after a few days so a smaller tin was used, knowing that it would flex back a bit.
I was really pleased with how close I'd got the curve

Next I had to think about trimming the OG panel so I could make the cut of the repair piece, I started off trying to save as much as I could but the shape started to look too complex so I made an executive decision and cut quite a big easy to copy piece off



AND HERE IS THE LESSON

Never throw ANYTHING away !

Going to have to stop here as I can't seem to load anymore photo's

There's always tomorrow

J

Great work Jason, keep them updates coming!

Thanks Richard.
I'm trying.
I'm having some fun and games with this new photo system on the updated version of ssvc.
It's great that you can drag them into the thread, but if you want to then not use them - tough - they're going to show up as attachments at the bottom.
I tried something new last night and after that I couldn't put the pics in.
I will post some more pics tonight hopefully.
Step by step on how to do a sympathetic wood resto.
Jason

Jason

If you want to remove them go to the attachments tab and delete them, I did it for you on your post above, I just had to work out which one you hadn't put "inline".

Richard

8 8US wrote:Jason

If you want to remove them go to the attachments tab and delete them, I did it for you on your post above, I just had to work out which one you hadn't put "inline".

Richard

Thanks Richard.

I am now having the same problem as last night.

a warning triangle under the "status" column and when I click on it I get

Error

Sorry, the board attachment quota has been reached.

Jason