• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Mike builds a teardrop (cedar detail)

Thanks Dave, well done. What doesn't come across is how nerve-wracking the process was. It had to be right or else........
 
Just watched this in a clients house while having a break when Google, who, unbeknownst to me was sitting behind me, answered Dave by telling me it didn't understand the context but "dust off" is a military term for cleaning up nuclear fallout...... :unsure: :)
Great work.
Cheers, Andy
 
I have some progress to report. Possibly the most trivial amount of progress possible, but.......IMG_0210.jpg

I've filled in the hearbeat symbols from Dark Side of the Moon with a 2 part filler. I haven't worked out how I can sand that lot clean yet.

The process involved kneeling on this horse with my injured leg, which is the only way to free up my hands:

IMG_0211.jpg

I could manage 15 or 20 minutes at a time before I had to go in to elevate my foot to get the swelling to go down. Progress is progress....
 
PAC1 said:
Good but you probably should not be doing this.
That said what you need is an old comfy arm chair that you can sit in place a board across the arms and then you can sand (with leg fully elevated)
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I’m sure you’re right but also sure that Mike is and will be Mike, so sitting still is an anathema lol.
 
Now that I am in a boot I can stand. At first, it wasn't for very long, and only with the aid of crutches. In the last day or two I've been standing without crutches, and walking using only one. This has allowed me to use my hands, and I've been able to make some gentle progress on the teardrop.

Firstly, I sanded, re-filled, sanded, re-filled, and sanded, the Dark Side of the Moon logos:

IMG_0217.jpg

The today, I was able to clean up one side of the teardrop, shape the pieces, and glue and pin them in place:

IMG_0218.jpg

That all looks a bit weird, because the newly sanded cedar is a whole lot lighter than the stuff which has been on the side of the teardrop for months now. That will be sanded, and the UV will get to the whole lot and equalise the tone, so I'm not particularly worried. At the pace I'll be working in the next few months, the light will have plenty of time to sort everything out.
 
Good to see you back at work Mike, the pulse looks very good, my only concern is that people might think you’re a heart specialist!.
Sad to say that Dick Parry the legendary Saxophonist from the Floyd died the other day aged 83, what a talent, I think it was his work that made songs such as Shine on you crazy diamond and Money so memorable.
Ian
 
Cabinetman said:
Good to see you back at work Mike, the pulse looks very good, my only concern is that people might think you’re a heart specialist!.
Sad to say that Dick Parry the legendary Saxophonist from the Floyd died the other day aged 83, what a talent, I think it was his work that made songs such as Shine on you crazy diamond and Money so memorable.
Ian
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He will playing the great gig in the sky with so many others.
 
I can now be on my feet for nearly an hour, and although I move really slowly, I can at least get some stuff done. So, I have carried on with the cedar strip cladding. It was straightforward working up either side of the door, but then came the piece which went over the top and joined the two sides together. I'd kept an eye on comparative progress each side as I approached the top of the door, and had to plane a little....really only a fraction......off a couple of the short ones. I then marked up for the one shaped over the top, and cut it out on the bandsaw:

IMG_0219.jpg

IMG_0220.jpg

Before making my way entirely to the top, I inserted a block into the roof which will take a bolt from a stainless steel bracket holding one of the awnings. I had to cut some insulation away, and then once fixed, plane it to a fair curve using a flexible batten to give me the shape of the top:

IMG_0221.jpg

To reach up there, I made a low scaffold/ platform. It's all screwed together and immovable, because I'm aware that coming off a platform at knee height can do a little harm. Anyway, I got the last of the strips on the near side:

IMG_0222.jpg

The top two are ash, and they won't be seen. I'm afraid of running out of WR Cedar, but I've plenty of ash.

I made it over the top of the door on the other side, too:

IMG_0224.jpg

It's going to take me a while at this pace, but at the moment I'm just grateful for not being stuck in a chair all day.
 
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I already admired your skills, but now I also admire you work ethics. Man, it seems you are just unstoppable.

One question (you might already have written something about it, but I can't remember): what are you going to do about those wheels? Will the be wheel arches?
 
HdV said:
.....what are you going to do about those wheels? Will the be wheel arches?
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To get through the IVA test I'll just be using some cheap plastic trailer mudguards. However, I have in mind some 1950's-type MG mudguards (the ones in the drawing on page 1 are taken from a Morgan) for the permanent version. I don't know whether they'll be laminated timber, or whether I'll fabricate them in fibreglass.
 
WHAT !! On a scaffold with your injury not yet healed, I'm surprised your wife hasn't had you fitted with a ball and chain Mike. :ROFLMAO:

Great to see you managing to keep things going, there's little more mind numbing and demoralising than being completely immobile (y)
 
What's the saying, get back on the horse (or scaffold)? ;)

Wouldn't expect any less than for you to be back at it as soon as possible! That cedar cladding is going to get some attention on the road, looking brilliant.
 
Lons said:
WHAT !! On a scaffold with your injury not yet healed, I'm surprised your wife hasn't had you fitted with a ball and chain Mike. .....
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I'm not sure she's noticed yet.........and I haven't drawn it to her attention.
 
Mike G said:
To get through the IVA test I'll just be using some cheap plastic trailer mudguards. However, I have in mind some 1950's-type MG mudguards (the ones in the drawing on page 1 are taken from a Morgan) for the permanent version. I don't know whether they'll be laminated timber, or whether I'll fabricate them in fibreglass.
Click to expand...
Oh I would love to see you do them in laminated timber.
 
I wanted to ask about the mudguards too. How are you going to secure them to the body/chassis? What will the interfaces look like? Any coverings/liners on the inside for stones/water etc? The Teardrop looks really great so far! Excellent work, craftmanship, planning and materials!
 
Karookop said:
I wanted to ask about the mudguards too. How are you going to secure them to the body/chassis? What will the interfaces look like? Any coverings/liners on the inside for stones/water etc?
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I'm not sure yet. Whatever happens, the mudguard will surround the tyre such that there is no bodywork exposed on its inside. Exactly how I mount it I don't know yet, but I deliberately put lots of structure behind so that I've got lots of options for fixing to.
 
Whatever you do will be better than some of what manufacturers put out and sold in caravans over the years! Our Eriba has a thin moulded plastic wheel arch liner, with a small return to allow screwing onto the underside of the ply floor. Within the van there is a very thin structure of hardboard covered with vinyl wallpaper and then a 2 or 3mm layer of polystyrene insulation. The whole panel is only 6 or 7mm thick, with the net being held together only by the vinyl wallpaper. This was spray adhesive fixed to the plastic liner. On one side this is in the wardrobe's lower cupboard, and so I built a frame and shelf over it. Wonder over the years how many people overloaded it and ended up with the contents of the cupboard falling onto the wheel!
 
My wife spotted the scaffold. Luckily, I had just installed a handle to assist with climbing up and down safely:

IMG_0226.jpg

She also spotted what she thought was our family iron, out in the garage clearly up to no good. I was on dodgy ground for a moment, but when I explained that it was our old one from 10 or 15 years ago the worst I heard was something about hoarding.....

The iron was there because I started work on the strips going over the roof. Cedar bends easily around the 600mm radius bend, but ash doesn't. I didn't want to set up a full steam box just for that, so I helped persuade it to shape by steaming it under a wet cloth with a hot iron:

IMG_0225.jpg

I ironed it out of position, and then moved it over and glued and pinned it. These first 3 are hidden, so I am using pieces which don't reach the full 3.6m, but jointed at a roof timber. It took a while to work out how to apply the glue, and clamp, and pin, without getting covered head to toe in glue, but I got 3 strips done:

IMG_0227.jpg

Under them is a gap to the insulation:

IMG_0228.jpg

Which I filled with expanding foam. This is to stiffen everything up, and to leave me with no unventilated voids which are always potential spots for condensation and mould, whether in a caravan wall or a house wall:

IMG_0229.jpg

The focus now moves to the workshop.
 
Any properly equipped home needs two or more irons, of different sizes and grades, even if none of the residents wear formal clothing any more.
 
I've got my late M-i-L's steam iron in the workshop; cordless, sits on a power coupling base. So easy with no cord to trail around.
 
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