Let There be Light

If you were wiser you would get out
And the light that shines through the shining night
Is a lamp that I carried from my mother's home
And the light that burns through the window pane and the love remain

-Stevie Nicks - Blue Lamp

After a long time of not much happening, suddenly, A Great Deal Has Happened.

Episode 1: We go to an Event in Clinton, Break Camp Early, Load, Drive Home, Unload, Load Again, and Drive to Tuxedo

So it turned out that the best plan was to drop the vardo off with Mr. Lars at his Boothe at Sterling Forest Renaissance Festival in Tuxedo and leave it with him a while so he could work at it on his home turf, as it were. Moreover, it worked out in Just Such a Way that the best time to do it was on the Monday of Memorial Day Weekend.

The plan was to attend Settmour Swamp's Quest for Wit and Wisdom event, which we go to every year. (This year's theme was the Quest for the Treasures of Timbuktu.) We would arrive onsite Friday night, and enjoy the event on Saturday and Sunday. Monday morning, we'd break camp, pack up ourselves and Ian's stuff, go home from the site in Clinton, unload EVERYTHING, and strip the vardo down bare, load up ALL THE BUILDING materials and then journey to Tuxedo.

Which is what we did.

Here's some pics of the event:

Here's the vardo parked, along with Ian's Viking A-frame. Later in the event I set up the awning, but I didn't take a picture of it.

Jazz Paws!

Much fun was had by all. But on Monday morning, we duly packed up, drove home an hour from Clinton, unloaded the camping gear, stripped down the vardo, paused for a sammitch, re-loaded all the lumber and materials, and then drove an hour and a half to Tuxedo.
Here's an interesting aside: When we got home, we found all our lawn-gargoyles having a kaffeeklatsch on our doorstep. (We do not know how they got this way. Apparently they can only move when you're not looking.)

One lump or two, Gertrude?

After pondering the gargoyle mystery a moment or two, we hopped back in the truck and dropped Brigitte off at Daddy Lars' Armoury Shoppe. Here she is parked with one of her four sisters, ready for action:

I must say, I rather prefer the Ren Faire when it's all empty and peaceful. It was quite lovely. 

During the week, Lars sent me a bunch of pictures of his progress with Brigitte. Here's a sampling:

The bed deck area. He's put up insulation and wainscot paneling, and created shelves at the head and foot. 

A bench. Wainscoting applied, but the lid and bench back still need to be put on. 

Corner shelving and closet area. The closet will have a curtain for the door. 

 

The insulation is a whole bunch of cooler boxes that we got in the mail from various frozen-food shipments. Norm cut them up on the table saw to recycle them for the vardo's insulation. This is looking up at the ceiling.

Episode 2: Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch...
(Or, Jenny learns to solder.)

While the vardo's gone, we decided to do some of the projects that don't require the vardo being present to accomplish. Firstly, the lighting.

Last year, I ordered several star-shaped lanterns from various places online. We got two rose-colored seven-pointed lanterns and four white five-pointed lanterns. The rose-colored ones are destined to be 'porch lights', and the whites are for the interior.

We're planning on installing a 12v electrical system powered by a battery located in one of the bench seats. I got a whole bunch of 12v marine grade outlets and plugs. Lars will be wiring the vardo. Meantime, Norm and I wired the lanterns to use 12v LED lights. The plan is to have an outlet near the ceiling with a switch for each, so the lanterns can be unplugged and stowed for travel.

Step 1: Wire the Plugs:

I used a lamp cord replacement and cut the 8' length into four 2' lengths. Then I simply followed the directions that were provided by the plug manufacturer. The hardest part was getting all those hair-thin wires twisted together tightly enough so that they'd go into the terminal holes.

Step 2: Drill a Hole

The two 7-pointed lamps had a shallow brass dish which was designed to hold a votive candle. I had Norm drill a small hole for the wire here. (Norm did this part because I didn't want to risk breaking the fragile glass with my half-assed inexperienced attempt.)

Step 3: Thread the Wire Through and Solder it to the Socket Tails

I threaded the wire through the hole and then soldered it to the LED light socket. Here is my very first attempt at soldering; how did I do? (Norm said they were 'tits-and-beer' so I guess that means a good first effort!)

We used 'liquid tape' to seal the wires back up:

Step 4: Cable Ties

Next I used cable ties to secure the wires to the frame of the lantern. Since they're going to hang up, I exited the plug end through the top. All the ties were clipped off short.

Step 5: Light 'er Up!

We plugged each light into the 12v outlet in my car to test. Ta-DA! Pretty, Yes?

Each LED bulb gives the equivalent of a 30-watt incandescent. Here's a link to the place I got them: LED Light Bulb

They're only about $4 each. This is a really great website, too - lots of different LED types for different purposes. We chose these because they got lots of good reviews for different applications, and they were (hopefully) bright enough without being so bright they blind our campmates. (That would be bad.) 

Next: Brigitte is Back Home and ERMAGHERD THERE ARE SO MANY PROJECTS TO DO I'LL NEVER HAVE ENOUGH TIME FOR THEM ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!

Heart of Glass

Once I had a love and it was a gas
Soon turned out had a heart of glass
Seemed like the real thing, only to find
Mucho mistrust, love's gone behind


Much to my dismay, it had become apparent in the last couple of years that the windows were simply not up to the rigors of the road. They're old, after all. One of the windows in particular was about ready to fall apart - the leading had broken and a pane was loose. Norm taped it up with cardboard, which, as I'm sure you can imagine, looked like arse.

On the advice of our builder, we decided to try something in a last ditch effort to make the windows useable. He suggested we pour acrylic resin over the windows, to fill up one side and encase the glass, embedding the whole kit and caboodle in plastic.

I realize that there are those out there who might object to doing this, in the name of preserving antiques, but really, we had no choice. They were literally falling to pieces. This was the only way we could save them without paying a LOT of money to a glass worker to remove them from the frames and completely re-lead them. (I did look into this; it would have cost me FOUR TIMES what I originally spent on the windows.
This was really the only way.

I figured, if I totally screwed them up, we could punt by replacing the windows with shutters.


Step 1: Cleaning

This step was about as much fun as you might think. I used denatured alcohol to thoroughly clean both sides of the glass. painstakingly removing every bit of tape goo, grease, and smutch. I wasn't keen on permanently embedding dirt in the plastic, nor did I want the stuff to not stick because of oil or grease on the glass.

Step 2: Sealing

I wanted to make sure that when I poured the acrylic into the back side of the frame, it didn't seep totally through the glass and make weird drips that would harden into plastic spikes. Nor did I want to epoxy the window TO the worktable. So I took cardboard covered with saran wrap and taped it to the back of each window, to support the glass and contain the resin. I used a SHITLOAD OF TAPE.

Whether this technique worked as I envisioned we'll discover shortly.

Saran wrap doesn't stick to the resin. Cardboard to support the damaged panes. 

All four windows prepped with saran wrap, cardboard and LOTS OF TAPE.

Step 3: Pour
This is the step that kept me awake the night before, because the ratio of hardener to resin is really, really exact. How much you need depends on a lot of factors:

1) Air temp and humidity
2) Thickness of the layer being poured
3) How many layers are being poured

If you're doing more than one layer, you have to decrease the amount of hardener for each successive layer, because the heat will build up from previous layers and accelerate the process. Plus, trying to figure out how deep a layer I could pour for each window with the gallon of resin I'd purchased strained my very non-mathematically inclined brainmeats.

Chemistry Class. Note my notes under the two tiny bottles of hardener. 

Now, hardener is measured in DROPS per ounce of resin. I was working with 32 ounces per window, which came out to 256 drops per batch. If you've ever had to measure out 256 drops of anything, you will understand how it is an activity that WILL drive you INSANE.

Having no other choice than hold my breath and proceed, I counted my drops, mixed my resin, and POURED.

How did it turn out?

Reasonably well, actually. The resin did indeed leak all over the place - my tape job did not stick well enough. It got EVERYWHERE. This wasn't as big a disaster as it could have been, though - I'd put down a LOT of newspaper. The most damaged window leaked like a sieve - resin got on both sides equally. The other windows also leaked, but to a lesser extent.
As the resin entered the semi-hardened 'gel' stage, Norm and I, realizing that every window had resin leaking, tore off the cardboard and tape. Working quickly, we were able to peel off the jelly-like half-hardened resin with a chisel and razor blade, and clean up the spillage before it got all the way hard. It's a damn good thing we did, too- that stuff got hard as a rock by the next day.

As you can see here, it's a bit oddly textured. That's because I covered the wet side with saran wrap to prevent bugs from landing in it. Originally I'd taped it over but not touching the wet resin, but somehow (maybe the warmth of the resin, it got pretty hot) the saran wrap collapsed into the resin. By the time I saw the problem, the resin was gel-hard and the wrinkles were permanent.

On the plus side, the glass is now just about bulletproof. I do believe that these windows would survive a nuclear blast. Mission accomplished. 

Step 4: Finishing

I had stripped about 25 layers of paint off these windows last year, and stained them when we originally thought we were going to keep the vardo natural stained wood colors. That didn't work out, so now the windows needed to be painted to match the new color scheme.

There were also some divots of wood missing from a few of the windows - the one with the most damaged glass also had a big chunk out of the frame, so I patched up all the frames with Minwax High-Performance 2 part wood filler. This stuff is really good - hardens in a few minutes, is layerable, sandable, stainable and paintable. 

All of that white stuff is where I had to re-construct where the hinge had broken off a chunk of wood. 

I took a sander to each window and smoothed out the putty and roughed out the surface. Norm used the belt sander in places where we needed to take off a lot of surface. 

Next, I applied two coats of the indigo exterior paint to each window. Et voila!

You can't even see where I did the filling, it's totally invisible. Norm painted the window-openings and sills the same blue. Here they are back in the vardo:

So, In general, the Great Resin Experiment was a success. In hindsight, I can think of a few things I'd've done differently. Like I would have put a layer of duct tape directly on the glass to prevent leaks. I also would not have used saran wrap on the surfaces, which would have come out smoother. 

But I had fun working with it, and I can think of a bunch of projects one could do. One that I saw online is for a table filled with resin that was mixed with glow in the dark powder: 

Glow in the dark table

Except I think I'll use a router to make a design (Like the door to the Mines of Moria) and fill the design with the glow resin. THAT would be cool!

Next: The Return of The Lunde?

We're Floored.

 (No, Really!)

See?

Barbara came, along with Comet the Chihuahua, and with much cursing and banging, installed the floor. It's bamboo locking floor from Lowe's, about $2.50 or so a square foot. I must say she did a very good job. In addition, she did a little more work on the benches and counter, and stained the ceiling beams which will remain exposed when the faux tin ceiling is put up.

Norm and I concentrated on the exterior paint job, which is proceeding apace. It doesn't look much different than the last photo, but we've been able to apply additional coats and the color is nice and even now. I'm really pleased with it.

One of our major successes this week was finding just the right kind of beadboard wainscot paneling for the walls. You'd think it would have been easy to obtain this, but the stuff at Lowe's and HD was just...not good. They had stuff that was thin and cut with two repeating grooves, and looked cheesy to my eye. What I wanted was the real deal, the thicker stuff with the bead actually rounded. And I wanted it in either a light stain, or plain wood. This proved surprisingly difficult to find. Norm the ever-resourceful, called just about every lumberyard in the area and finally found a place that said they had it. But did they? Norm wanted to be sure it was the right stuff, so early Saturday morning we took a trip.

The stuff is PERFECT. Unstained, just thick enough, with a nice rounded bead. We'll slap a coat of Minwax PolyShades Honey Pine on it, and it will be just right.

This week should see a bump in progress, as Lars the Renaissance Man is due to commit a blitz-build. I can't wait to see what's waiting for me when I get home from work.

Norm got into the habit of calling the vardo 'Brigitte Vardo'. One of his co-workers at the park decided to make a sign for her. I don't have the heart to tell him he misspelled it, so she's 'Bridgette' from now until forever.

I'll leave you with a photo of my newest decorative acquisition. Sun faces! $25 at Bed, Bath & Beyond. Not sure where' they'll go yet, but I'll find a place for them.

It's Been Awhile..

But, we're back!

After a few years of no progress, we've finally picked up the hammer and brush and are determined to finally finish this project. We had a fairly rough few years, which included the passing away of Norm's dad, and three (count 'em three) deaths in my family/friend circle. Add to that a change of jobs and the result was stagnation on the vardo-building front.


On the plus side, the new job is much better compensated than the old one. This gives Jen more money to spend on vardo-related stuff. So, round about February we met with Lars, our wonderful renaissance man to discuss PLANS. And now PLANS are becoming ACTION!

A Colorful Harlot She Is...

So we had originally planned to stain and seal the vardo and keep the natural wood color. This was a good idea in theory, but did not pan out well in practice. We had several years of excessive rain and the mildew got a foothold. A REALLY GOOD FOOTHOLD. So I made the decision to strip her down and paint her with this stuff: Valspar Reserve Exterior Paint. It costs quite a bit (about $50/gallon) but should keep us from having quite the same problems as before. (I hope). In any case, if over the years she gets grimy again, we can just re-paint her. I chose 'Brown Berry' and 'Indigo' colors, and the decorative trimwork will be in a metallic copper. (The copper paint isn't an exterior, so I'll have to clear-coat that.)

We're about half done with the paintjob, here's a peek:

Interior: Moar Progress!!!

So Lars has returned with help from the way-cool Barbara. Together, these two can build just about anything, I'm convinced. Lars is a renaissance man in every sense of the word, (he built large chunks of the NY Renaissance Fair, plus, he's also a metalsmith, photographer AND works in film (I really believe he does just about everything, from lighting to camerawork to stage combat to camerawork to voiceover.)

In any case, here's what they accomplished in an afternoon:

Woo! 

In addition to all this, Jen went shopping. I bought all kinds of things, including bamboo flooring, faux tin ceiling tiles, lanterns that we're going to wire with led's that will run off of a 12v system, a solar panel to charge the battery, a housing and exhaust vent for the battery, marine 12v outlets, plugs, and baskets for the shelving. Whew!

I'll post more pics as we use these items. We're on our way!

There and Back Again.

'Don't you steal my baby, you gypsies!'

This is the first thing that our campmate, Mouse, said to us when we rolled up to Silver Channel camp at Pennsic at about 10:30 PM. It was the start of a really wonderful vacation, and a welcome relief from the stress of the past month.

Everyone was incredibly enthusiastic about the vardo, despite the fact that we had to do a little finagling to fit it into camp. (Next year will be easier.) By the end of Pennsic, our camp Mom & Dad were hatching schemes to build a shower on a trailer with a holding tank, so that we could dispense with digging the shower pit every year, which is a royal P.I.A. Another enthusiast was our friend Debra, who with her husband run both a clothing merchant and leatherworking business. (Good stuff, too - Sultry Treasures by Debra.) She's looking for a shop/wagon where she can keep her stock and pack and unpack easily.

Perched.

Ala-Kazaam!

Messy, but VERY comfortable!

My attempt at artsy photography - the Sun finial on our awning against the rising moon.

As unfinished as the vardo is - it still lacks all of its decorative trim, stain on the bays and front door, a finished interior and any kind of caulking - we got a lot of compliments. I can't wait to show them the end product!

During the last month, I'd kind of lost my vision of how cool this thing was going to be. This was due to the frustrations of some of the roadblocks we came up against and getting a little burned out on the work and worry. Well, one day at War cured all that. The first night, after we rolled in at 10 PM, instead of having to then set up a pavilion, and our bed in the dark, we simply parked the vardo and went to bed until we could set up formally the next morning. And then it rained! Torrentially! We slept on, dry and warm. Let me also add, that rain on the aluminum roof was very soothing.

Most of what I did this war was....nothing. Well, mostly sleep. Yes, we went shopping and to a couple of parties, but the majority of my time was spent either reading under my shade awning or snoozing in the vardo. Even in the direct sun, the vardo was relatively cool, as long as I left the windows open. The addition of a battery operated fan made it positively blissful.

Packing up was diabolically easy. In fact, Norm and I ended up sitting around like Statler and Waldorf in a couple of camp chairs, watching everyone else pack up in a panic ahead of a predicted downpour on Saturday. Frankly, the only reason we were still there at that point is that we were land-locked in by other people's cars, tents, etc. until about 2PM. Honestly, we could have been packed in an hour and gone. I think our camp mates might have hated us just a smidge right then. Norm helped fill in the shower pit in atonement.  Next time, maybe I should bring pie or something...

The vardo towed to and from War very well. We didn't have any problems, and according to Norm it tracks really well. The only issue we encountered is that about 100 yards from home, we hit one of our pet potholes and busted a shackle link. This is easy to fix.

I learned a few things during this shakedown:
1.  I think maybe I might reduce the amount of space that was going to be closet, because I really didn't use that much space on my clothing rod - maybe like a foot. So I don't need a 3-foot closet. I think I'll have Lars shorten the closet and turn the extra space into corner-shelving.  Shelving ROCKS. I had stuff stuck in the eaves, on the bay windowsills, and on the four shelves that Lars had put in between the studs. I want MORE!

2. I think also that I will paint or stain the wheels a brighter color so that they pop out in front of the black fabric wheel camouflage, so that the camouflaged modern wheels are less obvious.

3. I made the right call in buying such huge scissor leveling jacks. Lars thought 7500 lb jacks was overkill, and maybe it was, but I felt very secure perched on the side of the hill with one side jacked up almost a whole foot. The vardo hardly had any rock or shake at all. This helped Jenna sleep at night.

4. We need a big hook to hold the hatch open while fishing within the cargo hold.

5. We ended up buying some cement blocks to use to foot the jacks - they were cheap and they made a big difference in the vardo's stability.

We will be on a short hiatus until maybe October, when Lars is predicting he'll have some more time to work on the project, and I'll have some bucks to spend. See you then!

Here Comes the Rain AGAIN.

Here comes the rain again
Falling on my head like a memory
Falling on my head like a new emotion
I want to walk in the open wind
I want to talk like lovers do
I want to dive into your ocean
Is it raining with you? -Eurythmics


OMG, the rain. As I type this, a day late getting going to Pennsic, the whole forest is absolutely dripping with the remains of the torrential downpour that hit us last evening just as we were getting ready to load up the vardo.
I hadn't much dwelled on it previously, but the amount of rain we've had this spring/summer has seriously fucked with our vardo-building schedule.

It rained almost non stop in April/May, which was when this project was originally slated to begin. Because of that, it got bumped forward, and in fact, bumped into Lar's other projects involving Tuxedo Renaissance Faire. Additionally, there were many days over the last few weeks where Lars had a smidge of free time, but inevitably, it would friggin' rain.

As a result, the vardo is not finished on the inside. Additionally, in order to get it roadworthy enough to take to Pennsic, Lars had to pull a 24 hour shift finishing the damn thing up.
The last straw was last night, when it was finally done, and just as Norm and I are getting ready to load it, it starts pouring torrential buckets of water all over everything.

So we threw up our hands and went to bed. What else can you do? In any case, here are some pictures of the vardo. It does look beautiful, I think - and there's more finishing detail to be done.

As you can see in the pictures, it needs some more staining and the trimwork needs to be done. Also, we didn't have time to cut the dutch door, but it's all marked and ready to be cut.
I think I need to just get our butts to Pennsic now and have some fun, and when we come back, there won't be any deadlines or immediate goals to accomplish. Creativity is much more fun that way. Hopefully, this time next year, all of the detail work and the decorating and the fun little mini-projects that I know I'll be thinking up over the winter will be done. I'm planning on keeping all of the SCA gear and garb in the vardo permanently. So all we'll have to do next year is hook up and go.

Rain or no friggin' rain! (Shakes fist at sky, Scarlett O'Hara-like.)

She's Not There.

Well let me tell you 'bout the way she looked
The way she'd act and the colour of her hair
Her voice was soft and cool
Her eyes were clear and bright
But she's not there -The Zombies.

Countdown to Jenn losing her mind:


10...9...8..7....

We are in high gear now. Norm and I now have the vardo in our driveway, after a weekend fraught with peril. (Well, not really peril, but at least annoyances.)

To begin with, the truck we were going to use to take the vardo home on Thursday night blew its brakes. So we couldn't take it home until Saturday. That pretty much nixed any plans to get it weighed and go to DMV on Saturday morning. As a result, we'll have to do it Friday, thus pushing our departure for Pennsic back 1 day.

C'est la vie, I suppose.

Here are some pics of the last building session, which went on deep into the night:

Norm gives the light brackets what for with the sawzall. The lights were moved to the back of the vardo.

Lars of Midknight construction actually working at midnight. Gack!

Once we had the thing home on Saturday, we spent the remainder of the weekend staining and sealing it. Fortunately, this was not quite as labor-intensive as it sounds; we actually had some time on Sunday afternoon and evening to rest a bit while the sun was too direct. Once we got our shade back, we resumed and finished up a little before 7PM Sunday night.

The main boards are all done.

As you can see, it currently lacks both windows and doors. This will be remedied on Wednesday, when Lars is going to come chez nous with some qualified help and finish up. As I will be working in Springfield on Wednesday, I am anticipating coming home to a miraculous transformation of what looks like a woodshed on a landscaping trailer into a beautiful, livable work of art.