Glue glue glue glue..... Dreaming of the stuff !

*Note for Steve, who sent me a message through YouTube*
Steve, I tried to reply, but it came back undelivered from a YouTube email, get back in touch via this email (damon(at)damoncannard.com) and I will forward my reply to you.

Well, you'd have thought I would have had enough of de-glueing for a bit, and you wouldn't be wrong, but that is also a good motive to get on with it and get it out the way.

It has been the longest, most tedious job, and the first thing I said when I came in tonight was I'd have to think hard before I bought another vehicle with so many vinyl graphics on. But of course, I would :). Its hard work, but when you've cleared a panel, or a side, you get a sense of pride knowing just how much work you've put in, and that it was worth every single aching minute. Shoulders and neck are affected most followed by cramping fingers. To stand back after though, and see the finished result is a pretty cool feeling :).

I now understand though, why they sell these Ambulances on with all the Livery still intact. It would cost them millions in labour to debadge them.

So, when I finished work today, I decided to tackle the back doors. I forgot to take a before photo of both back doors, so this is with one cleared, you can see the difference it has made :).


The cleaned one was actually the worst of the two, it had more 'solid' blocks of glue, so was nice to get out the way. Those three black holes are for the Renault badge.


This was the lovely moment that both back doors were finally cleared, and all I had to do was replace the spare wheel, and refit the badge.





I have to say, this last photo was a total relief and I couldnt believe how nice Nina looked, and CLEAN ! No longer embarrassed to pull up at the supermarket with her showing off her nice gluey panels covered in dead insects :S.

I was going to leave it there, but hey, I was on a roll, so decided to go and get my platform ladder and do the bit above the windscreen too.
Again I forgot to take a pic before I started, this was when Id done as far as I could reach on the drivers side !


There is still the faint outline of shiny paint that was under the vinyl spelling out Ambulance, but that will have to wait for the TCut and polish. You can barely see it unless the sun or light is right on it.


All done :).

This next pic shows the Short Wave ? Aerial on top, its constantly getting hit as I drive underneath things, so will need to remove at some stage.



And unbelievably, thats it for the de-glueing ! :). I do still need to use the heat gun on the clips I put on for the fairy lights, and clean the little squares of glue left behind by those, but I have officially debadged what was on Nina when I got her, everything gone :). It feels gooooooooooo oooooood ! :).

I did try one of the leisure batteries for size too, my intention was to put them both under the drivers seat. No chance, cant even get them under the double passenger seat, so I will have to make space for them in the back somewhere. A problem for another day.

Not sure what the next job will be, so come back and check soon ! :).




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Location:Gloucester

Mooooooore Glue :S

After the excitement of doing some electrics yesterday, and updating the blog with all the bits and pieces I'd been doing the past few weeks, I wanted to get a bit more done today, whilst we also had some nice weather. It was a lovely evening, so decided to tackle some de-gluing. In my opinion, the worst of it was on the opposite side to the one I already cleared, there were some very large strips of solid glue, so decided that was what I was going to start on, get it out the way.

I got this far, and posted to Facebook what I was doing....


Which caught the attention of my friend Jamie, who happens to work in the vinyl sign/livery trade ! Why nothing I have put before now has caught his attention I dont know ! :P. Better late than never I guess lol. Anyway, he weighed in with how HE tackles this kind of glue. Soak in white spirit, leave for about 5 minutes, then get a shatterproof ruler, (im assuming because they are made from a more rubber like plastic rather than hard scratchy plastic), and using two fingers, put pressure on the end of the ruler and gently scrape/rub the glue away. Well, I didnt have white spirit, I had my brake and clutch cleaner, so used that instead, and I didnt have a shatterproof ruler, but I did have a plastic scraper that Jamie gave me ages ago when I had the T4 which is a similar kind of material, and gave it a go.

Yes. Definately a bit quicker and didnt scratch the body. Amazed how much glue comes off when its in a kind of jelly form.


I carried on switching between the scraper, the Asda non scratch scourers, and microfibre cloths to clear the rest of the side.


All thats left on the side is the small clips around the profile that I used to attach the fairy lights at Christmas. Glue wise, all thats left is the back doors, and a little bit of lettering above the windscreen :). Soon be done, and its not a job I want to do again any time soon ! De-badging is THE most time consuming job I know of.

It was starting to get a little dark by the time I finished so decided to have a play with the window mood lights inside, Id forgotten what it looked like.

Wow, I cant wait to get those fixed and wired in, they look awesome, and very cosy. I'm really going to think about the lighting inside, I love coloured LED lights lighting things. I have a decent amount of switches in my box I made last weekend, so can have some really effective mood lighting all working independantly of each other, so can have any or all on depending on my mood :).


All blinds down ....











The photos dont do it Justice, you really have to be there :)



This is what it looks like from outside, you can clearly see the three blue glows lighting the blinds, but even with your nose pushed against the window you cant see a thing inside :).

Thats it for today, come back soon ! :).



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Location:Gloucester

Compendium of Jobs

Hi everyone !

Its been a while since an update again, life gets very busy sometimes, so I've just been doing small things as and when I can, and this is just an update on those.

Weather has again been up and down, which has also limited the work, but also highlighted the problems with leaks.

The NSR side window is leaking very badly now, oddly the OSR isnt being too much of a problem, and thats the one with the big hole in the rubber where I cut a sample from it. Every now and then if the rain is hard, The OS middle window leaks slightly too now, and the Roof Vent has been steadily dripping water every time it rains too, all in all, I cant do the interior until all the water is kept outside, as Im using ply for everything, ply and water dont mix very well !

This has brought me to a decision. Up until now I have been undecided about what to do with the windows, now, I have decided, if its possible, and the windows have enough metal underneath the rubber seals, Im going to get all he side windows replaced with new Bonded windows. This will stop any leaks now and in the future. The biggest bug bear is the cost, just to buy the window set it is £650, but in my opinion, worth it for the peace of mind, and will still make a cheap camper.

The second thing, is the roof vent, I recently took it apart...





There is a wooden frame under the metal that was saturated, the seal around the vent on top of the roof had failed. I put some more sealer around it which seems to have done the trick for now, but I think I will buy a new vent with a more modern smoke glass top with a 12v fan incorporated. This will be good for cooking on the hob underneath for extracting, also for bringing air down to the dog cage under the kitchen when stationary.

In three weeks I need to use Nina for a Dog Show down in Torquay run by Cornwall & South Devon Boxer Rescue, I will be going down the night before as it starts at 9am and it takes an hour and a half to set up my marquee as a Photo Studio. So going to put it up the night before, meaning Iwill need to camp in Nina ! I'm quite excited to actually camp, even though she is nowhere near finished, so I have set myself a few jobs to have done by then, some lighting etc.

As I dont have the seating cushion pads yet, I am going to have to use an airbed, so I set one up to see how it would be...






I didnt pump it all the way up, and MAN was it comfy ! Just sank in to it. So think I'll be sorted for a bed. Just need a pillow and a sleeping bag and I'm done ! I'm very happy to say my seat/bed works very well when pulled out :). Quite proud of myself I am ;).

My next worry was privacy from the back windows, as my kitchen isnt fitted blocking them all yet. Problem fixed with an adjustable Shower Curtain Pole !


Thats Archie modelling it for you ;). Obviously I wont use the transparent shower curtain that came with it you see in the pic, but one of my sheets I use on my printer table at the shows.

The next thing I've been dying to try out is my Rear View Mirror Monitor and cameras. Curiosity got the better of me one day and I temporarily fixed it up with the inside rear facing camera attached to the bulkhead.









It works extremely well and after using it a few days whilst taking the dogs out, it brings peace of mind knowing they are OK and not stressing, getting too hot, ripping up my seating etc :). Still have to run wiring to the back for the roof one. Hopefully this link will show a YouTube video of it working in practice...


Another job I've been itching to do is my spare wheel graphic. I had intended on having two interchangeable graphics, one advertising Nina's blog, and one advertising my photography business, but couldnt really find a solution to swap them easily, so decided to just go for it with the graphic I had already bought, my photography one. It was fairly easy to apply, it came on some clear plastic backing, and as with the window tinting, just had to give the spare wheel cover a good clean, then spray with soapy water, and apply the graphic, moving it around until it was in the right place, then squeedgy all the soapy water out from behind, leaving it to adhere in the hot sun that day.


I think it looks great ! The dog on the graphic is Barney, the dog sitting underneath the Spare Wheel, the dog to the right is Sam, and the one on top is Barney2, he is based on Barney and was hand made for me by Kass who is the owner of Celery Crafts, go find her on facebook, she does wonderful things with material ! :).
A closer look .....



A friend of mine that buys lots of boats, showed me some battery clamps he bought in the shop What ! the other day. I need to connect my two 70amp batteries together to make 140amps, and needed some clamps too, so popped in and got some myself. Very cheap ! £1.40 a set. These go for loads more on ebay, and they have the cable clamp built in too.


Definately recommend them.

My thoughts are turning more and more to the electrics now. I had an idea for all the little blue LED light switches I bought from HK on ebay, so put it in to practice. I wanted a light switch panel, that also housed a couple of 12v accessory sockets (cigar lighter socket). I ordered a set of 3 marine sockets from ebay, it was £13.15 for all three delivered, Marine means they have a rubber flap to hide the socket. Then I bought a gadget box from Maplin, basically and empty plastic box. Measured and drilled 6 holes for the switches, using some really neat stepper drill bits that I also got from What !..


Then fitted all the switches, and waited for the accessory sockets to come.








Once they arrived, I fitted those too, using the second widest hole my stepper drills could make, 30mm.









This makes a great little control panel, and I cant wait to have it fitted and working ! :). I suppose the whole thing cost about £20 ish to make with all the switches £1.89 each delivered, and the box which was under a fiver. Bespoke and exactly how I want it.

Finally, today, I fitted my second rear view camera on top, was scary cutting such a big hole in the roof, but worked out fine.








I dont think I was prepared for the amount of work needed to run the power and video cable from back to front, ended up dismantling most of the roof space, but once it was all done, it worked brilliantly. Because of the thickness of the back doors, I cant get it to point down right behind Nina so I can see how close the bumper is to something, but I still get a pretty good view of things at the back, like a rear view mirror would give you in a normal car. Very pleased with it. Because the monitor has two video inputs, I can switch between the internal and external cameras via a touch sensitive button on the side of the rear view mirror monitor. Its very cool :).





As it was gone 11pm by the time I finished, these are the two views of the monitor that clamps over my existing rear view mirror. First one is the gates and our driveway, second is the internal camera, both showing that the infra red night vision on the cameras works perfectly ! :). Looking forward to trying them out in daylight tomorrow.

Well, I thought this was going to be a quick post, I hadn't realised I'd done so many little things ! Glad I have, the To Do List is staying pretty static where I keep adding new stuff, but thats evened out by these bits and pieces I'm getting done slowly :).


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Location:Gloucester

Wow....what a change !

You really dont realise as you go along week by week, month by month, all the little jobs you do make big changes.

Location:Gloucester

OMG....Nina's NAKED !!!

.......but not in a way that's wrong :P

Yesterday I left you with a photo of the back doors with the last of the decals on them.


Last night it poured down with rain and I really thought today would be rained off. Luckily it was dry but very overcast and the threat of rain was minimal, so made a start.

Back in April I bought a Multifunction Ladder that you can fix into lots of configurations to suit the job you are doing. One thing about Nina is she is very tall, and knowing I had some work to do at roof level, one of the configurations is a platform, ideal !

PS, Mike.... It works a treat ! You wont be sorry you bought the last one after mine ! ;).


So today I set it up and it was a perfect height for the roof line and removing the lettering at the top of the doors.


I got to this point, and it decided to start raining, so down I came and unplugged everything, only for the sun to come back out, so quickly set up again and removed the last of the decals, while I was up there I removed the glue too using the same method as the video, bar one change, and thats using a scourer to remove the glue. Yes ! A scourer :). Asda do a non scratch scourer that effectively removes the glue but doesnt damage the paintwork, although I wouldnt like to try it on a highly lacquered finish or metallic paintwork, you do that at your own risk ! The only reason I tried it in the first place is that I reasoned with myself that I'm going to be T-Cutting the paintwork anyway so should be able to remove any light swirls on my solid white paint job. It definately sped up the process of removing the glue, although it was still hard work !


These are the doors with the last of the graphics gone ! Yay :). I also had a quick go at the right hand side below the window to see how hard the glue underneath the red foil backed vinyl was to remove. It was fairly 'easy', not that the glue removal is easy, but in comparison to some of the other areas it was :P.

So, all thats left for the bodywork for now is to remove the glue from the passenger side, the rest of the glue from the back, and some on the front of the roof, then a big T-Cut all over and she will bear no markings that would give away her past. Kind of sad in a way, Ambulances do an essential job, but as with every job in life, one day you have to retire from it, so maybe becoming a leisure vehicle, ie a campervan is a fitting retirement job :P.





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Location:Gloucester

Here Today, Gone Today......

I'm determined to put the decals/checkers behind me, it's a job I've been dreading after my first attempt last Autumn. As you know, in the last couple of posts, I've been doing just that.

Today's job was to clear the difficult green foil backed rectangles from the drivers side. I had done around half the side, but these were proving difficult up to the normal yellow vinyl rectangles which pretty much pulled off in one piece, after a bit of heating.



I promised Graeme, (who is following Nina's blog and has his own Ambulance Camper project !), that I would post a video of how I removed the foil backed vinyl, so I did take some video, 2 to be precise, one normal video that ended up around 7 minutes long, but does impress the work that goes in to removing just one vinyl rectangle and its glue. The second one I made with all you people that get bored easily in mind lol, its a Timelapse video that is around a minute long, so a bit easier for you to bear :P. If anyone would like to see the 'long' version then let me know :D.

Just to let you know, the 'tools' needed for this job, or the tools I used in this video, are some Swarfega Brake & Clutch Cleaner (in the squirty bottle), a plastic scraper (something like you would get with a tub of body filler, mine came from a friend at a sign writers, used to apply vinyl graphics normally), a cheap Tesco micro fibre cloth, found near the dusters etc, and a hot air gun, the kind you would use to strip paint, a hairdrier will probably do the job too, but would take longer to heat the vinyl. I heat the vinyl until it bubbles, but you could probably get away with stopping just short of that. Be warned, when you heat the vinyl, you are also heating the metal body panel, if you go too far with it, the metal will start to become pliable, and will be easy to push in and create a dent, if allowed to cool in that position, the body panel may be left with a permanent dent, so if it does pop in, tap the metal around it until it pops back out. It happened to me twice !













I still have lots of glue left to get off on the passenger side and the back doors, and on the front of the roof, but hoping its not the horrible glue that was under the green stuff !

Decal wise, all thats left is this ....


Which shouldn't take too long, then once all that is done, Nina will need an all over T-Cut to try and match the weathered body with the shiny surface that was revealed once the vinyl was removed.

Hoping to get some more things done this weekend, so come back soon ! :).

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Location:Gloucester