The Carmodication of the vehicle

Saw some drawers built in to another D Max so I decided to give it a go.

One of the bits of the drawers that is the drawer part

I like making stuff, but here is the secret to my clever method. You have to redo almost everything and then by the time you finish making something, you know how to make it. But that is a little pointless since you now have one of the things, it’s just that you have one that reflects all the mistakes you made on the way. In this way you can call almost any crappy thing you knock together an ‘artistic journey.’

back of the ute- note the distinct lack of drawers

The real journey though is the one you take over and over again back to the workshop because you didn’t bring out all the tools you needed in the first place, or you have the wrong sized screws. Or the walking around looking for that thing you just had in your hand a minute ago journey. ‘Where in the name of Barney Rubble did that get to?’ I spend a lot my time on this particular journey and it’s not always the likable Barney I call upon.

Oh look it’s a bottom piece with a side piece! I got all the panels cut by the people that I bought the ply from. Just as well as me and straight lines always end up disagreeing.

I bought the ply from the ply guy people in Geebung. A well known haven for purveyors of fine ply. They cut it all up for $2.50 a cut, expensive but saved me a lot of tears and I love spending money. But it was cut from thin, 7mm sheets and had more warps than Scotty from Star Trek.

Brilliant and purposeful use of gaff tape because I forgot to include a bottom for the drawer in the wood order and had to make do with a couple of bits from around the workshop.

special elegant reinforcement for the drawer corners so they last longer that 2 weeks

This whole circus took me all weekend and resulted in me going to the Behemoth Hardware super centre twice (which is really good for me, usually it’s at least 4 trips). This guy walks past at 7 am on Sunday as I am starting and has a long chat about how it’s looking okay but points out obvious weaknesses in the design, like it’s really shoddy; thus the reinforcements above.

At last a bigger outside part thingy to put the drawer thingys in. I can’t even start to tell you of the bad words I used when trying to get those bits of aluminium to sit properly and take the warps out of the sheets.

I used a lot more screws than I planned to as I kept having to try and stop my lovely rectangles from going rhomboid. The guy in the morning said ‘What glue did you use?’ My response was ‘Glue? Oh yeah glue.’ So I tried to stuff some of it in where I could and promptly forgot to use it for the rest of the day, meaning I had to take things off, ooze glue on them then try to put them back the right way covered in sticky glug.