I am a modern young thing...
I have always preferred it with the lights on.....
Pitch black and your nuts fall off...Need a light to see what you are doing!

Ah....I do not do 3 o'clock angels any more... I have forsaken the Lagavuulin...

9 p.m beauties for me now!

I wish

Interior furniture and seat belts

I have a very good furniture restorer who has done lots of pieces for me. So I had him strip and repair all the split and delaminated veneered plywood. Several large areas were missing all together, so sections were grafted in from donor panels. I acquired donor pieces from the junk shop, pieces bought for nothing at the last walk around at car boot sales and pieces put out for the council bulk collection days.
My wife always says "What do you want that for?"
She says I have "O levels in Skip Diving"
I strip pieces down to flat pack them and cut them up and feed the pieces I do not want to the log burner.
Anyway one of the POs had taken good care of the furniture and coated it a lovely shade of orange varnish. It did scrape off well and the wood was only lightly cleaned with fine wire wool to remove the varnish and not sanded so it has retained it's patina...dents and scars but not the scratches in the varnish. I had him re glue loose joints and generally give the structures back their strength.
I followed the advise on cleaning up formica and cleaned and then removed some old food stains and varnish with Jif and the used T cut. Some of the shine has come back. Once installed I will do the black tops again with T cut and use pledge furniture polish.
I read lots about french polish, oils and shellac but in the end I have had him clean the old varnish off, generally fine wire wool cleaned every square inch and then apply three coats of an acrylic water based fine varnish which is between a satin and a semi shine. It is heat and bump resistant and waterproof. It looks very natural and not over shiny. The bus is going to be used and this can be re coated and repaired locally by brush, so does not have to have a major re coat
At one time the bus had leaked badly and the rear of the cargo area was very wet. Even though the bus had been looked after quite well, due to ill health of the PO it had sat out in the Scottish Border weather for four years unused and turned into an indoor swimming pool.
So the floor panel under the lino had delaminated, warped and gone black with mildew. The legs of the furniture and the bottom of the cupboards and drawers were in various states of damage. ..All was cleaned and repaired. The delamination cured BUT the solid oak legs and bottom of the drawers were stained black...as oak when wet.. does go black. I cleaned as much off as I could but then realised the black was not just on the surface but stained through the cross section. So the finished interior still shows the witness of the damage.
My DIN is a GP and insists on seat belts...
Have installed mountd in metal work..

So then the question of where to fit the seat belts through the rear seat....base.
mmm
Has put seat belt mounting holes in the heelboard with spreader plates behind....and wanted to work out where to cut (oeeer ouch!) the seat base to feed the belt through.
I had seen a picture of an escutcheon to fit round the hole.
When I ordered the seat belts I chose to have demountable tails for the belts so they can be released at the normally fixed ends and then hung up at the upper mount so that when the bed is made up the do not strangle you in the night.
I have bought some aircraft style buckle belts for front and rear so i needed to mount the buckle end in the centre and then work out where the lower mount next to the cooker would go through.
I looked at this in conjunction with fitting the Propex Heater.


Rear seat back and base trial fitted into position. Because I had mounted a side brace for the OS upper seat belt mount and I had fitted slightly thicker luggage area upper rear side panels, I had to trim both edges of the seat base. Although I used an electric sander to carefully remove small amounts of material at a time and re profile the edges.....it took ages. Pleased with result.


Progress so far...

I marked the position of the centre of the rear seat base and then the spacing I wanted for the centre short tails to come out. With the structure of the bearer attached to the seat back and then the piece which acts as the support for the opening lid edge...there is a natural valley which was ideal to drill through.
I found a picture of a seat belt install by sbs and a picture of a rearward facing cargo area seat seatbelt mounting which provided the solution. I asked the poster sitjw for dims and he kindly sent pics dims and install details which I have used as the basis of my install.
Pawel (great helpfull guy) at quickfitsbs also sent me a picture with dims on too...

I worked out the centre line for the hole and the length and width of the hole. I drilled increasing sized holes and used the wood drill tangs as a router to cut the slot. The masking t special on the top served to stop the oak veneer from splitting/ splintering.

Escutcheons to go around the belt where it comes though the hole in the wooden seat base panel.




Picture showing demountable tail and belt coming through the side bearer at the side of the lift up seat base lid.



Where the centre belts exit.



Mock up of NS rear belt




I have copied Bobley's Devon rear seat mounting frame/ bracket to go in the leg drawer. It will be bolted through the engine panel and rear seat. The seat belt reel will be mounted on a bracket bolted through the frame. I will be using the upper belt mount as a location at the top of the frame. Pics to follow.