Homebuilt bondwood - "Griffin's Den II"

[que595]

Great looking old van , inside looks original , good luck with the axle
Maurice

[griffin]

Thanks Maurice, I'm very pleased with the van overall and want to keep it as original as I can. Shame the outside copped a rough coat of paint a few years back, the original paint underneath on the sides seems to be in good order.

What sort have van do you have? Maybe you could post a few photos for us We always like to see what the other bloke has.

Geroge

[griffin]

I've been doing something to the van everyday, and slowly seem to be making some progress, not that anyone would know to look at it.

The support legs are bolted on rather than welded so they have been removed for a good clean up and I was surprised to see they have never been painted and show signs of a quite bright blue finish, as do the spring mounting plates on the chassis, from the same supplier it would seem.

While they appear to be identical to an item offered by Carapark as mentioned in a previous post, I found after a bit of cleaning that they have a yellow sticker with the name Dymwood on it. Not easy to see in the photo, and after a couple of days in a bath of Molasses they disintegrated unfortunately.

As time goes by all will be revealed it seems and I think I have an explanation for the removable panel in the door which has bothered me as it didn't seem to belong. Several things didn't make sense, it's weight, it seemed very heavy, it was painted white on the inside when everything else is cream, and the latches were extremely rusty compared to the other hinges and latches in the van. They were also attached with Philips head screws, brass ones at least, which are not used anywhere else.

I decided to strip the paint off ready to repaint and found it was MDF, which would account for it's weight. So I can only think that the original panel may have been removed at some stage and maybe left in the weather, causing the fittings to rust. If originally made from ply as I suspect it may have de-laminated as well, necessitating the making of a new one. At least when I find a porthole for it I won't feel bad about cutting a hole in it now.

George

[griffin]

Well, the saga continues, and considering this van only needs a tart up in my eyes, it is consuming an awful lot of my time! I've been trying to do something everyday, no matter how small, so I feel like I'm progressing.

The roof at least has it's first coat of silver paint, although it looks more like 'streaky grey' in my opinion. A second and third coat might fix that, the stuff sure has good coverage, I reckon the 4 litres could do half the Harbour Bridge, and I thought the 3/4 of a pint of old Silverfros I had mightn't be enough

The problem of sealing the fabric onto the roof was finally overcome to my satisfaction too. I decided to try injecting the Bondall through the fabric, and so with a 10ml syringe and a No 18 needle I went to work. While this might sound like tedious work I was surprised how quickly and how well it went. I thinned the Bondall, probably more than recommended, so I could draw it up in the syringe as it is fairly thick stuff, then found a little nick in the fabric or just poked it though and started injecting it. It created a 'wet patch' which I then chased with a paint brush to where I wanted it, and by doing a couple of different spots about a metre square I then left it to dry. The next day it was easy to work to the dry edge and do another area. I then went back to areas that had blistered up and tried injecting them and found I was able to sort them out too. When it was all sorted another coat of full strength Bondall went over the top and all the water just ran off so on with some silver. The silver soon showed up a couple of small blisters I'd missed and I'm debating if I'll inject them now with the paint on or let it be.

I decided enough was enough trying to sort out the colour and with my assortment of colour cards chose a colour as close as I could to some original cream I'd unearthed and went and bought 4 litres. I've put a bit on the repaired front windows and the front of the van, but I think my brushwork needs some practice, or I'll take to a roller.

Initially I'd hoped I could get the last dodgy coat of paint off the sides and retain the original paint, which I was confident was in good order underneath. The roof and both ends had to be repainted and I really wanted to retain some of the original paint if I could. So I tried sanding with fine wet and dry, dry scraping, paint remover and the heat gun to try and remove just the top layer, and all were unsuccessful for various reasons. I despaired somewhat as I couldn't even get a good clean patch of the brown to work with for a match, so I decided to take it all off with the heat gun, and do what I could to match the brown, so I spent a couple of hours scraping off paint.

To my absolute dismay, the next day, while cleaning some sealant off the roof edge with thinners, and before resuming my heat gun work, I split some thinners down the side of the van which resulted in the white paint blistering. With a bit more thinners on a rag I was able to scrub the 'new' paint off, leaving an original enamel layer unmarked Too late now though as I've scraped the living daylights out of the bottom section back to bare timber, so I'm really annoyed with myself that my assumption that the present paint was enamel was wrong. I know thinners is the universal test to determine if it paint is enamel or two pack, it has no effect on them, I just never thought to test it! Doh !!

At least the offside is unmolested, I've left it be, I'd much rather have the original paint with a few blemishes than new paint so I'll see how it pans out in time as the paint revealed is a later coat which has a pinkish tinge to it rather than the original warm cream colour. Can't see both sides at once as my old painting teacher used to remind me at Tech.

George

[griffin]

Well, time is ticking away on the project and things are being done, but everything just seems to be moving in slow motion. Lots of things have been getting in the way, but hopefully, weather permitting I'll soon have a coat of paint on, at last.
I bit the bullet and bought paint I matched to the original colour as best I could using colour cards, it seemed a good match but when I put some on it was quite lemon. I then found some original cream on the storage compartment door so I took it and the paint to Bunnings and asked them to check the computer analysis of the sample against what I had. The sample had some black in it, and they could adjust my 4 litre tin, free of charge, so I had it done. After dipping his thumb in the new colour and splotting it on my colour card it looked totally different and I thought I'd be chucking it and starting again.

In this photo the colour card is in the middle, the same colour from the tin on the left and the computer matched, dirty cream on the right. Looking at this the best match to me is still the colour on the left. After a few days I found time to get some of it on the front of the van and it was really a nice colour, and a good match so I'm very pleased with it. So this is what it looks like.

There has been other progress, after a lot of thought I made up some timber tail light mounts for the Hella stop/tail/blinker lights. When I removed the rectangular ones that were on it there was evidence that it had earlier had old 'oval' Hella lights, and I just happened to have a pair. Rather than mount them direct on just the masonite as they had been I moved them down a few inches to line up with the number plate, and fix on a batten. I had to make up a block though as the body is more curved there and the lights would have been angled downwards. Cutting a piece of 3/4" Maple in half diagonally to get two blocks out of one piece of wood took some patience. The wiring had been run up the back of the van which I didn't like so I worked out a way to feed it though the floor and into the interior of the van at the back of the bed. I drilled a hole through the masonite/baton and caneite lining and fed the wire out, so now the only visible wiring is a few inches at the back of the bed. and it will never be seen.

Meanwhile I had also been beavering away to strip the paint off the side, experimenting as I went to find the best way to get the top coat off for when I'm ready to strip the other side back just one layer. All very tedious, but as last the side is bare and prepared for some painting.

I put a coat of colour on the back today, and as a painter with a roller and brush, I make a great panel beater I have long known I hate painting, but today just reconfirmed it. 'She who must' reminds me from time to time I said I paint the inside of the house when I retired. That was six years ago, fortunately I didn't specify a time frame
And, I've recently had some initials added after my name, I'm now officially an O.A.P. and loving it, that's Old Age Pensioner, who'd have thought I'd have lasted that long

George

[OlFarts]

Your not taking off the J Mould George ??

Yep, i have to agree the Molasses is good stuff for removing rust, shale and for cleaning up metal bits and pieces. I've been using it for years for rusty car parts and restorations.


Looking good George


Dave

[griffin]

Progress seems slower than ever! I have removed the J moulds front and back, and I'm glad I did, but I'm not taking the edge angles off, it's all very sound and I'm sick of taking bits off. I decided I'd have to take the door off to paint it all properly and thought at last I'm finished. Not so, I still had to take the handle off the door, it just goes on and on, but I resisted taking the hinges from the door.

The side and ends have had a coat of paint at last and while I'm not happy with my efforts I enlisted the aid of a mate who is a painter and we sorted it today, 24th March. It will hopefully be on the road in just a month on the way to Broken Hill so it was nice to see something finished. All the bits are now painted and ready to put back on, but there seems so much to do. I think I have my 12v internal and external lighting sorted, in my mind at least, hopefully the practical will live up to the theoretical solution. Closer examination in the battery box reveals signs of some sort of fire, and maybe not long ago, but not during my ownership, going by the smell.

I doubt if the gas will be sorted, I just don't seem to be able to do what I thought so I'll be seekiing out a gas fitter. It certainly won't be a complete project, but I do have to have something to do during the winter! NOT!

Both the hatches are back on with some new hinges, a couple of the old home made ones had given up the ghost. Imagine making a hinge from a bit of galvanised steel and using a nail for a pin, maybe I'm spoilt living two minutes from Bunnings, where by the way I couldn't find a suitable replacement!

This photo shows it with some paint back on, heading in the right direction at least.

George

[griffin]

I can't believe it's twelve months since I've posted anything on here although I suppose the 'Broken Hill or Bust' post said it all, so i was surprised to see there isn't even a finished photo on this post.
So here's a photo of the end result ready to head off twelve months ago.

Those who read the Broken Hill post will know that the offside is still as we bought it, white with a grey stripe. Hey, you can't look at both sides at once!
Today I bit the bullet and decided I was going to strip the grey and white off with thinners and see what the original paint is like. After about four hours with various brushes, rags and a quantity of general purpose thinners I have this patch cleaned of the water base grey and white.
I'm pleased to say it's looking good, probably because who ever painted it didn't do any surface preparation and just slapped the new paint over the old.

A fair bit to do yet to get it all uncovered but I'm sure it will be worth it. You can even see the shine on the brown above the access door that's copped a bit of polish, comes up well.
I have tinkered with a couple of other items, the radio has been out and pretty well condemned and rather than replace the guts with something more modern I've just cleaned up the bezel, glass and knobs and put it all back, looking much nicer than it did, even if it doesn't work.

And I even managed to get a little stripe around the wheel rim using a bit of the water based brown. It was put on and wiped off a lot of times to get it half right in the end!

George

[OlFarts]

Beautiful work George, cant wait to see your van in person.

After 9-10 months with out a Man Cave, I have just started again on my Rowvan.


Cheers.

[akeepsake]

Great Van George and your doing a really top job! Well done!