Ok, so some more tinkering has been underway with the van so im nearly getting it ready for summer. I have planned to do a new headlining but I wanted to try and do something a bit different, so I planned to have two, my normal one, and then one that hangs down a little further that I can hide my LED lights etc in so that you dont really see the lights, just the glow from them.
So that way, when you look at it it would look something like this
Having said that, we measured it up and the wood was a bit too thick to be hanging down from the roof, so we went for a slightly smaller and thinner ply. I put baton around the edges to ensure that it sat away from the headlining by about an inch, that way I could also attached the LEDs to it so they were facing the right way.
I then took the original headling and did away with the join that is halfway down the load area of the van, and carpeted it as one whole piece. We then put this back in place (a two man job!) and as we had altered where the headling sat at the rear (due to having removed join) we had to drill fresh holes for the clips to sit into. Once this was up we attached more batons through the headlining to the double skinned areas of the roof.
Once that was done I took the newer smaller bit of ply and carpeted that in a contrasting stone colour to the rest of the van, We also put silver tape around the upwards facing edges of it to help reflect the light from the LED's when they were on. As previously stated, I suck at electrical stuff... so got a knowledgable friend to run the wires for the lights of both the day to day lights as well as the shiny coloured ones.
Once these were all laid we used an old car battery to test them out... this is just a couple of the colours that this great bit of kit can produce, thanks to Dubflecta!
Once we had finished playing and getting the wires neat, we then took it outside and screwed straight through batons, the original headling and into the metal voids to make sure it was nice and strong. Due to the way the voids/joins are in the van the ply actually attached further towards the front than the back, but as we batoned around the edges and twice through the middle its still nice and strong!
My friend (who is the one that knows stuff about electrical jiggery pokery) mounted two switches, one into the metalwork of the van by the back doors, this one switches all the lights between coming on when the doors come on and being perminantly on. There is another switch mounted to the light coloured fabric that turns the spot lights on and off which means the colour LEDs can be on by themselves for mood lighting.
It needs a bit of a tidy but I am really pleased with the result, as I have a few more bits and pieces planned over the next few weeks I will do a video soon and post it up so you can see it all in action! :ILU:
