What A Shed

We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.
John Hope Franklin

Thanks to a donation from friend Alison I have acquired a nice toolshed for the Marigold Project. It has taken me most of the month to level the ground and assemble the thing. By storing some of my tools and equipment here I should eventually save a lot of time as it's right next to the project. And suddenly May is over already and I'm way behind schedule again. I just managed to squeeze the budget enough to buy some polyester body filler and will start filling the welds after they are completed.

Thanks for stopping by
CooP

Legal & Proper

I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the road less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost

After making FIVE visits to the incompetent and uncaring fools at the licencing department I finally have Marigold registered in my own name - all legal and proper like. This has unfortunately taken up a lot of my scheduled project time for the month, and a R900 chunk of the budget too. I hope to get more work done in the second half of this month.

Thanks for stopping by
CooP

Jacks Away!

The soul of the journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases.
William Hazlitt

We had a good night's sleep after a couple of dozen cold beers and got a fresh start on Saturday morning. The left-hand side has been welded after careful preparation.

The ceiling and side bracing panels have been welded into place and just need a little tidying and dressing. Not far to go now...

The final welds have been added to the beams beneath - this thing is so strong now that she'll never bend or break. There appears to be absolutely no flex whatsoever.

At last, Marigold can stand on her own four wheels again - what an exciting moment for all of us. We still have to weld on the left-hand sliding door and do a little more touch-up welding, hopefully this will be done during the next week or two.

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CooP

Weld, Weld, Weld

Ever let the fancy roam
Pleasure never is at home.
John Keats

Good Friday turned out to be really good for the project! Dino managed to find some spare time and brought over the MiG welder today. We have clamped the two halves together so that they line up perfectly and all of the measurements match up and check out.

We started off by running a row of spot-welds along the roofline and then filling in the gaps. The odd-looking framework in the picture is the support for the sleeper-stretchers that fit beneath the pop-top (now removed for ease of access).

Next was the interior join along the ceiling, joining the two existing bracing bars together.

 

Here I am in the process of cleaning up the right-hand side join ready for welding. I used a sanding disc on the trusty Black & Decker grinder, followed by a rotary wire brush attached to a cordless drill.

The right-hand side has been welded and I am busy with grinding and dressing the welds to prepare for the eventual body filler.

 It's probably overkill but we are adding extra 100mm bracing plates around the inner sides and ceiling for additional strength. They will eventually be trimmed to match the rest of the interior, possibly with plywood of some type. Pictured is Dino, one of the most jovial and hard-working people that I know. He is also a master welder, despite his modest insistence that good tools alone are responsible for good work. I owe Dino a huge debt of thanks for the many hours that he has already put into the project.

Thanks for stopping by
CooP

Together Forever

Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.
Jack Kerouac

That's how she looks at the moment. The beams have been spot-welded into place but the two halves are not quite perfectly aligned yet. A little more clamping and shoving and she'll be perfect.


Thanks for stopping by
CooP

The Big Stick-Up

Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing.
Helen Keller

Big day today, we are welding the chassis beams into place and attempting to make one out of two!

Helpful as ever, Dino spent the day here today and we started off by clamping the beams into their final positions beneath Marigold.

Here are the beams in place on Marigold. We were reluctant to actually weld them into their final positions at this time, just in case our measurements were off. They are firmly clamped and ready for the fitting of Kombi 2.

We raised the front of Kombi 2 with a trolley-jack and removed the wheels to give us a range of height adjustment. Then we simply slid the whole thing backwards onto the beams.

It was a bit tighter than we thought and the two halves didn't slide together as easily as we'd hoped. We set up a couple of sash clamps and wound the two halves together, one turn at a time.

 Almost together, if we wind the clamps on both sides together then it's quite easy.

Together at last! The top of Kombi 2 seems to be slightly out of line but the floors line up perfectly. Kombi 2 is rather flimsy without her back end but we'll easily get it all lined up once the lower section has been permanently fixed.

The beams beneath line up perfectly in their respective channels! They shall be firmly re-clamped and welded permanently into place.

We drilled a few 15mm holes through the channel side-walls and have blobbed in some lovely spot welds to hold them in place. They'll get a top and bottom line of weld on the reverse side which will make them pretty permanent. We're out of time and the sun is setting so I'll continue with the preparation during the coming week and then we'll finish the basic structural welding.


Thanks for stopping by
CooP

Balancing Beams

Once in a while it really hits people that they don't have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.
Alan Keightley

We were rained out last Saturday so are working twice as hard today. I've welded up the beams from the 32mm steel tubing. The channels beneath the two halves still have a few lumps and bumps to be removed. I have clamped the beams in their approximate final positions just to double-check all of my middle-aged measurements.

Thanks for stopping by
CooP