Half Way

End of Week 5

At the half-way point the big news is that THE SLIDING DOOR OPENS AGAIN!

Well, it is the first day of summer time and I’m feeling the pressure this week-end!

After five weeks of what feels like non-stop work, The van is still empty, and spring is upon us. All around us the birds are beginning to nest and I feel very driven to get out there watching and photographing. Since it’s dry and sunny I decided to take most of the week-end off to catch up on the garden and the birds. I went down to my favourite spot under the old bridge over the Towy and spent an hour quietly watching – nothing much: dipper where I expected and grey wagtail where I expected. Then this morning I went to see if I could set up a better hide to watch the kites. That looks like a runner, but the bird flew off the nest when I arrived and there was a nasty cold wind so I didn’t stay long. Instead I tramped up the steep slope to investigate two big potential goshawk nests – wind even worse, belly ache and neck ache both bad. No sign of occupancy and I feel exhausted and tense. I can’t keep all these balls in the air.

The van is just back from Castle Garage in Newcastle Emlyn for warranty jobs. The previous owners used it for some sort of agricultural delivery and did not treat it well. Consequently there were problems with the doors not fitting properly, there was only one key, the manual was missing and the roof was leaking. They’ve had to send away for the key so I don’t know when that will appear, but the rest looks OK.

Meanwhile I have started building the furniture. As always with learning something new like this, there are issues I hadn't anticipated.

One of the things I found most difficult to decide was the actual finish I wanted for the woodwork. As far as I can tell, all the big caravan and campervan manufacturers and converters use a product called "furniture board". This is lightweight plywood made with poplar. Poplar is a fast-growing hard wood that is pradoxically very soft. It's matchwood - literally. It's the wood matches are made from. It has a very boring grain pattern and is generally not considered suitable for a finished surface. Furniture board uses a hard plastic laminate bonded to the poplar core. There is a choice of plain colours or photographic imitations of real wood - usually oak, walnut, cherry, and some exotic concoctions such as "driftwood". It's tempting to use this stuff because it comes ready finished, there are various trims made to go with it, and it is much lighter than normal plywood, so saves on fuel consumption.

However, it's expensive and it's plastic.

In the end I decided to use the bare plywood and veneer it myself. Yes, it's more work, but I save a few hundred pounds and I end up with something which does not look mass produced. I'm using cherry veneer because I have some solid cherry which I can use for any curved elements and to trim the exposed edges. This cherry comes from a tree grown in Cilycwm by John Milner. He gave me the tree when he decided to cut it down, and I paid a mobile sawyer £60 to cut it into planks - it was a small tree - about 450mm across but only 2 metres tall. It's been stacked to dry in our woodshed for well over a year and is now well seasoned.

I’m no stranger to veneering, but this was the first time I had used pre-glued iron-on veneer, and the big problem is joining two sheets neatly. When you heat it with the iron the two sheets pull apart. With traditional veneering using hot rabbit-skin glue you overlap two pieces, slice through both, heat up the edges and remove the two offcuts. The join then meets up neatly. This does not work with the thick layer of glue bonded to the sheets. In the end I had to do something unheard of in the male world of “learning by doing”, namely READING THE INSTRUCTIONS. You get some gummed paper tape (from a little odds and ends shop in Lampeter), stick down one sheet, butt the next sheet up to it and join them with the paper tape. You then iron the two edges with the tape on and instead of working from the join outwards, start at the other side of the new piece and work back towards the join. You then have to leave it for a day before soaking off the tape and ironing down any unstuck bits.

I was also uncertain what to do about the inside surfaces. They would have to be sealed and would need to look OK. I thought I would need to stain them, but today had a brainwave - linseed oil darkens and seals wood. Perfect! It will save lots of money and time and actually looks good.

Tomorrow I must find an upholsterer to do the sofa cushions, get some more jointing biscuits and linseed oil, order some softwood to make drawers from and assemble my two half-finished pieces – the sofa (basically a box which will contain all the electrical equipment and batteries) and the kitchen. This will be the most complicated piece with 5 drawers, the hob, the sink, the fridge and a grill. It will have one rounded corner and a flip-up extension to the worktop. Each drawer will be finished with a thin strip of solid cherry round the exposed edges.

In a few days time the van will look very different.