When you plan something and build it you tend to have an ineffable faith that it will be perfect – well, real craftsmen do, anyway. Me, I always have these terrific ideas in my head but the final product always seems to have some basic flaw that I hadn’t considered when in the planning stage. That is why I was so pleased that, but for the omission of a vegetable peeler, our planning for our trip in July was pretty much perfect.
That’s not to say that we didn’t find a few “wrinkles” where some improvements could be made. One of these was in the area of cooking. When stopped at a campsite for more than a day or so, we broke out the table with all the space and shelves to accommodate the little stove and all the cooking bits and pieces. But that was a bit inconvenient when just staying overnight or even just pulling up by the side of the road to boil the billy. In those situations, we put the stove on the back bumper of the van and cooked there. It was sheltered under the tailgate and convenient especially when it rained. What it wasn’t was comfortable, requiring bending down a long way, and spacious. While on the journey we noticed that many of the little vans being used by tourists and backpackers had a little kitchen in the back behind the bed; some even had a sink for washing up. So we decided that, when we got home we would try and manufacture something similar for our van.
Despite the van already being pretty crowded with the necessary gear to travel, I was surprised to find that there was 27cm of distance between the back of the bed and the inside of the tailgate, much more than what I was expecting. Being conscious of the constant need to save weight I decided against a big arrangement of cupboards and shelves, opting for a simple arrangement to support the stove and some baskets so that the necessary cooking items could be close at hand. It’s bolted to the back of the bed, the top part forms a headboard for the bed that stops the pillows falling off the back of the bed during the night and the hinged shelf provides a considerably large food preparation and cooking area.
When travelling the “bench” hinges out of the way as below.
Amazingly, considering it was of my own creation, everything that I had envisaged worked out exactly as I had planned. I have a splash-back on the vertical surface to prevent damage to the mdf and I’m just devising what would be the best material to put on the bench itself as it will be supporting the little gas stove. I’m looking forward to trying it out as soon as we can but I’m pretty sure that it’s going to be a great addition to the van. The whole board comes off when the bed has to be removed as it’s secured by just four bolts with wing nuts.
MotoGp attention switches this weekend to the first of the 3 “fly-away” rounds at Motegi in Japan, followed by Phillip Island and then Sepang. Marquez has a mathematical chance of clinching his 3rd title this weekend but few are expecting him to do so though the pressure to do so at Honda’s “home” circuit will be immense. Most pundits expect that Marquez MkII (the new, improved model) will ride for points, win if he can and ensure that he tightens his grip on the championship. At least with the race being in our time for a change, we won’t have to stay up to hideous hours to watch it. Roll on the weekend!
dunc says
looks good phil
some of the smaller mods are always the best
is it running ok now since the return ??
Phil Hall says
Like it always did, mate, so frustrating that it was such a simple problem but, you don;t know at the time, do you?