forward into the past

SO...it's been awhile. Needless to say the actual building of the vardo ate my life until the point where I no longer had the energy to keep up with the blog and then there was Pennsic (which was awsome) and recovering from Pennsic (which wasn't as bad as it could have been) and then there was my friends Anastasiya's and Will's wedding (in which the vardo played a role). SO.... bear with me and I will attemp to catch us up to the present in the next few posts. :)

angles and angels

The next step was to assemble the ledges and ledge runners that attach on the top of the box.

The ledges were easy as they are just 1"x12"s cut to the length of the box. The ledge runners, however, posed a considerable problem. They are 12' long and needed to have a 65 degree angle along one edge. Now technically we had the proper equipment to do this but what we didn't have was the room. Where the table saw is set up in the basement does not allow for 12' of clearance on either side, even if there wasn't a bunch of stuff in the way.

Thankfully a cousin of ours who lives just up the road from my folks came to the rescue. Jim has a beautiful woodshop and was kind enough to help us out. The fun part was getting the boards over there. Dad's truck only has a 5' bed so I had to ride in the back sitting on the boards to keep them from bouncing out...

That's me back home with the finished boards and rufus t cat coming to investigate.

The box with the assembled ledges on.

Now we got to the fun part; cutting out the plywood end pieces. I was really glad that I spent the extra money to get the templates. It was fairly easy to extend them in the middle for the extra foot we needed. It was also fairly easy to shorten them when we realized we'd miscalculated again! But eventually we got the fit right and got them on the box.

It's beginning to look like something you might actually camp in! We also cut out the top plywood end pieces (measuring very carefully this time) and tonight dad and I cut out the king posts from 2'x6's reclaimed from an old picnic table. Once those are on I think I can be reasonable sure that I'll be done in time! I'm so excited!!!

paint and misery...

Alot of paint in fact. And some considerable misery. I spent most of the week getting the base painted so we could move on to the next steps in construction.

The bottom of the vardo and the floor inside both needed painting with porch and floor enamel which takes longer to dry and and the sides needed painted with their final color before we could set the base on the trailer.

I've been using mostly mis-tint paint and what I was able to find in my parents basement. The green was one of those finds, I dig it. The inside is going to be mostly cream/off white so as to keep it as bright as possible in there.

And now for the misery...

What you see here is a base partially on the trailer, it was fully on the trailer untill we realized that the 3/8" plywood pieces had to go on the front and back, a fact we had not previously taken into consideration. We had made the box 1" too long. One measly inch, but it had to come off or else the gate would not shut once the plywood was on the front and back. Did I mention that we had used copious amounts of wood glue?

totally floored

It's been a busy week in vardo land... last weekend we started constructing the base using two sheets of 3/4" plywood for the floor and 1" x 12"s for the sides.

A standard sheet of plywood is 4'x8'. If we had been following the original plans we'd have only needed the one, but since my trailer is 5'x10 we

had to piece two together. Which meant we'd have to use...

BISCUITS!!!

I'm rather fond of biscuits and of getting to use the biscuit joiner.

We added a 1'x8' piece to the side and then topped that with a 2'x'5 to get the size we needed.

A close up of the juction...

Then we put the sides together and glued and screwed those puppies on!

Voila! It's a base!

Primed and waiting...

Work on the Vardo has been slow in the past few weeks. I've been working on getting the lumber primed and finding more goodies for the inside.

So far I have the six or so sheets of plywood primed on both sides using some old grey house paint I found in my parents basement (it's a scary place but full of useful things if you know where to look) I found several other cans of paint in colors that are useful to me as well.

I'm off to the evil mart of wals tomorrow to look for more opps paint to prime the rest of my boards with. I'm hoping to have everything painted and dry by saturday so we can start the actual construction. I have pretty much all weekend (including friday, woohoo!) to work on it except for a few hours on saturday for my ten year high school reunion *harmuph*

I will post pics of my progress just as soon as I figure out my new phone!

baby steps...

Hooray! The templates for the vardo finally arrived today! I haven't been slacking while waiting for them tho...found a great bunch of stuff for the interior at goodwill the other day. Mirrored candle brackets will help greatly in amplifying the light inside the wagon and the cute pre-fab shelves I picked up provide a variety of storage options. I'm going to add some large cup-hooks to the underside of the larger shelf so I can hang scarves, medallions, and such. I've had this fabric...

for an age and I'm half tempted to line the inside of the vardo with it but it may turn into garb instead... decisions decisions.....

_libby

TIMMMBERRR!!!!

Well, lumber to be more exact... but there it is, everything but the bow pieces and a few odds and ends.

Got an email from amvardo today that my templates were shipped so hopefully work will get started this sunday. Wish I had more than one day off this week to work on it but I will follow the tortoises advice and take it slow and steady...

The trailer...

Found it on sale at tractor supply co. but we found the same one at Lowes and got them to do their price match plus 10% off thingy!

View from the tongue... Whats that on the railing you ask?It's Olliephant! He's my color inspiration for the finished vardo. I actually found a canvas tarp online in that mustardy yellow color that's on his ear but I really haven't decided what I'm using for the roof for sure.

Long time comin..

For about six years now, I have been looking at and lusting over the idea of having my own gypsy wagon or Vardo to camp in. I like the idea of having something entirely unique and, since i attend Pennsic War every year that I'm able, something that will get me up off the ground and out of the mud down there in the swamp.

Well due to some very serendipitous circumstances, this year I am finally able to make my dream a reality. Having moved back to my hometown a year ago means that I have the space and the tools, lumber and experience of my father, to build this thing.

I decided to purchase plans for a bow top style wagon from Timothy Lemke over at American Vardo. Tim has modified the design of a traditional bow top to be easily built on a 4'x8' utility trailer. It's lightweight design means it can easily be pulled by even a small 4 cylinder vehicle, so my Suburu Tribeca (The Truffle) should have no problem.

Now given that this camper is primarily for Pennsic War, which is two weeks long, I wanted to make sure that I would have enough space to live comfortably and store all my stuff for that time. I ended up going with a 5'x10' trailer with ramp and will modify the plans slightly to take advantage of the extra space. Besides the full sized bed that will take up the rear 4 1/2' or so of the Vardo I plan also to build in two 1 1/2' - 2' closets on either side of the door (or the bed, haven't decided exactly yet) one of which will be used as a closet to hang up my garb, the other as a pantry. The remaining room will be used for chill space and I also want to rig up some sort of vanity/eating table. I'm hoping the ramp will be able to remain on the trailer so that i can prop it level with some cinder-blocks and use it as a "porch".

Big plans indeed, and all before the first week of august!

We are going today to buy what lumber we don't already have and as soon as the templates for the front and rear plywood sections arrive we will start the build. I plan on posting pictures and updates as the work progresses. Whee!