Project Fudge

[S49]

Bodyworks a minefield, hence the sprayed/brushed way mines being done.Its often harder if its the people you know and have an exchange of work going on.You want to go round and put some fucks into them but you know that would spoil working arrangements.So many shops have to dance to the insurers tune and jobs like ours are on the back burner or hospital jobs.Are dad says people doing insurance work cant get the "good" jobs. And a guy worth his salt would just do private clients work. Go and find one then i replied .

[huskyman]

Hi. Activ. I have read that thread. Tommy can we all have some of what you are on

[TommyP]

It’s my own blend of anti horseshit tablets


Sent from my iPhone using Just T4s

[No Sliders]

That's what. Happens when you put it in the wrong hands to paint..

Looks like these fellas have pretty much rationalised everything ^^^. Anything else that could be said has already been covered… so I'll just leave you to catch up

[No Sliders]

As far as cutting large sections of wood, I left the lids till last. This was so I could get a good fit between the thinner sections against the sides and the kick panels when folded up in 'bed mode'.
I also measured up and cut the sections which would brace the centre of the lids. The bottom corners on the inner most facing ends of the bracing sections were rounded off to prevent any catching when the lids are lifted.

Again, these were painted, carpeted and fitted up with handles in the centre (topside)…



…You'll notice a section at the end where the carpet continues around to the underside - I'll explain this in a bit.

The lids were carried into the van for the final time to be fixed in place with the hinges. Once I was happy that the lids were square on the frames and the gaps all good, the placement of the hinges was measured with equal spacing between them, and then the holes marked on the carpet with a permanent marker.
Some shallow pilot holes were whizzed in and everything screwed up…




Kick panels up and legs locked down…



Central lid braces aligned nicely when closed, giving good solid support underneath…



All the faces on the pieces of wood facing towards the cab were carpeted as there's nothing further to add…



Whereas the pieces facing out towards the tailgate were left uncarpeted as I'll eventually be fixing up partitions on the ends of the frames.




Might have noticed that the lap belts were also bolted up…



As touched on before, the majority of the time it'll purely just be Jen and myself in the van. so the likelihood of passengers will be rare. In the event of picking up a hitchhiking serial killer, then they'll have peace of mind knowing they have a degree of safety whilst travelling with us.
Yes, 3 point seatbelts are better but this would have required some fabrication further back beyond the factory fixing points. At the time of all the bodywork etc. being done it was undecided if we were actually gonna have any, and where (if we were), the positioning in comparison to layout would even be?

Side facing passengers for me is a definite 'no'. Should there be any passengers, then their legs will potentially be up on the seats, but they'll be facing forward. Once again, some belts are better than no belts. Should the unthinkable happen in the event of carrying passengers, then the thought of making absolutely no effort towards safety in the back would be a tougher one to deal with.

Strengthening plates were fitted both above and below the floor. I totally sealed around the plates under the floor with Sikaflex to stop any crap and water sitting on top of them as well as attacking the bolt holes in the floor…




As with most seatbelts, the female connectors are both positioned inner most. Should they ever get used, then they'll drop out from under the lid and be at hand just above the foam seat once it's fitted.
Before painting and carpeting the lids, I did a test fit with the belts and marked exactly where the full extent of travel was (and then some), from the belts on the female connectors. I routed out sections under the lids and continued the carpeting around so that the belts/connectors on this side could move for adjustment/positioning completely unrestricted and without chaffing with the lid closed down and passenger seated…



On the male side of the lap belt, I cut out small gaps from the thin side sections. This is so the male connectors themselves could be passed up through to the passenger. Again, the belt then moves freely back and forth as far as necessary between the hinged gap of the side section and the lid itself…



Last job was to complete the 'hands free' aspect of my design and fit some locking struts to the lids.

Originally I'd bought some cheapo slide runners off of Ebay that locked when the desired angle of travel was met. Pull the lid up slightly, they release and slide back down. What I didn't foresee at the time of buying them and building the frame, was the evil angle at the threshold of the cab.
Basically, this kinked section along the top of my frame prevented the full length of the slide runner from being fitted. To make it fit meant too much butchery. Not gonna happen… I needed to come up with an alternative solution.

I decided against gas struts because these could end up being too much of a faff, only to lead eventual failure. They'd possibly require too much adjustment and tuning. If I found some short enough would they even be powerful enough? And if everything was looking peachy to the point of putting all the bedding/seating foam pieces on, would they then close down pathetically with the extra weight? Too many 'ifs'.

I just needed something simple, solid and reliable,… push the lid up, it stays… pull it back down again… fit and forget - done.
What I discovered were 'stay hinges'. So, imagine an arm with an elbow in the middle holding the lid up… as the lid is pushed down, the hinge stay breaks/unlocks (at the elbow), under the pressure and folds back in and down towards itself until the lid is closed. There was only one problem with the majority of stay hinges I found, and it was the action of the hinge folding 'back'. The kink wouldn't allow for the hinge to fold back nor down on itself without getting stuck. I needed stay hinges that did the opposite, and folded forwards (away from the kink), and down.

I found some…



This pic illustrates the problem I had and angled top section of my frame. These hinges ^^^ I sourced were the simplest neatest solution without any further adaptation to my frame…



They're pretty good, simple little hinges. They've a got a 'soft close' action too, which I wasn't bothered about but kind of ended up being a bit of a bonus.
So, you lift the lid until it locks. Then you simply push down on the lid when you're done… the elbow breaks and the lid shuts gently. Surprisingly, they didn't make it into the top 10 of my most exciting YouTube experiences.

I set the angle at roughly 60˚ which I guessed would allow for all the foam of the seats to be pushed up and rest, as well as giving enough room to grab stuff in and out from under the seats…




I've got a load of material left over from when my captain seats were upholstered - this will be used to trim the seats/bedding foam so that it matches.
Jen and I went along the other day to chat with the woman who I've decided to get to do the upholstery. She's about 5 miles up the road in the nearest town which is dead convenient.
I'm up for doing curtains and the likes, but I'm not so sure I'm up for creating the standard and finish I'm after with this seating? Besides, I'd end up having to order up double the amount of material to compensate for playing Edward Scissor Hands.

Anyway, very impressed with her work from what I've seen. The reason both Jen and I went along was because she'd mentioned about choosing a grade of foam that would be the most comfortable for both sitting and sleeping on, so I asked the other half of Team Taurus if she'd like to come along and jump about on some foam.
We both agreed on a foam grade, my ideas were discussed and I was given a possible start time of around Jan - Feb next year of when she'd be able to smash on with things. This was fine… no big rush for these.

From my point of view, I'm all done with the seat/bed and have achieved exactly what I set out to do with it in both a form and functional sense. I'm happy that it's come together how I'd imagined and sketched out, and have learnt a lot along the way which will be invaluable as I continue adding more guts.

[S49]

Love it, fantastic and i dont like camper conversions.Those handles, bit like on amplifiers. Were you a roadie in a past life?

[No Sliders]

Love it, fantastic and i dont like camper conversions.Those handles, bit like on amplifiers. Were you a roadie in a past life?

Sometimes I wish I was a roadie in this life, Si.
Once the ends are covered, now you've said that, I'm gonna ask a pal to "just hop in the back" and "grab one of those amps" out for me.

[No Sliders]

Back to that time of year again.

It was quite nice during the summer, just reflecting back and looking around the van to acknowledge what was achieved last winter, even out in the snow. Almost hard to imaging when you're sweating your nads off.
Didn't let the dark nights and colder temperatures hamper progress last winter, so we'll see how it goes this time around.

[No Sliders]

Set about making something to house the LED lights in the main eatin', sleepin', anythin' and everythin' area of the van.

Because of the pop top, the only real practical place for lighting was along the sides under the strengthening frame/above the side windows.
So I went about making some very shallow shelving strips which would house my lights down both sides - this would be their main purpose. Their function as shelves would just serve to hold nothing more than phones, nik naks, and handfuls of those leaflets you pick up from the tourist info office of places you intended on visiting, but never did… but one day will… if you ever go back.



…Ideas, templates, wood, measuring, cutting and sanding later, and stuff started to appear. Main sections, lips to stop all the shite falling out and some central bits to help fix them up.

Routed out some sections for my 'L' brackets to sit flush in. This is so they'd sit nice and secure and also so I could carpet straight over the top to partially hide them…




Unlike the inside/topside of the bracket, the holes weren't tapered on the underside to sit the screws flush and grip better, so I sorted that too…



The idea was that the topside of the shelf would have the wiring for the lights running along it to each individual LED, but I'd build in some spacers and then put some thin flat sections over the top. The wiring would then be hidden away and effectively sandwiched between the 2 layers, but accessible if need be.

Just for peace of mind that there would be enough of a gap between my 2 layers for all the wiring and connectors etc., I roughly routed in by freehand some channels and 'pools' for any excess to sit/gather in…



Then cut the sections which would sit on top and hide everything neatly away. I cut these out of a section of the original van roof lining which was fine and handy…



I allowed for the thickness of carpet along with the brackets and wiring to feed in underneath…



Don't know why, but I made a conscious decision to cut one of the sections out with the original VW part number stamped underneath it. Bit of an ode to its former life I guess?

[No Sliders]

Being right on the east coast (literally under a mile from the beach), we took a bit of a malleting from storm Arwen last week.

We quite often have supply ships anchored out in the bay which is nice to see, especially at night. During the storm, one of the ships taking a battering out in the bay started to drag anchor and drift dangerously towards the shore with the risk of becoming grounded. The RNLI were called out from both harbours north and south of us to come and inspect the ship for damage before escorting it 4 miles further out to sea where it could safely drop anchor again. Both lifeboats then headed into the harbour north of us as it was impossible for the lifeboat from the south to get back to its destination due to the conditions.
Should the ship have run aground, Jen and I would have swiftly made our way down to the bay adorned in our cloaks, tricorn hats and lanterns to plunder whatever booty had drifted ashore. Every cloud and all that.

Trees came down, many towns and villages lost power but Project Fudge continued. Whilst all this was going on, I managed to fight my way out to the shed to continue making my lighting shelves.
As the intense wind roared loudly outside hurling natures debris at the shed and the rain forced its way in, spitting and spraying through every gap (big and small), I pottered away fitting the spacers, central pieces, lips and brackets to the main sections of the shelves…



…For the spacers I used the old 6mm ply lining from the sliding door originally fitted.
As you'll already have noticed, I've decided to recess the lights (as done previously over the tailgate door). I prefer the look of this, plus I guess it reduces any chance of them getting knocked and damaged.



The central pieces were carpeted before being secured opposed to after as it would be way easier to cut and trim them. Tried the top sections just to make sure they sat correctly amongst the brackets…



That was enough evening shenanigans amid the storm. The wood glue was left to set and the carpeting could wait for another day.

Which wasn't too far off…






When making stuff to be fitted up in the back, rarely is anything without a subtle bend or curve - these shelves were no exception. Not only are they tapered and shaped to take up the subtle differences along the sides width ways, but you'll notice from the end profile pic below that all the elements at the edge that meet the side of the body (height wise), from the carpet at the bottom up to the top layer of the shelf have all been cut at varying widths so they'll fit up properly without gaps…



The top layers (both sides), did need tweaking a few times with the planer to allow for a better fit.
Happy - I sprayed them with HTA and lined them with some black felt left over from when I covered the speaker pod above the cab threshold (previously made)…



Although pretty much hidden, I thought this would be a subtle help with the transition from the black of the cab through to the red in the back.

Offered them up one last time to double-check the fit which was fine, so I fitted up all the little LED light surrounds (sprayed red a while back), and the LEDs themselves.
Over the central piece…



Side sections (left and right)…




…The wires to the LEDs were cut a while back and spade connectors fitted to make life easy when fitting up.





6 brackets per shelf. 2 at the cab end which will screw into my speaker pod, 2 at the opposite (tailgate end), which will screw into the partitions when they're made and in place, 1 in the centre which self taps up into the strengthening frame, and 1 at the back between centre and partition end which self taps into the side/body.

When fitting up the speaker pod at the threshold, I'd run the LED lighting cables through and pulled them out through pre-drilled holes specifically for this kind of set-up. My speaker pod was doubling up as a tunnel to run and hide cable from offside to nearside. Other than going under the floor, this was a more efficient way.
I marked with a white paint pen on the speaker pod either side where the shelf brackets would screw in.

The spliced points in the main cable at which the LEDs would connect were cut and spade connectors fitted…



Time to get these things screwed up…



I'd discovered early on during the countless times of offering them up, that there was no way I was gonna be able to get a screwdriver in at a decent angle dead straight onto the screws to drive them into the speaker pod properly as the gap was too narrow.
I could use a long straight screwdriver and reach the screws but they'd get driven in at a stupid crap angle. This in-turn would mean I wouldn't sleep at night because my OCD wouldn't allow it, thus I'd become dead tired and a total insomniac, therefore affecting my work meaning I'd lose my job and my relationship would probably fall apart and I'd get kicked out the house and have to live in the van and sleep with screws above my head driven in at stupid crap angles …so I bought a flexible screwdriver as a solution to extinguishing my life's potential circle of troubles.



The wires were tucked away into the various channels and the shelf top layers fitted snug to hide all the fugliness.
Even without being secured to any partitions yet they're pretty damn solid, so I'm happy.

[arfur fox-acre]

Keep it coming. Got time on my hands at Christmas, need something to read.

[Activ8]

Bloody marvellous. Top job as always.

Sent from my SM-G988B using Just T4s

[No Sliders]

Template time again…




The idea is to make a couple of partition panels to divide the main bed/seat area and the kitchen/cupboard area at the rear. Pretty much the same layout as our previous T4 (Oscar), but with a few improvements along the way.

Partitions cut, shaped, some recesses routed for the 'L' brackets to fix up to the strengthening frame, and pilot holes drilled at the bottom ready to screw them into the bed frame…




Before shaping the central edges where they widen slightly at the top, I discovered that I've a very slight bow in the centre of my floor. This probably occurred once the seat frames were secured down? Luckily I'm aware of it now for when it comes to building the units.

What highlighted it was the moment of taking my right angles off the floor up the inner most edges of the partitions. It played with my head for a while as these edges and corners were original sheet cuts, so I knew they were perfect right angles. If I came in from one way… fine. If I came in from another way… they were off.
A carpenter would have known straight away no doubt, but I'm certainly no carpenter and I kinda took it for granted that my floor would be dead flat.

Anyway, it was actually Jen (Geppetto's daughter), that suggested the floor might be bowed. I ran a straight edge along the width which confirmed it - just a fraction of a bow, but enough to throw my partitions off by a couple of millimetres either side by the time it reached the top. Measuring the distance between the 2 partitions at the top and bottom gave me the difference. I made some fresh cuts to straighten them up and then shaped them.


Next up - rout out a channel along both inner edges ready to smack in some 'T' trim later.
I made a few attempts on some test pieces first and fitted in a small trim sample just to double check before going to town on my partitions…



Then went to town…



The 'T' trim I bought is 22mm to allow for the thickness of carpet (18mm ply).

As mentioned, on the tailgate side of these partitions will be units etc. butting up against them, but on the seating/bed side they're almost a bit of a blank canvas with a fair bit of free space.
As this is more of a chill out area, I thought I'd occupy some of this free space and take advantage of it with something that makes it feel a bit more homely. Maybe a couple of pics? Again, I didn't want to occupy it with any old shite or VW tat, y'know, the… "Home is where you park it" …type bollocks.

Whatever it was had to be personal to me or have relevance and meaning. For a start, I thought about some more skate art by low brow artists I respect, then I thought, how about some of my own art? Or, how about some pretty abstract photos taken on our travels with a bit of a timeless quality?
I trawled through a whole bunch of photos… then, I stumbled upon a load of abstract photos I took of some of the skate decks before chopping them up and turning them into the table that will be used in the van… perfect! They were abstract, had relevance and more still, they were bright and colourful.

I want Fudge to be a happy place… it's a van being built for adventure and good times after all. I've always perhaps been more considered in my approach when it comes to colour, and although you wouldn't think it at the moment by looking at the sea of red in my van, but eventually Fudge will be occupied by lots of colour which may or may not end up looking like unicorn's vomit. In some respects I don't care. I wanted to be more loose and adventurous with the interior and colour, so it's more about the vibe. We'll see how it turns out?

Here's the pics I've chosen…




Had quite a lot to choose from, and quite a lot I liked, so I doubled and divided them up so there's 2 on each side. Even on the dullest days, we'll have blue skies in the van. Not everyone's cup of tea, but then I'm not making this cup of tea for anyone else but me (and Jen (and she gets it)).
Placed them on a black background to punch out the colour and allowed enough at the border for the overlap of the frame and carpet. Jen will then sublimation print these on to aluminium for me like the Santa Cruz 'Screaming Hand' in my tailgate trim. This is so they're not effected by heat or damp.

Had a couple of old wooden frames kicking about which I'd planned on using with driftwood, but I don't tend to make much with driftwood anymore so they're free game…



Didn't matter about the inner most recess for holding any mounts or glass. This wouldn't be needed, so I cut it out to open the frame up wider…



Tidied them up and smoothed off the faces and edges further for ease of carpeting. Didn't need to be perfection as they'd be hidden anyway…

[S49]

Top notch as all ways.

[Activ8]

Love the art idea and choices made, it's a home from home.

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