managed to write this once and loose it befor sending DUH
Renee2 has been to her first festival and coped well as the festival was in lincs we popped to magnums for the last few bits of trim we needed to finish the wood work of some how is was persuaded into a new electric kettle and a step for outside the door to aleviate the train on or old knee joints
not much left to finish i thought but when i added all the little jobs up ill be lucky to finish before the clocks go back
paperwork has been sent to the dvla for change of body type which will give me another 10 mph legally

sorry for anyone following the blog but a mixture of work weekends away and general laziness has delayed me posting for a good while .I seem to keep doing bits without much actually showing The wardrobe is now complete I managed to cut the first rail 10mm short but realised the round rail would be better than the oval one id started with as you dont need clearance to get it in the brackets so a bit of sucess out of a cock up realy. Made the first locker above the bed which also allowed me to get the rest of the wiring for that side completed
luckily when we visited magnun they had a van half built which alowed me to see how to make the lockers something i had been dreading once again turned out to be simple
I must say at this point the guys at magnums were right on my first vist they told be to board the whole van first which is what i should have done as fitting seperate backs in each cupboard is a nightmare
made the front of the second locker today so that should be complete tomorow also think ive got my head around the design of the lockers above the kitchen which has been puzzling me for a while
Ive fitted the fiamma dripstrip to try to stop the rain which floods in to the van when the side doors open ive also moved the awning forwards for the same reason word of warning the glue on the dripstrip is instant ive got a slightly wavy white gutter with a definate kink at the end doing it again i wod clamp a straight edge on first
fitted a led awning light due to the shape of the ducato the leds wind up facing straight out rather than down will see how it looks when were away next week it may have to be changed

still no camera so no pics yet lots done and weve had our second excursion in her
decided to go with out the shower as we mostly stay on sites with facilities and we never used the one in our old talbot going without means we have room to put a wardrobe in what was oridinally going to be a wardrobe wound up to short for hanging anything due to lifting the fridge to clear side mouldings
Another trip to magnums to pick up some more ply and other bits was stretched to three days had a wander along that bit of coast that runs from the wash to the humber weather was dire and skeggy on a wet wednesday is so depresing
like so much of our coast line it all looks rundown and shabby with miles of static caravans beaches are fabulous and mostly empty
magnums were virtually out of the door ive used but have managed to find enough to finish it all but im going to have to cut some about a bit and nothing suitable for the toilet so ill have to make one which is a duanting prospect
spent all weekend getting the wardrobe shell fitted scribing in to the door way was a night mare and the first attempt finished up being a very exspensive template for the final piece trouble was it curved in every direstion and its so hard to work out where the panel was going to touch or pass the door rubber still its done now will try and get some pics tommorow
while i was at magnums they had a conversion they were doing in the shop so was good to see how theyve done stuff and im more confident about the top boxes now ive seen the way to do it

lots done in the last couple of weeks unfortunatley my sister has stolen my camera so no pics for a while
got the upholstry back from the trimmers and it looks fabulous blue and cream zebra stripes
water and waste tanks fitted and fiamma filler fitted in the side so we filled the water one and wired pump up to test the system now when i was doing it i bought some grey 12mm fittings from a plumbers merchant and every one of these leaked so now im getting some black ones to replace them still cant see the difference in the fittings 12mm is 12mm will see what happens with new fittings
ive fitted the tanks by screwing brackets to cross members and sika flexing them on if this is strong enough i dont know but if they come loose i can add some long bolts through later my theory is we shouldnt realy be driving with any fluids in them so next to no wieght just have to remember to empty them all the time
all the gas is now connected apart from the barbeque point which needs a bracket making so hope to do that today and test the gas just nope its more succesfull than the water. Ive fitted two small bottles and a changeover valve
doors are on the completed lockers just cant decide which handles and locks to fit magnets would be easiest but not sure if they will hold a wayward tin of beans on a fast corner same goes for the drawer which slides out easily i realy dont want to go down the push button catch route as you see so many with these
bought a table leg set and now its in its to high so im hopping to return for a shorter one
will add pics as soon as i can get a camera

spent nearly a week ,on and of ,making the top for the kitchen and finally got it fitted today sink is in cooker is in drawer is fitted waste connected and im realy pleased with it think, ive mastered the router at last ,
what caused me all he problems realy was i didnt want the cupboards to be as deep as the fridge /wardbobe unit as i felt it would look a bit box like if it was all level .When i planned it i didnt allow for the big vertical rib in the side of the van whic throws the cooker forwards 4 inches so ive made a deep work top to oversail the front of the units with the cooker within the depth
SPINFLOW
The screws that clamp the appliances down in the work top go through a plastic cup that realy isnt man enough, on one the stainless steel has chopped the rim of and now i need to get a replacement and the screws/bolts have such a fine thread they are a nightmare to use both sink and cooker are siliconed in so not going to move but need the cup as it holds the stop for the glass lid.
as the photo shows this has allowed me to get imagenative with the curves and some fancy router work on the edges since its my first attempt at laminate im dead chuffed
in between routing and glueing ive cut the tops for the bed boxes complete with lift up lids well actually lids as ive buggered one up and cant redo it till ive cut my last sheet of 12mm faced plyfor the batroom wall when if ive measuered right ill have an ofcut large enough to recut the lid

dont know how this picture got here but i cant seem to delete it still it shows how for its come

work top

have just spent most of two days making the work top and fitting the sink and cooker in ,We had decided we wanted a worktop that was curved to allow a bit more floor space so this ruled out normal kitchen tops i decided to make it from birch faced ply original plan was two thicknesses but his didnt hide the bottom or the sink and cooker which oversail the units below so three it had to be ,on the up side i now know a bit more about using a router . Ive always liked the vanished edge on ply so now i have it in abundance
Getting the curves right was very tricky we tried marking round various tins plate etc but wound up doing them with a drawing compass I had to dredge up a lot of schoolboy geometry which was lurking in the old grey matter bisecting angles is obviously something like riding a bike
When i got the sink in place I found it was slightly damaged you couldnt see it immediately but it was half inch high one corner rather than send it back i manged the pin it in place with a board screwed down on top happy to report its now reasonably straight
Had a bit of a panic over the battery when we were playing with the seats a few weeks ago something got left switched on the next day i had no central locking and reverted back to using the key old skool style.decided to charge the battery this week as realey ill need to move it soon ,left it charging all night and next day still flat so back on for another night .When i got in this morning the smart charger was showing defective or deeply discharged battery thought some thing had gone most probably the battery but after connecting the earth back up it started first time .

well ive decided work is the curse of the motorhome builder but ive had to do some this week but light nights and warm weather have allowed us to get a fair bit done mostly finishing things that were already half done.the thing with this building lark is you often need stuff in place to build around it so it gets left halfway.this week weve fitted the oven and the fridge all piped up and wired the battery now resides in a nice plastic box the pump is finally screwed down the wires from the tank gauge is neatly tied up underneath the van ready to connect as is the water pipe from pump to tank
at the moment im trying to get the bare essentials finished so i can get the gas tested as my insurers want a gas certificate whats realy annoying is im a registered gas fitter by trade and cant certify my own van still its only money and if we were worried about money we wouldnt have started this would we ?
also fitted some of the cbe electricals so far so good but some little problems the fused spur for the water heater has no continuity terminals for the earth wires and is so small its difficult to get the wires in one terminal is to small to use a insulated crimp on so had to trim the plasric back
why do the insist on fitting large multiway plugs on both ends of the tank probe leads to get the wires through a small hole i had to chop the ends of to be rejoined later ive done the same with the wire from the ultrastore as it wasnt long enogh i now need to find some five core alarm wire to extend it
still undecided on how to make the worktops as i realy want to curve the edges which rules out post formed chipboard domestic worktops not sure if my carpentry skils are up to routing timber edges onto a formica coated ply sheet for now im going to fit the ply and appliances in then decide if i need the curves as much as it seems now