Plywood subfloor techniques in a Promaster van build. Watch before you cut!

[Music] foreign [Music] all right this week i'm putting in the subfloors and my nailers across the roof ribs this is the promaster this is sam's van now sam is very tall and being tall in a promaster means you cannot put any insulation on the floor so what we've decided we're going to do is we're going to glue half inch plywood right to the high spots every high spot on this floor i'm not putting any foam or any kind of insulation in the low spots i want that airflow underneath that that subfloor so now you're literally raised up it's about a quarter of an inch you're going to have quarter inch airflow under the plywood half inch plywood all the way across we've got insulation to contend with we've got floorboards to contend with we've got finished flooring to contend with where are we going to use our precious inches we decided up on the ceiling is the best place now we have no insulation under this flooring it's just going to be plywood i'm going to explore the possibility of spraying lizard skin under the van as a it's a ceramic insulation and sound deadener or some type of a product like lizard skin maybe we can just go about this from the reverse angle thinking outside of the box we can't insulate inside maybe we can give you some protection on the underside that would help with rust as well when you start to approach this uh flooring how we gonna cut this what are we gonna do we have a 10 foot cnc router table computerized we just haven't had time to put that together i don't have the room just yet until i get my pleasure way out of here when the cnc router table is up and running it's a massive router table it takes a four by eight sheet we'll be able to do our our wall panels with window cutouts i'll be able to get a nice uh floor cut for the promasters and the sprinters and the ford transits we'll have that all dialed in uh there's a lot of parts of the van build that i want to do by hand i think there's a certain uh aesthetic quality and and it just imparts some of some soul into the build but there are other parts of the build where i think we could certainly uh get away with some computer cut pieces uh just for the sake of expediency we're still on cardboard here uh when you get into this van floor you got to familiarize yourself with what the hell is going on and in these promasters there's an awful lot going on as compared to a sprinter a sprinter is pretty smooth smooth and square not so with the promaster the sprinter tapers up like this up at the ceiling while the promaster tapers at the floor ever so slightly where the floor meets these side walls you've got to take that into account if you run your flooring your subfloor all the way to the side wall you're going to cause it to raise up and it will not be touching your high spots let me show you what i'm talking about here with this this curve in the floor i got this piece of wood here and it's on the high spots on the floor all right now as i push it towards the wall you'll see it go up see it goes up see that now if you run your plywood all the way to the floor it doesn't touch your high spots so the glue has got nothing to hold to now yes as i said i could have i could have just chamfered this off and it would have slid in but i preferred to make the plywood go right to where it touches and then i'll come in with another piece on top right here is a metal rise there's a crease in the floor here it's a logical place to terminate your flooring carry it straight across it runs into these side uh these final pillars down the end of the van you let the van talk to you let the van tell you where you should put your stuff this first panel back here has got the wheel wells we've got these jogs and cuts to make so i started out by making a cardboard template okay i came over here and of course i'm stopping my floor right back here right along this edge right and i come in and i scribed it all around where where my scribe and my cutting wasn't as accurate as i wanted it to be i came back in and filled it in with tape and i got this just the way i want it and i thought to myself do i have to do this all over again on that side because in a sprinter van the wheel wells are not symmetrical you can't just take this template and put it over here the wheel wells believe it or not have a front and a back and a left and a right so you do have to make full separate templates in a sprinter in this van no this is one of the one of the bennies this fits like a glove put it right over on the other side i just flipped it and it fits great okay knowing that i got this half template and i transferred these measurements to a full template and the reason i did that is because you still need to know the logistics of getting this large full sheet that you cut so beautifully what have you got it all cut up and you can't get it to lay in in one sheet that could happen in this case it didn't but it gave me the opportunity to see what one full sheet four feet across is going to look like 72 and 3 8 is what we have left to right here so once i got this positioned where i want it and i'm happy with it transferred it to the plywood and then we put the plywood in then i said to myself well i was able to flip my template this way and i got that side whoa can i flip it that way and get my other sheet right off this template let's see of course i didn't plan for this so the camera's in the way oh but you guys are used to me screwing up like that hold on i take you on this ride frequently yeah i'm a real maestro when it comes to camera work and sure enough uh the promaster wheel wells are symmetrical they fit so i only had to make one quarter of a template and flip it and fluff it and flop it and flip it it worked out really well in doing so i learned by observation that as you move through the van the width changes now let me show you this you're not going to believe this again i'm going to pick you up you're going to go flying [Music] back here you've got the wall coming up to this point right now if you look at this the side wall is online with this flange that's on the wheel well they're lined up they're flush see that so this was old bill that was working on the back of the van here but up here we must have had mikey and mikey did not bring his side wall flush to the flange mikey brought his out a little further you see that little jog mike he put in why'd he do that so the distance here let me get this out of the way the distance between mikey's channels is less than the distance between old bills so at that ram factory uh this is what's going on you got two guys only about six feet apart but they're not talking to one another so my template that i started with back there i used this same template and i cut the same piece of wood knowing full well it wouldn't fit left to right because old mikey busted his channels out a little further i made the template anyway i made the wood cuts the way same way and then i came back in and sliced these sides all right so this is the rear of the van okay this is that back edge right along that little lip and here's my angles to the side wall i'm shortcut here's my wheel wells all right going forward now back here obviously where the width runs inside the wheel wells it's the same distance okay 55 and three-quarter 55 and three-quarter but back here we're and three-eighths but up here because of those funny was 71. so we had to short it 11 16 on each side we're 72 and 3 8. and here we are 71 right here this c pillar curves down and into and under the width of our floorboard here so we're nice and square up to here but right here we just got to trim away this little bit notch it out see this right here this piece this curves down on both sides it also helps to put down some tape markings as you're working this tape line here for instance that's to remind me that i'm going to be running a few wires from under the galley they're going to run under the floor right across this opening we have to bridge that opening and then they're going to go right into this b pillar which houses our upfitters module to make some wiring connections what i need them for is my glycol pump and my ignition sensor wires for the freedom egen electrical system they need to know when the when the engine has started my glycol pump operates only when the engine is running and the freedom needs a sensor to tell it that the engine is on and it can start the voltage regulation so that wire is going to run right under the floor a couple of 12 tubes i'll put down so it can handle the voltage and we'll make sure we don't put any screws through there over here i've marked out approximately where the shower goes and the only reason i'm doing this i'm coming in with full flooring all the way across the van it'll be completely full of subfloor but i'm not going to glue under this spot see it says it in english no glue uh that way when we finally lock into that shower pan which is further down the road we can cut that flooring away because i want the shower pan to sit on the bare van floor the scuffing besides taking the paint off to give me a better adhesion to the bare metal this scuffing is uh going to give me a mechanical hold as well it's going to give me some tooth that that adhesive can grab onto and grab onto the plywood and i'll get some of a mechanical bond as well as the adhesive bond and for those of you wondering uh i will make sure that my adhesive which is polyurethane based not water-based will cover all of the scraping and scuffing that i do so it is in effect the same as re-spraying with primer to protect it from rust and i think what i'll do is once all these things are in and cured i may just go down the side of each one and give them a little spray of primer just to be safe i'm gluing and screwing three quarter inch plywood strips to the underside of the van roof supports these will serve two purposes first it gives me a good solid continuous surface to mount my decorative cross supports for the system but more importantly it adds depth to the otherwise shallow ceiling space in the promaster i need adequate space above the cross support for a layer of thinsulate a layer of reflectix a layer of heavy mass vinyl and finally my tongue and groove ceiling boards you'll see that system being installed in an upcoming video the humble road community sends many requests for a visit to the humble road van studio if i said yes i'd be so busy acting as a tour guide that no vans would get built but this viewer traveling from nashville was staying a mile and a half away and she wanted to show me her van and explain what her plans are hello vicky it's really you yeah i cannot believe it what do you got going on in here well we got a lot going on and nothing's finished but um i know that song so we've got a refrigerator it's hooked up but no cabinets yet what type of fridge is that it's a vitro frigo good choice and the compressor is separate so it can be very um narrow nice so this will not be like this i was just sleeping on my way here i traveled from nashville cool so you're not putting a futon here no i'm going to put a little bench that will pull out this way for guests for guests to sleep in nice yeah so a small bench here and then there'll be a cabinet with an angle like a little l uh-huh where i'll have the sink and then this will be the bathroom wall which will only be 24 inches that's all you need yeah but with the doors open it'll be 32 and then over the sink will be a cabinet that when you open the cabinet door there'll be a mirror so you can brush your teeth in the mirror and this is my invention i've never heard of it anywhere oh look at that and i don't and i don't have the patents yet that's a that's a separator this is a that's so cool with a separate composting nice it it will have a gray tank but this is aluminum do i sit on the toilet for your video i don't know what you're doing we don't need to do that but it does hold away that's good and it's floating it's floating there's nothing nice oh yeah look at that it's floating yeah very good engineering yeah and that's the lemonade stand [Laughter] so when you take a shower the shower will come this way right and so um you don't have to move the toilet in and out and my bed will be back here oh okay and uh so that'll be a fixed bed and you'll have a garage under it yes fixed bed yeah this step up and then this will be more of a narrow narrow counter nice wow you got some nice you got some nice electronics in there yes i do oh that's great good job very nice yeah you're getting there thanks to george i know it's not it's not your level of uh detail yes hey as long as you get it done and you get out on the road that's the plan that's the that's the plan well it was nice meeting you vicki nice to meet you george i appreciate you taking the time you can call me anytime if you have questions i will you're our hero oh thank you lee help your mother finish her van would you please you

Channel: Humble Road

Views: 213,286

Keywords: humble road, #onahumbleroad, promaster, promaster van build, floor plan, 8020, George, 3500 extended, class b van, class b camper van, motorhome, van life, #vanlife, full time, full time van life, full time van living, galley in a van, promaster galley, fresh water tank, webasto, van studio, isotemp, stainless steel shower pan, custom shower pan, nomad, carey on vagabond, advanced rv, van build, custom van, sprinter, sprinter van, van shower, van ideas, floor plan ideas

Id: 8gOz1Llibio

Length: 17min 55sec (1075 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 06 2020