Boxing clever

As I have removed the kitchen unit from my van, I needed somewhere to store the leisure battery. I had originally thought of having it in the same place in the van - behind the drivers seat - but as our greyhound Ally is a bit of a fidget and a mountaineer when in the van I decided against it. She would only use it to climb on to see out of the windscreen!

So it was to be moved to the back. I still needed to box it up though so into the shed and many pieces of offcut MDF were found. Luckily most are the same thickness and size.

Easy enough job, simple box with a second skin at one end to fit the fuse box. All edges rounded over with my new favourite tool, the router.

I found some interesting fixings while I was figuring out how to make it nice though. Like these captive threaded inserts. Simply drill a suitable pilot hole and screw the insert into the wood.

The centre of the insert is threaded (M6 in this case) which means I can use my nice M6 countersunk allen bolts that I have used elsewhere on the van - cohesion of thought I believe it's called!

Next up was an access hole for the fuse box. Not enough for installation work but enough to remove the box lid if a fuse pops.

And finally a nice lid for the battery compartment. This was fitted using stay put hinges and a nice flush mounted lock / handle.

To be honest, with the sprung hinges keeping the lid either open or shut the lock isn't really needed, but I bought a load when I was doing the kitchen unit but never got around to using them.

And now I wanted to...

Next job is to fill the screw heads with car body filler for a smooth finish, then carpet to hide my wavy jigsaw work. Once that's done I can think about exactly where it's going, which will no doubt impact on many other ideas I have rattling around in my head.

Flock me baby one more time!

It's a glorious spring day so what else to do than play with my van.

I am a bit scatty when it comes to jobs on the van. If it's a big or important job I'll see it through till the end, but if it's made up of smaller jobs I tend to start something and get distracted by some other shiney thing to fit. This was the case with my dashboard.

Being a former builders hack, it was in a bit of a state. Not too bad, at least it wasn't covered in Dulux's finest, but it had dings and scrapes and was a bit dirty.

I had previously removed and flocked a few of the smaller dash parts, but I still had a load of parts on the passenger side to do - the glovebox, support and also the lower centre heater vent / console.

So off they came. I've learnt a lot about flocking since my first attempts, and where they are showing signs of wear I think I have cracked it with the technique required.

Firstly, give the parts a good cleaning, if it's good enough for Granny's rosting tins then persil is the huckleberry for this.

Once dried key the plastic and apply a coat of plastic primer. This is something I didn't do originally, so hopefully the bond between paint and plastic will improve wear resistance.

Next up, goo. I mean glue. This is impregnated with black dye, and will act as a coloured substrate to the flock. I found the best way to apply this was to brush on liberally, then stipple the glue with the tip of the brush.

A good coat and we are ready to transform the parts!

The applicator works similarly to an electro-plating sprayer. A 9V battery in the "gun" charges the nylon flock fibres so that they are attracted to the negative electrode crocodile clip which is attached to the wet glue on the part being flocked. A gentle shake and the fibres literally shoot out of the end and stick to the glue, in such quantities they leave a nice fluffy velour like finish.

This is the quickest part of the process by a long shot, an hour on prep and just 2 minutes with the sprayer. A word of warning though, wear eye protection and a mask when using it (and gloves), these fibres are extremely fine and unless you plan on not breathing when spraying (or not breathing much after) you will inhale / ingest a fair amount of flock. It's not nice.

This also generates a lot of mess. Do this somewhere you can clean easily - something I did not do, but it's my shed, my mess.

And here we have the finished glovebox support. Looks a lot nicer than it did before.

The inside of the glovebox was treated to a coat of Krylon ultra flat black. This paint is wicked, great coverage and pretty hard wearing - it's used for painting military vehicles and weapons so it should be ok for the odd's and sod's I have in my glovebox.

The flocking machine was bought from eBay for around £70 and the flock and glue was bought from Frost Auto Restoration. To be honest, I spent a few months umming and ahhing over whether to buy the set up. It's not professional but the price point to me is more than acceptable. The finish is perfectly fine for my needs and if it wears significantly I can always go over it again. Sadly it seems the seller has ceased trading amidst a flurry of negative feedbacks. Looks like I was a lucky one here.

The next job I need to do which has been hanging around is to flock a spare dashboard, but only after I fit another cupholder / aux socket to it. This is a big job so I think it'll be ok to do it later...