Bongo Fury

Hi
I guess from the pictures that you're sleeping in the roof tent!
Have you thought of using coloured wood dye?...it looks spectacular when lacquered and, of course , with a good varnish, it's very durable.
Cheers
Helen

BongoBongo123 wrote:I would be wary of the oil/coating choice cause it is going to be horrible sleeping in a chemical soup. It looks really well done, you are obviously skilled as a wood worker.

Indeed BB123. Not sure from the look of it that they're planning to sleep downstairs mind you.

Hopefully, googling all this will prove educational

We oil our oak dining table. Now it is a good few years old it is low maintenance, resists spillages and looks good. It isn't solvent based so there are no noxious fumes. But, big but, in early the days the wood was thirsty and needed more frequent treatment though always very sparing and not quite so impervious. Fine for a table, or even worktop but blooming hard work all over the panels and in nooks and crannies. Great if you could skip straight to the well-oiled stage.

There's some experts on the 'Well Oiled Stage' to be found on here.

One or two can indeed skip quickly to it.

cmm303 wrote:We oil our oak dining table. Now it is a good few years old it is low maintenance, resists spillages and looks good. It isn't solvent based so there are no noxious fumes. But, big but, in early the days the wood was thirsty and needed more frequent treatment though always very sparing and not quite so impervious. Fine for a table, or even worktop but blooming hard work all over the panels and in nooks and crannies. Great if you could skip straight to the well-oiled stage.

And that's oak, not ply. Is there any possibility ply might take umbrage at having lots of oil rubbed into it?

Very readable thread here about various ways to finish birch ply. I liked the PVA/Danish oil/lacquer finish, though the thread is about loudspeakers not campervan interiors!

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-wa ... shing.html

And this thread discusses some interesting stuff called Osmo oil:

http://community.screwfix.com/threads/r ... ood.23561/

Which I found to have very impressive reviews on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Osmo-Polyx-Hard ... B0058BC1T4

P.S. And whatever Bob might suggest, I wouldn't recommend using cider for sealing the plywood as all it seems to do is loosen things

Wow thanks for all your input thats great!!!.....

the concensus online AND my family AND some of you it seems is Danish Oil so we have winner. It needs to be done and dry and ready a week today so id best hurry.... i havent finished building it yet!!

Thanks again for all your help.... more photos soon

EDIT: Yes we will be sleeping upstairs most of the time with a three quarter sized 'emergency bed' downstairs in case its too windy for the AFT to be up

for my 2 pennies worth...
I built a teardrop trailer the year before last and wanted a "classic" look, so had ply sides and aluminium over the top. I used Danish Oil on the sides, it took quite a few coats, but once dry (it stayed sticky for a few days), it felt fantastic, like a varnish. As it soaks into the ply it looks fantastic too. The water ran off fine too without soaking in. So yes, i would say oil, and keep on top of it as recommended above.

callum wrote:for my 2 pennies worth...
I built a teardrop trailer the year before last and wanted a "classic" look, so had ply sides and aluminium over the top. I used Danish Oil on the sides, it took quite a few coats, but once dry (it stayed sticky for a few days), it felt fantastic, like a varnish. As it soaks into the ply it looks fantastic too. The water ran off fine too without soaking in. So yes, i would say oil, and keep on top of it as recommended above.

Cool... thanks for that... how did you apply it? brush? lint free cloth? roller?

I started with a cloth, then wife took over with a brush, but quicker and looked the same. I don't trust myself with a brush though!

Well... the Danish Oil went on beautifully.... pretty smelly though gonna leave it another day or so. Really impressed with the finish and I feel like I can actually walk on the floor now
Will post some more photos soon

I have another question though... one which i asked in a previous comment but it seems to have been mised... or maybe no-one knew the answer... aaaaaaanyway here goes again..... can I trickle charge my leisure battery whilst simultaniously draining it? The LB is not connected to the SB so we'll only charge it when we're on a powered camp site.... but we'd still like to use the things that are hooked up to it via an inverter.... see one of my previous comments on this thread for the wiring diagram....

cheers and thanks again for all your help/advice/humour/patience

Yes you can have a power supply "charging" the battery but in reality any load you also have on the battery will reduce the amount going to the battery so it charges slower. This is the normal configuration.

BuddyBongo wrote:Well... the Danish Oil went on beautifully.... pretty smelly though gonna leave it another day or so. Really impressed with the finish and I feel like I can actually walk on the floor now
Will post some more photos soon

I have another question though... one which i asked in a previous comment but it seems to have been mised... or maybe no-one knew the answer... aaaaaaanyway here goes again..... can I trickle charge my leisure battery whilst simultaniously draining it? The LB is not connected to the SB so we'll only charge it when we're on a powered camp site.... but we'd still like to use the things that are hooked up to it via an inverter.... see one of my previous comments on this thread for the wiring diagram....

cheers and thanks again for all your help/advice/humour/patience

Excellent news. Looking forward to seeing pics when ready, and hope you have a great Christmas and that the smell subsides enough for you to enjoy Christmas Day lunch sat in the Bongo

Lots of talk about the charging thing here,
http://www.caravanclub.co.uk/community/ ... 50166/?p=0