The making of Vantasi

[B350]

Holy smokes, it's been a while. Christmas and New Years has come and gone but, we actually got a little work done on the van in the mean time too. It's hard to dedicate every weekend to spending a day or two in a storage facility. There are other responsibilities like vintage snowmobile rallies and motorcycle ice riding after all!

 

[B350]

Back to the van...
When it's too cold in a storage facility to use vinyl floor adhesive you just heat up the floor and the van. With some plastic hung over the doors and a small space heater we quickly got the interior to a comfortable 70 plus degrees. I've never laid a floor of any kind so I was a little concerned about keeping each row of plank parallel to the center line. While my girlfriend, Christi, applied the adhesive, I cut and laid floor planks. It could not have worked out better. Everything laid perfectly parallel and, in our opinion, looks great.
Being the floor is a full 4mil vinyl, locks together and is glued, we don't foresee any issues with water finding its way underneath it. Plus, water can't damage the vinyl plank. Time will tell how it holds up...

 

[B350]

Another project we finished in the comfort of our living room and dining room was wrapping our wall panels in marine vinyl. We got some great, leather soft, grey vinyl from a local discount fabric store along with commercial DAP Weldwood contact adhesive. With plenty of cardboard, some open windows and a fan running we went to town. After eradicating three to four of our weakest brain cells we had some great looking door panels and walls wrapped in vinyl.

What does Christi have strapped to her feet? That's the snowboard no kid wants- a 2x6 wrapped in a beach towel with two straps screwed to it. That's how you evenly push 1/4" hardwood plywood to the furring strip in the van without damaging the vinyl. :d5:
I secured the walls to the furring strip with screws run through a pre-drilled piece of aluminum. None of the aluminum will be visible once the rest of the cabinetry and gaucho are in place.

 

[Bbasso]

If you don't mind, could you please share the link to the flooring you used?
That looks like something I have in mind.
Thanks

 

[B350]

If you don't mind, could you please share the link to the flooring you used?
That looks like something I have in mind.
Thanks

Hey Rob, I got the vinyl plank floor through Bestlaminate. Plenty of different wood grains and colors to choose from. I suggest getting samples. We looked at about 10 different types before choosing the one we ended up using.

Bestlaminate Perfecto Vinyl Whitewash Grey Oak

 

[Bbasso]

Thank you, that looks great in your van.
How much did you need?

 

[B350]

I got 72 sq ft (4 boxes) which was enough for the entire floor front to back, side to side.

 

[Bbasso]

Thank you



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[B350]

2 months since my last post?! Total slacker... Well, before you get the latest on how much sawdust accumulated in my nostrils I should add that I had to work too... So, on my last work trip to TX I had to put in a few laps before heading back to MN. For your 2-stroke pleasure-

 

[B350]

Back to Vantasi. And building cabinets. I got a few quotes from local guys to build cabinets which was rather shocking. So, I figured I have zero cabinet building experience, no wood shop to work in and a full time job already so why not tackle this myself? To the internet... With an idea of how the layout should come together in the spacious 72 square feet of living space we taped everything off on the floor and thought about it. Yep, gaucho here, fridge there, counter top 33" high 4' long, pantry, a bunch of large drawers and cubbies. Shouldn't be too hard...

I got a membership at a wood shop (American Workshop), picked up a bunch of 3/4" and 1/2" baltic birch and proceeded to learn a few things.

All of the uprights were cut from cardboard patterns first and test fit before putting them together with the horizontal shelves. A little trimming here and there and wa-la, we have a nice fit that follows the wall curvature. This all does include about the 1,357th time in and out of the van.

I wanted the look of face frame inset cabinets for the counter top and gaucho cabinets. But, I did not want to build face frames. So, I got crafty with my circular and reciprocating saws. I fenced each cut with aluminum angle stock so I could get straight lines with the circular and finished the corners with the reciprocating. Damn that's nice. Only took a couple of minutes. Ha!

I hate to admit it but I've never so much as used a dado blade. 60 hours of sawdust huffing later I have dado cuts down. I dado cut all the cabinetry joints and glued them forgoing any angle brackets and screws. The result is definitely stout.

Does anyone have any tales of properly glued cabinets coming apart in a van?

 

[codyh-SMB]

Did you make any more suspension changes and did you end up being happy with the road manners of the lift?

 

[B350]

Did you make any more suspension changes and did you end up being happy with the road manners of the lift?

I have not made any other changes since my trip to the Overland Expo last year. I don't have all that many miles on the van since the lift (although, the trip to Flagstaff was 2400 miles). Overall, I am happy with how it handles.

 

[B350]

More on cabinetry. With more dado cuts the cabinet for the fridge, toilet and water heater came together fairly well. The hardest part was holding, inserting and clamping everything square while gluing the whole works together. The fridge required furring strips behind the flange on which it will be fastened. I also added a frame under it to keep it level. The result is spot on and super snug.

The fridge is a Nova Kool 3800 12V 3.5 cu ft. Seems nice. We'll see how well it keeps salsa cold.

 

[B350]

Last weekend we fit cabinets. As expected there were a few tweaks that needed to be made here and there on the most rearward cabinet uprights where they meet the roof line. All in all not too shabby though. We also learned in what order these all have to go in for an easy install.

With everything set in place we got a real feel for what this layout is going to be like which is exciting. A bonus- a sense of accomplishment as corny as it sounds. But, when things don't seem to move forward for days to weeks at a time it feels damn good to see a large part of the build come together like this.

I started an initial routing of all electrical and plumbing which will run through an behind the cabinets. A few more holes here and there for the main power coming in, main ground, power inverter feed, air compressor wiring harness, fresh water inlet and associated plumbing for hot water with the Espar.

Now that I know how deep all the storage cubbies are I'll make boxes to fit the ones in which we will not put actual drawer slides. I figured this way we utilize all the space available and don't have to find a bunch of plastic bins that won't be perfectly sized anyway.

 

[nemesisnight]

Looks great, it's really coming together nicely!!

 

[B350]

The latest in small victories- drawer installed with perfect reveal in the guacho/sofa base. My first drawer install too. Only 10 more to go...

I also have a functional door galley put together which will get a fold down front door and some padding to silence the old dual fuel Coleman. Some aluminum trim on the top will keep things from sliding or rolling off and that should be set.

 

[MSD-SMB]

Looking really good! [emoji106]


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[86Scotty]

Ah, the long, slow but rewarding process of real wooden cabinets. Looks amazing!

 

[marret]

Looks great.

 

[B350]

Update

Thanks for the your comments guys. Appreciate it!

Ok, so while the slow van build continues there is a deadline and goal in mind because... We are going to live out of Vantasi starting the end of June. We basically have everything in motion to start traveling full time for a year or more starting with Banff then heading into the NW, down the West Coast, into Baja by late '17 early '18, over to mainland Mexico and on further south into Central and South America from there. That's the grand plan anyway!

My girlfriend and I have our last day of employment at the end of the month. I must add, we both have or had great jobs but, the desire for adventure and a longing to experience the things we want while we still can is something we could no longer ignore. With house for rent, all those "useful" things we squirreled away sold on Craigslist and our departure from our jobs this is all getting quite real in a hurry.

So, the van HAS to get finished soon! :b1: