John's almost finished

[John]

G’day All,

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve posted any progress photo’s of my van, so I thought I’d bring everyone up to speed.

Unforturnatly I can’t find the photo’s of the van when I first bought it, but if you go to “John McCorkelle Showing his van” in the members van section (p7,I think) you’ll get an idea of what I started with.

So here we go…

What’s the first thing to do with a vintage caravan? Rip it to bits, of course!!!

The van didn’t have much wood rot, but the glue on the top part of the frame work had let go in several places. So unfortunately for us, what had begun as a quick fix up soon became an epic story.





After some advice from retro1 via the site, the frame was bent around the old sides and the new skins were attached.





With this complete, we were able to map out and start building the new interior.





Again, with advice from forum member Trodler, I was able to fix the calico to the roof and undercoat the whole van, very exciting as it seemed that it has been sitting in its bright orange (red lead) primer for months, oh yeah, it has!!!



More work has been completed than what the photo’s show ie, interior paint etc. but the photo’s are still on the camera so I’ll post them when I get a chance.

Hoping to have everything done by next weekend as it the last chance that I’ll get to use the van before going away for three months, and considering I’ve had the van for coming on 18 months and haven’t used it once, I reckon I deserve a weekend away in it!

Cheers, John

[trodler]

WOW John.
I didnt realise it was such a large project.
Youve done very well

Cheers.
Trodler.

[retrovan]

Epic John!!

Love the look of your tidy cabinetry. What colour scheme have you chosen for the outside?

Great work,
Tim

[John]

Hi Trodler and Tim,
Thanks for your comments. Yeah it has been a big job, espicially considering that the whole resto has been done by two professional trumpet players (my younger brother and I) with absolutely bugger-all wood working skills!!
One of the biggest costs has been buying tools, and even then I went for the cheapest, nastiest things I could find. For example, the 2 sides (and lots of other little things) were cut out using a $10 jigsaw that up until only a couple of weeks ago still had the original blade in it, I was shattered when it broke, and almost died when I went to replace it and payed almost the same amount again just for 2 blades!!
I've decided on a colour called "marble mist" for the outside and "taupe grey" for the window frames etc. Sounds all very fancy but the "marble mist" is a very light grey(almost white) with "taupe grey" being a couple of shades darker. This is actually todays job, so I may have photo's tonight. Not to sure how it going to look but, its only paint, can always paint over if we don't like it!
Cheers, John

[will and Lyn]

;D ;D
Hi John
fantastic job
your entitled to blow your trumpet mate
you have taken on a big job and your a winner ;D ;D
There is only a few on the forum that have totally rebuilt vans maybe ten
and it never seems to finish does it ther is always one more little bit you have to pick up
good onya mate congratulations on your effort

Hopefully we will see you at a run some day


Will

[John]

Hey Kris & Colin,
Didn't get a chance to paint, thought I'd better get everything ready first;ie glass in windows, clean up shed, etc etc etc etc etc.......... Next couple of days, hopefully, don't really want to be painting the night before going away!
Can't wait, so much to do, so little time, so little money!
Got a few late nights ahead I think...
Cheers, John

[Jim]

What a great job you've done John

There has to be a line in there somewhere about blowing your own trumpet

[John]

Hi all,
Well the plan was to have the van ready for its first run to Mortlake this weekend as part of the Federation car club run. And as we know, with all good plans, something goes wrong!!
I rolled the van into the back lane today to see what a brilliant job I'd done painting it, and well, how can I put this, it looks crap!!!
I'm so dissapointed.
In one of the earlier posts I said that if I wasn't happy with the colour scheme I could just paint over it, well guess what I'll be doing!!
It's not so much the paint scheme, it's more the finish that I ended up with.
Ah well, This weekend it wasn't meant to be, and its probally just as well as I was starting to take short cuts and rushing things just to have it done, and well, its been almost two years in the making, I'm sure a couple more weeks/months wont hurt.
Cheers, John