A friend and band member of mine has had this bus for a few years now and has converted it in to a mobile music studio. He current makes his living either going to schools and teaching kids rock or doing recordings for bands.
The bus is made up of two areas, the studio (see pic below, it is lager than the pic shows) and a chill out room at the back which has a sofa, stereo system, wide screen tv, dvd and a small kitchen.
For a little while now he has been thinking about extending the versatility of the bus and converting it in to a mobile stage as well as keeping it as a studio. This came about after he organized a few outdoor events last year and was disgusted at the cost of stage hire(£6000 plus for some crap scaffold and a PA), but then relised with the existing band PA which is huge, it would be a nice little earner to just be able to turn up, open the side of the bus and viola a stage. So over this bank holiday weekend we decided to go for it. With the only issue that the bus had to be in a suitable state for Tuesday as it was booked for a rehearsal.
So it began.
Within about 2 minutes of myself turning up we had the windows out.
Then the first cut. I've never seen anyone go that white. Paul was still unsure if had made the right decision and there was no turning back now.
More chopping.
That's one big hole. On the floor you can see Paul fabricating the top door on the C section frame that would support it.
Our drummer turns up 5 minutes to late to help the two of us lift the frame in to place.
With the frame in place we used a trailer Pauls' building as a workshop (Mobile of course) to get the top door into position and on to the hinges.
A celebratory can of beer as the first door swings close.
The frame being tacked for the bottom door.
Quick check to see if it still fits with a steel skin on it.
And the doors are in place.
And they open, thank god. The bike you see in the pic is a 1951 Norton Big Four.
Don't ask me what i was trying to do here, but Paul is definitely playing a grinder on the new stage.
Well by the end of Monday the bus was closed and sealed and ready for the work it needs to do this week. Next weekend we will re clad the inside, make some acro props to support the doors when open, do all the finishing touches and hopefully a graffity artist is coming over from Ireland to paint the whole bus in something outrageous.
Cheers
Carl
- broken
