hey guys welcome back it's brian with retired at 40 the van build is going very
very strong we're converting a ram promaster 1500 into a kind of a weekend
warrior camper van just for our little adventures that we go on and the van
build is going along really nice but I need to feel like I need to speed it up
because the kids are out of school now the weather is getting really nice and
I'm pretty much sort of retired at 40 now so we're gonna jump right back into
this thing so we left off kind of just building the frame or the box of the
cabinet I've actually got my layout figured out now it's gonna have to
incorporate all of our solar our plumbing our sink give us a little area
to do food prep and then we also want our battery bank and everything to be in
there so let's get into this so let's get this power inverter in here and this
is the one that I got sent for free from the company so I want you to know that
like just as a full disclosure I'm not necessarily promoting it in any way I
have used it it works just fine I'll put a link down below if you want to take a
look at it I do want it to be flush mounted so once it's flush mounted I'm
gonna make a mark of where this lands so I know how to box it in okay so now you
can kind of see how I'm dividing this my tanks are gonna be over here battery is
down here here I cut this centerpiece and our inverter will sit up in here and
then it will be pinched by a shelf that goes through here and I want to make
everything modular so it can all be removed obviously some of this stuff
isn't gonna last forever the batteries go bad everyone you know every couple
years if you get a leak in a water tank you want everything to be able to be
pulled out pretty easily so I'll show you how I'm gonna do that built another
piece and this will actually fit right into these grooves and this will
sandwich in our power inverter so I'm trying to hide all of the screws that
I'm going to use because and I'm using screws because I want all of these
shelves to be pretty easily removable in case you ever need to do service on
anything if you need to replace anything obviously everything
needs you have to have access to it so I've drawn a line across here where the
the top of the shelf will actually meet up with the bottom of the power inverter
I'm going to do the same on the other side and these holes will actually be
covered up because I'm doing a tool box area over here so they'll be inside of a
Bay and you won't really be able to see them I'm gonna take my mark that I made
and I'm just gonna drill a few holes through into the other side and then I
think I'm gonna put a vent in here for the power inverter just so it can
breathe a little bit I'll do that after it's all hooked up and installed and
we'll see what kind of temperature it's running at okay so there's the power
inverter it's all nice and snug in there I'm gonna take an exact copy of this
piece right here and we're gonna make a shelf down here to sandwich our battery
pack so it pushes it down and then we'll have this whole space in here for
storage so this is coming together pretty nice it's it's really starting to
look like a cabinet it's starting to feel like a camper in here so here's my
other shelf that I just did and my battery bank I'm gonna have two of these
exact batteries they'll sit side by side here and then I'm gonna make some kind
of strapping system that will go over them and keep them in place and then I'm
actually just gonna build two little cleats on the wall I think to hold this
shelf up and that way it can pull off real easy but this will kind of give you
the idea of what it'll look like okay so here's our first cleat I'm just gonna
liquid nails and then put a couple screws in this here is the second cleat
two cleats on the wall and then this
will just sit on top of it so the nice thing we're gonna do is just kind of box
in the center part and then this because they're gonna show when you put the door
on so just cut a small strip and I sanded it down and it's got a little bit
of liquid nails on the back and then I'm just gonna pop a couple nails in it so
for this one we're actually you're just gonna pin nail it on the sides because
we want this shelf that was that's holding in the inverter we want that to
be able to fall down so we can access it if we need to so you
this piece seperate from the shelf and then on this side we're gonna continue
this same pattern across here so you have a symmetrical looking cabinet but
I'm gonna make a backing piece that goes back behind here and then I'm gonna nail
those together and glue them from the back and then nail them from the back
and then we have a nice solid piece because I've got something special that
I've got an idea of what I want to do on here for my surprise I found a little
piece of a drop off piece from this countertop so I think what I'm gonna do
is since obviously there's just a lack of workspace in general I'm gonna make a
thing that can pop out and I can actually slide out like a drawer like
this and then it gives you just a little bit of extra work space or you can use
it as a desk or you could use it as a place to eat and then when this is in and
stored then we'll have our silverware in here it'll slide in like this so I'm
actually going to make these drawer slides come out from the bottom just so
you can maximize the workspace up on top so it'll be like this and it'll be a
little more concealed so I think what I'm gonna do first is I'm gonna sand this
all down I'm gonna put a quick coat of tung oil on it and then while we're
waiting for the tung oil to dry I'm actually gonna put the the doors on here
and figure out our hinges and all that stuff
so this is the tongue oil that I use it's the reason I like tung oil is it's
not actually a stain it's just a protectant and so there's no matching
colors there's none of that it brings out the natural color of the wood it
just gives it a kind of a matte finish but it's it's real durable to water and
I really like it on this rustic look we we like this beat-up kind of rustic look
and it matches the rest of kind of what we're going for so tung oil works really
well for that while we're waiting for that to dry I'm gonna go work on our
cabinet doors and by the time we're done working with that this should be dry and
we can come back to the slide-out so here's a couple tips for you when you're
building cabinets cabinet doors in particular when you're making a couple
doors or a few doors or however many doors that are all right next to each
other try and keep the same piece of wood that way you have a nice uniform
look when these close together you're still
gonna be able to see all of this grain in one continuous grain and if you're
planning on keeping the natural look of the wood it really makes it look a lot
nicer the second big thing you want to do is make sure that you have an equal
reveal what they call it reveal all the way around and what the reveal is is
basically the amount of frame that you can see all the way around and then if
you're cutting this on a table saw or the skill saw which you most likely are
always cut the side that you want to be the finished side cut that facing down
because the blade if you don't have the correct kind of blade or if your blade
is not completely sharp it's gonna want to it'll have a tendency to splinter on
this nice side so you want that down and that way you'll have a nice clean cut on
that side the if it's splinters at all it'll be on the backside and you can
cover it up a little bit easier
so here's my bottom side which would be the inside of the cabinet you can see
it's just got a few little splinters they'll stand off nice but then you flip
it over and we've got a perfect nice clean cut so there are doors see how
much nicer it looks when the grain continues through the entire section of
cabinet and then before you get these installed take a nice square like this
is a drywall square and make sure that all of your cuts are nice and square
before you hang them up it'll make your life a lot easier so you've got some
different options for hardware I actually used a screen door hinge which
is it's pretty low profile for the most part and it's narrow at the hinge like
this this is a stanley one I think this just came from Lowe's okay so for my
cabinet doors I'm just going for simplicity and function but I'm actually
just going to go with a flush mount which means I need to cut this piece of
plywood down so it fits inside this area so what I need to do is measure this
inside opening and then take about an eighth of an inch off of each side so it
will fit flush mount the other thing that this allows it to do is I can put a
hasp on here which is pretty important since you're carrying a bunch of heavy
and components and stuff inside this cabinet it's nice to be able to put a
hasp across it that way it'll keep it nice and snug
if you ever got in a wreck or you were over rough terrain or you had to slam on
your brakes it keeps everything real nice and sturdy in here
voila let's put some hinges on all right so I've got a couple of shims I'm gonna
put those on the bottom and then I'm going to set our door on top of those
and then I'm gonna adjust the shims until I get a door that looks nice and
squared up so I'd recommend only doing one hinge at a time that way if
something gets off just a little bit it allows you to kind of fluff things back
up again so I called this a hasp earlier but it's actually called a barrel bolt
and the reason I like it is you see them on gates and things like that but it it
really locks in what you're trying to conceal and when you've got 50-pound
batteries when you've got water tanks that are full over here it really makes
everything so it's a lot more secure not too bad
do another side alright next let's put this in so these are 16-inch full
extension drawer slides I like the full extension because they come out past
where the end of the frame of the cabinet stops everything I'm using in the video
I'll put a link in the description for I tend to use things that are the best
value for the money than what I use is not always the cheapest option for me I
like to get the most quality I can for the least cost
I built a cleat that will go in the back on the back wall will attach that to the
back of the cabinet - a couple more pieces of wood that are glued and
screwed from the back and then the biggest thing that you need to remember
is to make sure that these are squared up and that they're they're gonna be
evenly spaced or they'll start to bind and the the drawers not gonna want to
slide out so I'll turn get to the best shot I can it's gonna be real tough to
get a good shot but this is gonna basically slide in against the wall so I
went ahead and put some corner braces in this corner over here because there's
really not a lot to attach to but now this is really good and sturdy and we're
ready to put our board on so like I said before it's really important that these
are squared up and an even space in between or the one apply and it's gonna
be really hard to open and close this thing so I'm gonna pop the the two final
screws in the top here and then before I attach the board to the slides I'm going
to make sure that this is nice and squared up so the last thing I did is I
put some epoxy on the front of this and then I just made a drawer front that's
actually gonna pop onto here I'm gonna put a couple finish nails in it and
we'll be ready for stain there we go it's all done we've got our bonus
cutting board slash prep area slash eating area all this needs now is a coat
of tung oil on it and it's it's good to go and what I'm most excited about is
now I can hook up my plumbing so make sure you tune in to the next video we'll
be doing the plumbing on the next video in the meantime this is retired at 40
remember to live life simple and we'll catch you next week