Tag: table

Made a trip to test out the completed van over last weekend. Went to Tahoe on Friday night, skiied at Northstar on Saturday in a storm of fresh powder (which was amazing), and left to head back right as I-80 closed. And then got the news that resorts were closing starting Sunday, so I guess the timing was both good and bad, depending on how you look at it.

The 4-wheel-drive worked great in the snow, but the trip brought some ideas for a few tweaks to improve the livability of the van.

First was to ditch the idea of the Lagun tabletop being able to go on top of the sink. It makes the sink completely unuseable, just a hassle. I replaced it with a bamboo cutting board, mounting two plastic guides to the bottom of the cutting board, along with some velcro to hold it in place. Now half the sink is accessible, and half can be used as counter space. There’s a drying rack under the cutting board for storing dishes also.

Next, I cut down the table top used for the Lagun mount. It was a little too big in such a small space, and barely fit, making moving around the van a little cumbersome. So I cut roughly 2 inches off each side, and refinished it in polyurethane. Now it’s much more useable.

Lastly, I used 3M VHB tape to stick down a strip a 1/8″ aluminum bar stock next to the legs of the bed, to stop the linear bearings from sliding the bed out when driving around. Every time I drove the van the bed would move around, and I’d have to move it back. This should stop that from happening, and still allow the bed to fold up easily.

That’s it for now. I want to mount a hangboard above the sliding door frame, but I’ve yet to figure out a good way to do that.

Lagun’s table mount comes with a fixture that’s intended to be mounted on some sort of wooden furniture, usually.

It’s wide, with 4 mounting bolts:

Since I’m going to be mounting to an 80/20 extrusion that is the leg of the bed, I needed to modify this.

Pretty simple, drill 2 holes, countersink for the heads, cut off the sides.

Now I have a table mount on the side of the bed that I can use as desk space for working, extra table space for cooking, etc.

The top of the leg is tapped for a 5/16×18 thread, so to take the stress of the table off of the pivot, I screw in a knob bolt through the 3-way corner connector to the top of the leg to stiffen everything up when the table is on.

The countertop is another one of those hardwood workbench tops from HomeDepot, and fits either on the Lagun mount, on top of the sink, or stores behind the driver’s seat:

Now I can use this space at the end of the bed as a desk, or as counter-top space for cooking. Pretty simple, but very useful.