Hey let us show you how to turn this,
into this, in only 10 steps that will take around 10 minutes of your time.
Today i'm in the shop with sylvain my father. He's the one who built our van but he also
built 12 vans now... Yeah he's finishing his 12th build and today he's sharing all the little
steps to how to build your van in only 10 minutes. His explanation will take 10 minutes. If you're
planning to build a van, it's going to give you a clear path of what to expect. If you're not
planning to build a van, it's still going to give you enough information to see if this lifestyle or
this kind of project is a project for you. So don't hesitate if you have questions just drop them in
the section below keep in mind this is a recipe there's probably 10 000 ways of building events
this is our way and it works are you ready to give me your 10 steps to build a van in 10 minutes go
so first step papa to building your van in 10 minutes identify your needs yep you get a lot of
orders from a lot of people what have you seen in the last three years that marked you people need
to know you need to know what you want to do with your van you're going to be sleeping in it forever
you want a permanent bed not a permanent bed that type of thing that's what you have to decide
what is it going to be used for is it going to be used a lot of time or just part time
and then from that you got to plan every little bit you need in it because it's going
to dictate what you're going to build and how you're going to build what's the most common
planning mistakes people tend to do adding something at the very last second sometimes
is very hard at the beginning of your van you're going to be doing things that you will need at the
end of your build so you're gonna plan plan plan plan so that by the time you get there
you didn't forget about it when you when you did your writing on a paper
find a cargo van or the type of van you're looking for these days something very special is happening
uh big companies big delivery companies are buying a lot of cargo vans for example
amazon bought 25 000 promasters in 2021 i think that means people like us don't have
access that easily to those cargo vans anymore and if you look online you'll see that the
used promaster is the same price as the new one because the new ones are not accessible anymore so
big market out there big market for cargo vans if a cargo van is what you want otherwise you
can check out any kind of used car selling platform that you would usually use to buy
a normal car unfortunately though since the van life industry is blowing out of
proportion these days finding a van to work with is getting harder and harder i build a
lot of these vans whether it's ford transit whether it's sprinter whether it's promaster
if you haven't done one before you can probably fit whatever your needs are in any one of these
models the way you're gonna build it is slightly different because the frames in there are slightly
different from one van to the other so you won't probably see the difference yourself but for me
i don't build a promaster the same way i build a sprinter or a transit transit so um
keep that in mind there's different techniques to use depending on the frame that is in there
step number three of building a van in only 10 minutes it's a very paradoxical and it's very
weird but step number three is actually cutting your van making holes in it making holes in the
van if you read on the internets you have all the recipes you need to do nice cuts nice holes
you got to make all the perforation you need to do at the beginning for example in the ceiling
you have to install this fan before building anything else around same thing if you're going to
pass wires into your roof whether it's an antenna because of your of your wii booth an
air conditioning or lighting or whatever windows windows you have to think about everything that
it's going to cut the frame of your van before you start building inside because you're not
going to have access to it if you don't do that did your plan i want two fans one fan i want an
antenna i want whatever do the outside stuff first and then switch to the inside after okay
number four numero you have to see the title after the number number four the rough stuff so we when
we start building inside i always start with two things the flooring the insulation and the vinyl
of the flooring and the ceiling so all the prep for the ceiling the bracketing of the
ceiling the framing of the ceiling and the walls etc why do we start with those things
uh personally i do that because it's easier to deal with installing your cabinets after you
can do your sealing around your cabinets but that's a lot of work uh so it's a lot easier
to put the ceiling on and you saw the type of ceiling we're doing and then to put the
cabinets on those ceiling and it's it looks a lot better a lot less trimming to do and
it gives you the dimensions you're going to have to work with for the rest of your cabinet same
thing for the floor the floor is going to be up you could probably floor around your cabinets but
it wouldn't be insulated that's not a good idea so if you put the floor on and then put your cabinets
after that now you got a good frame on top good frame in the bottom and you know exactly what
you're dealing with in terms of size before you put the ceiling on you got to think of your wires
we did the outside wires coming in you did that in the last step where is your electricity going to
go some people are using the subfloor to do that some people are using the ceiling the ceiling
to do that and again you have to go back to your plan what kind of wires do you need for everything
planning planning planning we said wiring ceiling floor and you're ready to go for the rest of
what are the five essential tools that we should buy when building a van basic
carpentry i guess you would start with a good drill that can make holes and can screw screws
so first a good drill second uh all you need to cut wood obviously so a good sea salt is
and of course if you get the money you get with a bench top that if not everyone can afford this
yeah you use table saws with ten inch blades for fine finish okay three you know a good
sander would help okay a good center is a must all right number four of the tools you need to
build a van you know if you're gonna build your venue you may use one of these all right or you
may want to use a nail gun uh a good nail gun finishing type you don't need the big
i'm gonna make a deck type nail gun just a finishing type and it's gonna help you do a lot
of things and uh last tool you would recommend for someone building a van i feel like uh
well that's basic but measuring tapes we use measuring tapes a lot i don't know if that helps
yeah definitely and there's many on the market all right well thank you very much father good
work with the van behind you looks exactly like the one i'm in right now okay all right goodbye
step number five this is where you start your cabinet making process and compared to other
bills that you saw online we do not assemble the cabinets inside the van never we do the cabinet
making outside because of solidity because of integrity and once we put them inside the
whole thing is very solid how do i know if the cabinets will fit with the space that we have
with the walls and everything like first few vans we did together i was like how do you make sure
it fits properly against the walls uh i made myself a big square angle which is about two feet
by three feet and then you can see where you're gonna your your furniture is gonna rest on these
main frames if you want your furniture obviously to be looking straight and looking uh looking
great as we said we build outside we put it inside and it's going to be an exercise of yeah i got
this ready i'm going to put my first furniture in and then i'm going to confirm the my first cabinet
in and i'm going to confirm the measurements of my second cabinet based on the first one
it's pretty neat it's a pretty neat way to do it because i've seen so many people trying to figure
out all the angles while making the cabinet and this is very hard because you have your structure
of the cabinet to take care of but you also have the structure of the van to guess all
the time right so it's cool to have a rock solid cabinet that you can just install when it's done
hello step step number six 666 and this is a step that people thought we would do
before in the process but no insulation and the reason why we insulate only at step number six is
because next step is going to be installing the cabinets that we pre-assembled and the cabinets
have back walls what happens when cabinets have back walls you're supposed to be the
one telling the thing the back walls of the cabinets are gonna hold the insulation in place
instead of just working in an empty cargo van with you know insulation falling on your face for a
couple of weeks just wait until the back walls of the cabinets hold all your insulation in place and
step seven set it's a lego thing now yeah because you have to put every little component together
you just did the installation of your cabinets now you got water to deal with you get electricity
to deal with you got gas to deal with in some cases so now you got to make all this work and
put it in at the right place uh at the right time so we're talking about integrating your systems
i'll give you very very concrete examples sylvain has to make sure all the wires go from the battery
to the according electrical components same thing with the propane he has to make sure all
the pipings are linked to the right component to make sure it works so this is called the
integration slash lego phase where you have to plug and play all your different little systems
yeah step eight the trimming or the accessory trimming or the accessory cabineting or the
aesthetical aesthetic structures the stuff that is not the cabinet but that is still wood what is it
tell me about it it's your favorite it's your favorite part of the process what we call by that
is uh for example i use beams to support the upper cabinets they have a lot of decorating functions
but at the same time they are structural and they support the cabinets on the top so you can put
50 pounds per cabinet if you want so they have a roll and they come at the very last time so it's
basically all the light structures not the light structures but the structures that are that aren't
you know supporting cabinets or accessory structures accessory structures that you
have to work on and it's very easy to work on those structures once all the other cabinets
are installed because you have your final measures right in front of you so accessory
structures number eight accessory structures beams columns whatever you're going to put
trimmings in your van to make it look good because it's going to be a component of looking good
number nine is the finish shake the finish shake so everything that is caulking
painting staining adding the colors you want adding the little decorative structures
or i don't know pieces or handles that you don't like yeah everything that hooks that
finishes the cabinet this is usually where many human beings have enough skills to
work on their vans meaning you know how to paint a piece of wood you know how to stain a counter you
do what you first thought of on your van but it's actually the last step of the process
and when you design your van when you design your cabinets you probably had that in mind
when it's done i'm gonna do this oh that particular wall i'm gonna end up putting
that hook that's the stuff you probably thought about when you did your drawing
looking at pictures and magazines and whatnot well that's where you're doing it now for you
the final touches to make it look good so because before the finishing phase
pretty much all the vans look the same they're all a bunch of boxes and wood and bed and beds
and that's it i think the finish makes the van look exactly like you want the van to look like
okay last step last step but not least add stripes okay bye no but a lot of people like you know
everything's done or almost done this is usually where you would decorate you know buy your your
mats you would usually buy your beddings your sheets you would buy some decorations for the
walls plants books etc so decoration we did a we did a little clip on van decoration last summer
it's very easy to decorate you just have to to be very moderate about how you decorate your vans
because it gets crowded very fast it's it's a 60 square feet interior so you can't really put some
boxes and whatever kind of decoration you have at the same time decorating is very personal
oh you all you want your van to look like is your is totally you so yeah last step is decoration and
this is where you can have the most fun and it's the way it's it's the only step where nothing is
permanent so you can take it off whenever you want and then you hit the road and you're done
so that was building a van in 10 steps 10 minutes with synthetic if you have questions
about the van building process uh feel free to ask sylvain is building his 12th van right now
you're finishing your 12th van he's starting the 13th van in a couple of days he kind he kind of
knows what to do and what not to do when you're starting or thinking of a van project so if you
have questions i'll be in the comments section with sylvain for the first few hours of when
this video will be online meaning today sunday fire away your questions we'll answer them we're
gonna try but yeah go ahead with your questions we're gonna give it a shot peace just let's
stop cutting corners this expression is very similar in french in english but look alright
means stop the coupe means cutting and liquid means corners but for some very weird reason
in french we added the round notion so in french you use the word wrong for round and we say
stop cutting the corners round and i think we say that because of our french ancestors
they built everything round they eat everything round and they even have round actors so that's
why we have ugly round buildings in montreal so anyways stop cutting corners in english
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