Vlog 14: Lino the times

Despite a slight cold (incidentally, this vlog was filmed in mid-April; I’m much better now) I cut the vinyl floor for the campervan and then began working on the wooden structures for the internal furniture. The flooring went well, the furniture did not.

The vinyl was purchased as a single roll measuring 2m x 3m; the van is about 1.6m wide by 2.6m long so this was perfect. I cleared the floor and vacuumed it clean then unrolled the vinyl along the length of the van, letting it flap out sideways onto the wheel arches.

Making sure there was plenty of overlap on each side, I then sat on the middle of the floor (in part to hold it in place), took a sharp knife and cut two vertical lines at the points where the wheel arch begins to curve away from the inside to the outside of the van. Having cut these to those corners of the wheelarch, the vinyl could then flop down either side of the wheelarch and I could gently mould the vinyl around the wheelarch while cutting out the shape of the arch on the floor.

The more square sections (such as between the back of the van and the wheelarch) were cut largely by forcing the vinyl into the corner as much as possible and trimming them with the knife in several, ever-closer, refinements until eventually they would fold down into place.

All the time I was checking that the vinyl hadn’t moved while I was cutting – the last thing I wanted was to make a superb fit in one corner only to look up and discover that the prior cut around the wheel arch was now in a different position so that either one or the other was no longer correct!

Amazingly, this all worked pretty well and the single sheet stayed put so that by the end of an hour or so, it was all cut correctly. There were two tiny places where I over-trimmed but they’ll be out of sight, thankfully. The vinyl would later be stuck down to the wood floor using more of the Trim Fix spray contact adhesive.

As for the the furniture, I’d bought several lengths of 28mm x 18mm “planed square edge” timber. This is relatively thin and I’d seen warnings on other van build sites about using anything too skimpy. I wanted to keep the weight down though and was fairly confident that the wood would be capable of taking my weight if I used enough struts. Thinner wood would also mean less instrusion into the cabinets from the frame.

Using a set-square, my mitre saw, wood glue and screws, I set about assembling a series of wooden oblongs which would be later screwed and stuck together into the boxes to make up my cabinetry. More on this in the next vlog.