Just when I thought I was done throwing money at this crazy project, I decided to invest in one last tool—the almighty table saw.
Let me tell you, this thing is amazing. For months I stood firmly against getting one because I felt it was unnecessary, but now I can’t believe I waited so long to get one. Jef and I had been getting by with a circular saw and a straight edge clamp, but it took a lot of time to set up each cut—sometimes as long as 15 minutes! With the table saw, setting up a cut takes mere seconds—a definite improvement! I highly recommend that anyone planning their own conversion has access to a table saw … and a circular saw … a jig saw is good to have around too.
While we’re on the subject of saws, I might as well mention this inexpensive electric body saw. You might recall that when Fiberine cut the roof off and installed Gypsy’s high top, I asked them to leave a little bit of the old roof at the rear of the van in case I ever wanted to build a cabinet up there. I finally decided to nix that idea, so the extra bit of metal had to go.
The compact body saw did a pretty nice job of cutting through Gypsy’s metal roof, but as usual, we ran into an obstacle.
Also as usual, we hacked together a solution. A hacksaw blade was just the right width and thickness so we cut one to the right length and used that instead. By hacking a power tool I feel like I’ve graduated into a whole new level of DIYness. It’s a slight confidence boost which will come in handy over the next couple days as the plan is to make a combiner box, install it, and start to hook up the electrical components. Scary! But also fun, fun, fun.
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