Random, purchase random, troche random!



We flit from project to project, order looking like hummingbirds on crack (one day it’s instrument construction, the next day body work), but we’re still on a headlong parallel-tracked trajectory to getting the beast ready for Maker Faire.

FORWARD! IN ALL DIRECTIONS!

We did a lot of unfinished business today, (not all of it documented here).

I cut and drilled the stringers for Keyboard 3.

alienrobot and I bolted down the main mounting clamps for Keyboard 1. We bought a double fistful of bolts, nuts and washers for attachment of the mounting hardware for Keyboards 2 and 3.

And then we got busy installing the rug and putting the seats and doorsills back in …

After yanking out all the unused seat bolts from the back row to smooth out the cargo floor, I set about patching them so that rainwater splashing up through the bolt-holes wouldn’t reach the rug. Using patches that alienrobot cut out of a plastic strawberry carton, I dumped a big goosh of bathtub caulk down each hole, and covered it with a patch.

Then a nice thick coat of contact cement (ah, the brain-damaging vapors of benzene, toluene and naphtha – so carcinogenic!) onto the existing carpet pad and the back of the carefully-cut rug remnant.


Ah, there we go. Miles of ash-green carpet – soon to be covered up with the Ugliest Van Seats on Earth, which we might or might not be able to afford reupholstering this year. Maybe a quick cover-up with some canvas or something …


After that, it was a matter of muscling the seats back into place – the rear two benches slide in with quick-mount clamps that came with the van.

But the front bench is custom, some sort of hack from another vehicle -only two seats in width, and with custom bolts straight through the floor pan. This is what it looks like from below, lying on my back to tighten the nuts beneath the floor.



God, it’s beige, isn’t it.



We also got around to attaching the ladder …

And even playing with a couple color schemes. The aesthetic we’re going for is stripped down, sleeper, project-car/military.

We’re sticking with the base color (only vaguely approximated here) and the white roof, which will help keep the heat off – although the rack (which may or may not be barn-red in the final incarnation) should do a fine job of insulating from the mid-day sun-barrage .


On the red rack and white/cream wheels – the jury’s still out. If there’s ever money in the budget, I want wheel covers that would mesh gorgeously with the aluminum xylophones – to be precise, these