The Table Begins

Herewith the beginnings of the table.  The table is made from 17mm plywood with a 19mm pine edging and went together without too much trouble.  I glued and nailed the edging onto the plywood, so it should hold.  I've also fittted the table supports on the fronts of the dinette seats.  The pic that follow show the table being constructed and also it in place on the supports making it into a bed.

I have the fittings for the table but don't yet have the pole for it.  (still on order).  The table as it stands fits in between the seats really well to make the bed,  but it's too big to leave set up all of the time.  Getting onto the dinette seat from the side the fridge is on is almost impossible.  The table is 940mm long and 600mm wide,  so to make it more serviceable,  I'm going to cut it into three sections, the middle section with the holder for the pole will be 300mm wide x 600mm, then the other two will be 340mm x 600mm wide each side.

I will hinge the side sections onto the middle section so they drop down.  This means that I can get past the table to the cab, have the middle section alone as a table, or either or both of the side sections up as a table.  I am going to hinge it across the 940mm length so that the hinges won't be supporting any weight when it is being used in bed mode.  I haven't worked out how I'm going to hold the sides up yet,  but I am hatching an idea about using two sliding bolts on each side underneath. Trial and error, we'll see how it goes.  Of course there is Laminex to go on the top yet to match the kitchen bench.

The Table top just after the edging had been added.

View of table top from the cab (note the supports rails on the dinette seats).

Another view from behind the driver's seat.  The table is way too big in its present form but if I didn't do it this way,  I would have had to have loose pieces of ply to fill in the bed area.  I think the hinged idea will work. Here's hoping.  For those of you who know me and are wondering,  the answer is yes,  I've tried it out and it holds my weight!!

Lining Overhead Cupboards

Very little done today, although I did get the underside of the cupboard over the cab closed in. As you can see from the pic below, I have done this in plywood (7mm) because it is going to be covered and it's really light. The ply is heavy enough to mount the obligatory UHF CB radio from. Along the front edge of the plywood, there is a gap between it and the windscreen and the plywood overhangs the frame by about 30mm. I thought this would be very useful for hiding wiring for things like the CB radio etc.

I'm thinking about covering the underside of this cupboard with a carpet that will blend in. This is mainly to prevent damage to people's heads while they are moving from the cab to the back of the bus (when necessary). I guess you would only do this if it was raining or something. Otherwise you'd get out and walk around to the side door. I've trimmed the plywood with timber angle and it's come up quite well.



So far as timber work left to do, it's mainly trimming. I've gone around and found areas that need to be finished. Things like external corners, where furniture joins together etc. Below shows how I've finished one of those awful curved areas. This is not perfect, but will look fine when it's finished.



In my previous post I showed you a pic of the support on the end of the kitchen bench. I've added the one below next to the door because this shelf, although not carrying much weight, will tend to move up and down while the vehicle is moving so it needs this support. I rebated the bottom so it fits on the edge of the dinette seat and rounded the bottom so it looks OK.

I've got to decide how I'm going to deal with these shelves yet. As I said in a previous post I want to pad and cover the underside. I'd always intended using the same fabric as the seats, although it might be easier to cover them with the same material as whats going above the cab. We'll see. I do have to face these shelves yet and make some sort of 'fence' to go around the edge to stop stuff falling off. Nothing worse than the unabridged version of the Oxford Dictionary falling on your head because someone slams the door.

After the trim is finished, comes lots of sanding, then staining the lot. When that's finished it will start to look completely different. I've also got to make the table top so it can have the laminate fixed at the same time as the benchtop. I think fixing the laminate will almost be the last job because otherwise it will end up getting splattered with stain/varnish etc.

Benchtop Edging & Overhead Cupboards

Hi again. Some more progress has been made, this time concerning the benchtop edging and the underside of the overhead cupboards. I'm still not feeling right so any progress is slow. The other thing that I managed to do was the edging on the benchtop ready for the laminate to be applied.

The Kreg Jig came into its own again with fixing the edging onto the benchtop. Because I want to run the profile router bit around the edge of the benchtop once the laminate is fixed, I had to make sure that the screws weren't in the way. After a fair bit of thought, I decided to use the Kreg Jig and run the holes from the top surface. This makes the screws track downwards away from where the router bit will run. The Jig comes with a portable unit which you can take to the material and clamp it on. It works really well.

The pic below shows the holes on the top of the benchtop.

The pics below show the finished job with the edging fixed to the benchtop. I glued it as well as using screws and it should be really solid.

The underside of the overhead cupboards have been left to almost last because the wiring needed to go into them. Having finished and tested all the circuits, I set about closing them in with the same panel as I've used for the other fittings. After the panels were in I covered the external angles with 90 degree timber angle. The pics below show the finished job so far. The first one is down the back over the lounge/bed area.

The follolwing view shows the job over the top of the kitchen bench. You will see one of the supports for the overhead cupboards which I've cut to size. The cupboards need support at this point because although the are fixed to the wall, they are not fixed to the roof. They are pretty solid without the support, but I reckon that once loaded, the vibration will cause some issues.

In the pic above, you can see where the pine panelling finishes. I am going to cover the undersides of the shelves over the dinette seats with plywood. Its my intention that the plywood will be covered in padding and the same fabric that the seat cushion are covered in. The idea being that it will break up the 'surrounded by pine' feel and also prevent too much skin being knocked off one's head.

Staining & Varnishing

Early on in the conversion I decided that I would do the internal fitting in pine and stain it to look like aged Baltic Pine. I've always liked this stain and it goes very well with radiata pine which is very common here and reasonably priced. The finish tends to accomodate the imperfections that come with pine. If you like it's a rustic finish, but when properly varnished looks classy at the same time. I did a fair bit of looking around before I made the final decision on what to use. I finally settled on Feast Watson Old Baltic Stain. It really is the case that you get what you pay for in paints and stains. This stuff is not cheap. This one litre can was $38.00 and now that I've started to use it, I know that I'm going to need much more than 1 litre.

The quality is obvious when it is applied. I is so good that it almost doesn't need varnish, there is a real gloss on it after it dries. It does need to be covered though because it is not a durable finish on its own.

The pic below shows the rear panel of the bed which I had to take out to do the wiring and fix a problem with the framing after the water filler was installed. I took the opportunity to sand it and stain it outside. If you look carefully you can see a gloss on it already. This is one application of the stain without varnish.

The pics following show the back of the kitchen cupboard with after one coat of stain and one coat of the varnish. I have chosen to use Bondall Marine Varnish because of it's UV resistance. Although clear and very high gloss, this varnish contains an additive which prevents UV from yellowing the pine. Most varnishes, even external ones don't prevent UV damage.

I will apply another coat of varnish to this after giving it a light sand with 240 grit sandpaper and the gloss finish should be fantastic and durable.

It is really hot here today, but I'll try to get the undersides of the overhead cupboards started, then it is just some minor trimming and then onto sanding, staining and 2 coats of varnish.

I've also fixed the cuboard to the floor now that the wiring is done. I used small angle brackets which I found at Bunnings. These will not get in the way of the carpet tiles that I want to put on the floor in the cupboards.

The Awning

Before going into the staining & varnishing, I though that I'd better put up a pic f the new awning. This is a Carefree 13 foot model which has the special curved legs designed especially for the Mazda Bus. The old girl is at last starting to look like a motorhome from the outside.

The Electrical Wiring

As promised a post on the 12 & 240 volt wiring systems. I remember when I built a house some years ago that sound advice was to make sure that you get all of the wiring that you are going to need while the construction is happening. So, that's the philosophy I've empl0yed here. The pics below give a good indication of how I've done the job.

The 12 volt system had to accomodate a number of appliances including the lights, the water pressure pump, the fridge and the ignition for both the gas cooktop and the hot water system.

Because I had to get the power down from the solar panels on the roof and the 12 volts back up from the battery to the lights etc, I needed to run wiring up the side of the bus. I though of many ways of doing it in a way that it was hidden and eventually gave up in favour of this system using flexible mains ducting. I think it looks OK and will be hidden by the curtains anyway. I might paint it, not sure.

I used 15 amp 2 core automotive cable from Jaycar because it was both heavy enough and has insulation on the wire and a heavy plastic cover encasing both wires. With the lights, the simplest thing to do was to start from the battery, go up the wall to the underside of the overhead cupboards and run the wiring around all of the cupboards. Where I wanted a light, I put in a terminal block and ran two wires to go to the light. This means that all of the lights are in parallel, hopefully getting at least 12 volts right the way to the last light. (the outside light)

All of the lights are going to be very low wattage LED lamps. They are way more expensive than any others, but when you are relying on batteries to run light, fridge etc, the lower the wattage the better. We are all going to be using them in our homes soon anyway.

The pic below shows how I've run the lighting wiring under the overhead cupboards. The orange cables hanging down will be shortened once the underside of the cupboards have been panelled. The lights will all have switches on them. I've also put the fan for the rangehood on the same circuit.

This is the rangehood in its final position ready to be wired in and have the panelling either side of it. Not much stainless steel for $250.00 though. I decided to have the rangeood which flumes to the outside because there is nothing worse than cooking smells in a caravan/motorhome.

The pic below is of one of the kitchen cupboards which I've decided to use as the mounting place for the power supply for the fridge and the battery charger. I didn't want to put these units in the battery box (under the right side dinette seat) mainly because of the possibility of overheating. Both of these units only work when the bus is plugged into the mains. The one on the left is the unit that came with the fridge and connects to the fridge and the battery. It works by sensing when 240 volts is present, and then automatically disconnecting the fridge from the battery. Of course when the mains are connected the 'smart' battery charger (on right) will also begin charging the battery. A power point will also go into this cupboard.

The pic below is the panel that I made for the solar regulator and the fuse box. The regulator is a little upmarket from some available and of course cost a little more, but it does more. Unlike some regulators this little box has an LCD screen and not only regulates the charging rate of the batteries from the panels, but it also constantly senses the voltage of the batteries and cuts out the supply to appliances when the voltage falls below a pre-set level. This is to prevent the deep cycle batteries getting too flat which will damage them. The regulator also has 4 stages of charging and is designed to maintain the batteries at their optimum charge at all times so that the motorhome is always ready to roll. Daily and current charging rates and usage from the batteries are also monitored and can be viewed at any time on the LCD screen. Jaycar sell this unit for about $170.00, however I was lucky and found it on eBay for $109.00. If you are going to use absorbed glass mat (AGM) batteries this is a must. Other regulators can overcharge your batteries and greatly reduce their service life - these batteries are not are not cheap.

On the right is a 6 circuit fuse box. Each of the circuits go though this box with the appropriate fuse installed. It even comes with little lables that go on the clear plastic civer to show which fuse is for what.

I have deliberately kept the 12 volt system independent from the body earth of the vehicle. This means that it is completely separate from the vehicles 12 volt system. To do this I had to run negative wiring to all appliances instead of simply running one +'ve wire and earthing everything back though the body, which means less chance of problems. If a wire rubs through it cannot short out on the body of the vehicle. Any short circuit can only result from the +'ve and -'ve wires in the system shorting together. This is why I have used plywood for the panel.

For safety reasons, I have installed a 60amp dual circuit breaker (pic below) which all power from the battery will flow through. These units are designed for high power car audio, but will do the job nicely. These are available from Jaycar for $30.00. If there is a fault anywhere in the system this will disconnect the batteries from the circuit and minimise damage. Two 120 amp batteries in parallel provide enough energy to weld metal and could easily cause a fire. One of the circuit breakers is for all of the applicances. The other one will be for a dedicated output to my amateur radio which draws up to 23 Amps on transmit. Again this will provide a safety measure if there is a short in the system.

The only remaining 12 volt wiring to be done is an auxilliary output for TV etc, wiring up the PV panels and the cabling from the battery to the point where the transceiver will sit.

240 Volt Wiring

I have completed the wiring for the 240volt system. I have run the wiring in purpose made flexible conduit. I had to do this so that I could move on with the conversion, however I will not be attempting the connection of the power points, the residual current device or the circuit breakers. That's a job for a licensed electrician. All power points in the motorhome must be double pole switches. This means that both the active and neutral lines are disconnected by the switch. In normal house wiring only the active line is cut by the switch. These are all for reasons of safety if portable generating systems/inverters are being used.

The pic below gives an idea of how the wiring is placed in conduit. The RCD and circuit breaker box will go on the outside of this cupboard.

Cutting Holes

Hi Again.

Its been some time since I updated the Blog. The one thing I have learned about fitting out motorhomes is that things never go exactly as planned. There have been been a number of delays in obtaining equipment and also with me being sick. Anyway things have certainly moved on since my last post.

Not having the confidence to go cutting holes in the bodywork, I had Peter come and do it. Below are some pics of the finished jobs. I reckon that if I ever do this again, that these jobs will be done first and the internal fitting installed afterwards.

This pic shows the right side of the bus and the install of the fibreglass gas box, the 240 volt inlet and the filler for the right side water tank. Peter used Sikaflex white sealant adhesive to make the gas box fit around the profile of the side of the bus as can be seen in the pic below. Of course there is a cover with a lock to go on yet.

The pic below shows the left side of the bus and the other water filler. Ive decided to go with two fillers because although one would have done for both tanks, it's my intention to plumb each of the two tanks to the pump separately. This will allow me to know when each tank is empty and therefore how much water I have on board. Because of the sizes of the tanks available, I have only 2 x 60 litre tanks. Any extra will have to be carried in portable containers.

That's it for this post. I'll add another one now about the wiring that I have done and also the start of the staining and varnishing.