yoeddynz

Well its been a busy few days. Last week on Wednesday/Thursday/Friday we managed to finish putting up all the roofing. The main centre roof rafters are rough edge cuts from Macrocarpa (Cypress) and smell lovely when cut. Sort of peppery. They look great up- all wobbly and rustic. Its really nice to have the roof all done. The main roof is 12mm ply so fine to walk on. There's still things to do- it needs the Aqua tread coating painted on plus I need to put the perspex covers on the skylights. Just a relief to have it up- now if it rains we have cover. Unless it rains sideways. I have not actually taken any photos of the roof finished- will put some up soon. The weekend was all mountain biking in the Richmond ranges- involving a 1200m climb and then drop down to lake Chalice hut and then whisky. What welcome break it was. Here's my bike and here's the lake... Back to the truck monday morning. We sanded the cab down all over, filled most dents and prepped for paint- as always this took longer than expected. sanding in the sun.... Yesterday it was painting time. we brush painted the door edges, jams. Then I got out the Earlex LPHV spray gun I used on the rx3. still amazes me how ell and easy it works. Today we spent time cleaning all the door/window seals of white overspray from when it was painted by previous owner. This took ages but was worth it- helped by a lovely hot sunny day- as usual for Blenheim Hannah repainted the Hino badge and it came up wicked! very shiny... I want some old school hino badges for the door. When we started painting the colour initially seemed too bright but I think its the effect of fresh new paint over manky white. As we covered the truck it started to seem right. Now all the bits are back on it looks great- almost too posh for a house truck. I painted the door tops black and the light surrounds gunmetal grey- it looks smart. I think the colour will go really well with the natural wood cladding.

fuck me- that is art work. what a most perfect stance too! Yet another one on my wish list! Are there any in NZ?

Volvos- I loved volvos when I was a kid and built a model one or two...(its all coming out now.... ) Anything scandinavian is going to be tough- like their cars. If you break down in the middle of nowhere around the artic circle surrounded by just snow and lose your heating your fucked. Hino built cars! ? Google search time....

Oh ok- what- could he get some badges?... what we want are some old style hino badges for our doors- with script type of font. I don't even know if Hinos ever had a style like this though. There seem to be sod all info out there on Hinos actually- not much on older ones. They just don't seem to have any sort of following -unlike other trucks such as bedfords, fodens, erfs etc....

Whos hemi?

can you get us any old hino badges? And some lovely new seats?... or original covers please please please

all the steel forwards of cab came to 100kg- a lot lighter than it looks! The ply on the roof is about 60kg plus rafters at about maybe 30kg. There will be cladding but that will also serve to add shear strength to the overhang. The bed wont be heavy. Maybe an air mattress filled with helium? Funny voices at night.... I did end up adding extra bracing and gussets after a few days of looking at it but i recken that if I welded one piece of the RHS to the roof of my Viva and bolted a chain to the other end I could lift the car up from a crane - until the poor old roof rips out.... viva weighs in at maybe 750kg. I wont do that though - I dont have a crane. When ya stand up there with 2 on very front and jump about the whole truck moves- thats more of a problem- its ruined for track days!

Here's a taster of what we are doing today... its bright- we won't lose this one in the carpark...

This thread is awesome! And the Lvvta.org site is now bookmarked!

we are mtbing up lake chalice in richmond ranges today and staying overnight at the hut. I will take photos. So no house truck building today!!!

brooklyn machine works? Very strong frames! I like oldschool steel frames. Oh how we degress...

yo eddy is the model of my old classic mountain bike made by fat city cycles in boston. I have had it since 1991. Still my favorite frame. So when i got a hotmail account many moons ago its the user name i used as all the alex this and thats had been used. Its sort of stuck now as my default user name on any forum. I keep getting called eddy in emails for some reason.?

We were putting some Macrocarpa wood rafters we had made through the thicknesser this afternoon and it was coming up lovely when something went 'pop'. The thicknesser stopped 'thicknessing'... and I thought oh dear! We have broken our new toy. Someone had warned us previously not to do big cuts but it was only about a 1mm cut! I stripped it down straight away and found a chain that drives one of the rollers had popped a link apart. It must have done it before because I found another link that had a little cross scribed onto it by the previous owner. I rejoined it and peened over the ends of the pin and its all good now. I cant wait to continue thicknessing... I would put up some photos I took but alas my photobucket account is overloaded- I'm not surprised. 2 days time I'll post them up when account is back to normal. Till then you will just have to picture a chain broken and some wood etc....

Cheers Leigh- hows that GT going- no more iffy fuel smells? are you going to make it across to RRG again this year?

Big day today!!! we have finished the first section of roof. And its the harder one to do. Very very windy and quite tricky- the tar paper kept getting blown about and ripped etc. But just as it started to rain we had the last section up. luckily for us (but not the farmers) it stopped raining and the Blenheim sun came out again I'm quite happy now because this section is up high and had awkward shapes at the front to cut and place. Not rocket science but just tricky. Plus we decided to fit a couple of skylights in the roof- one over the bed end so we can look up at the stars So we started using some of the rimu bits and pieces we've been collecting- the thicknesser really coming in handy for this! Rimu being used because it'll be visible so its got to look pretty. me checking out the view... We also picked up 10 sheets of 12mm ply tonight which means tomorrow we can start putting some floors down in bedroom and spare room plus finish the veranda. With a floor down in the spare room over the back we'll be able to easily put the rafters and roof up there. On a roll - well for now...

Cheers dudes, I am actually quite careful with the chainsaw- always try and keep away from potential kickback etc. Jusst scored three big slabs of walnut or something so there will be more sawing coming up Frame work- over cab is about 3m from headboard to front. height of bedrrom walls is 1.3m and a .3m pitch. max height is about 4.1 at front. rear will be a bit higher- almost max at 4.25. deck is 6m long. rear over hang at veranda is 1m and a further .4m up high. so max rear overhang. Every so often I start getting all stressed thinking about its size, speed and overhangs but I have to sit back and remember that its not going to be a truck we tiki tour about here and there like a van- its going to be a big bloody house that just so happens to move. And its still nowhere near as big as some truck out there. I'll just take it easy and cruise- sit back and relax

First bit of wood on truck....woo hoo! Also yesterday we started getting the first lot of rafters up. They are sequoia or redwood. Lovely patterns on them. Its been tricky putting them up as its a bit tall up there plus we are waiting till our source of cheap(er) ply arrives on tuesday so we can get the floor in place over the cab. Till then its a balancing act around the frame work. heres the first lot of rafters up... Today we finished the front rafters and managed to get the front roof sections in place which took a while as they are funny shaped little sections. I wanted to get the ply to line up perfect so I can later seal the joins well and have a smooth join for our magic roof coating to be added later. Now that these bits are done tomorrow we start heading back with big sheets easily. Then hopefully start on rear rafters... plus allow some time for a spot of mountain biking in Marlborough sounds....

cheers fellas. glad your enjoying it! Shit its gonna take ages though now. I'm not exactly a wood worker- you wait- your in for a giggle from here on now. I'm going to try my best but the workmanship will not be pretty that's for sure. The woodwork will look better if i gave the cat the job to do. I'm really hoping to get some rafters up today- maybe even some of the ply roofing too.

yeah- its good little machine- i'll heed your warning too as we dont wanna break it. Its not as noisy as I thought it would be either- in fact the ryobi table saw is far noisier! Its the first time I have ever used a thicknesser and man its cool- beats a sander any day!

amongst other jobs today I made some steps. My uncle in chch gave me a slab of imported Oregon left over from a building job- i think it was a big rafter. Nice to be finally doing some woodwork- and I now get to play with other tools. I got to test our new 'secondhand' thicknesser... Which is a wicked machine- boy oh boy are we going to keep the neighbours happy with this one.

the steel frame work is pretty much done now. we still have to build the pop out frames though but all the climbing up ladders to weld is over. Now it will be climbing up ladders to drill, then glue, then screw, then varnish etc etc I have made the veranda bar in the corner removable so we can find a nice piece of drift wood in the future and replace the ugly bit of metal. Its just bolted in for now. Hannah has started painting the top coat on the frame- with our cheap bargain paint. It looks too nice to cover up now. We have started to get the ply for the roof and some floors- $600 worth! Ouch its expensive stuff, plus more steel for the pop outs and polystyrene. Thats expensive too. Its all really expensive but oh well-we are building a house for many years of living eh!

Just reading this thread- are you from essex?.... Cool to see some Brit style escorts on here - its like reading Classic ford magazine! When I was living in Uk I couldnt get over just how nuts people are for escorts! It does mean that old Mazdas etc were cheap there which was fine by me. Did you get lumped with lots of GST when you bought all those bits over to NZ or did you hide them better than me?...

In chch now sourcing more windows and wood. But before leaving blenheim we moved truck back to get some photos of it after a good last few days building. Its almost all done framework wise. Some steps to build and some extra bracing to go in here and there. So last night we worked till it was too dark to see. I had a wasp climb down my sleeve on my hoody while I was upside down welding the varanda- I felt something crawling on my arm and thought 'i hope its not that waspfrom earlier' and then it started to sting me! Hannah has never seen me move so quick as I shot out and removed my tops! Hannah managed to get paint on while welds were still warm as it began to rain- and rain it did hard but we are happy as the wood work will begin soon!

when you re-register/re-vin a 40 year car does it stay applicable for the cheap licence/rego fee of $80 or do the wankers class it as a 'new vehicle' and lump ya with the full amount?

sunday monday we were in Nelson. looked at land up Motueka valley- amazing area! just right. but alas no money for that right now.... On way back through we stopped off at Plankville to get some rafter material. Brent at Plankville suggested cuts from a Macrocarpa trunk. So he fired up the mill and we ended up with some delicious cuts- really nice wavey edge and amazing grain patterns. We also got Redwood for bedroom rafters. The mill is a cool machine to watch! Back to steel work.. and its not raining!