XyloVan

“It runs like a fuckin’ champ!”

That’s been the constant refrain, all the way from purchase through our adventure to Maker Faire and dozens of trips in between. XyloVan has new tires and brakes, a rebuilt Holley carb, and a well-tuned Detroit monster of a motor, and by god, it’s the most mechanically sound thing I’ve ever spent $1500 on.

Well, not tonight … Continue reading

It took a load of fussing and trimming, shoving and cursing, but we finally got the last of the headliner panels fitted and installed.

The map motif came out a little wrinkly (don’t believe anything Polycrylic tells you on the instructions) but it does give one a serene view upward of all the United States that we’ve ever visited – plus a few more.

I started out thinking, “Oh, I’ll just run wires for all the external light and sound equipment in through one of the windows whenever we set up.”

Then I got a load of the number of wires and connectors this would entail – 16 two-pole wires just from the four speaker booms and the lights mounted there, alone – and came up with a better idea … Continue reading

To carry two sets of speakers (one port and the other starboard), I’m installing pipes of 3/4-inch galvanized steel conduit onto the roof rack, by means of these custom-built brackets …

Standard conduit clamps grip the brackets to the big honkin’ roof rack and the pipes slip through these to be screwed down … Continue reading

If the xylophones are XyloVan’s skeleton and soul, then the sound system is its gonads.

To add some mystique to the aluminum’s natural resonance, we’re hooking up a cheap Pep Boys amplifier to the auxiliary power system, flying a quartet of cheap bookshelf speakers on outrigger booms (about which more later) and feeding them mike signals via a Behringer Xenyx digital-delay mixer. We haven’t quite figured out the microphones yet (well – more about that later).

But we have to install the components somewhere slightly out of the way yet still accessible so I can futz and troubleshoot from one location if anything goes south with the sound or lighting … Continue reading

After weeks (okay, months) of building instruments, doing bodywork, making mallets and generally getting XyloVan into shape, it’s finally time to give it a pulse. How? Auxiliary big-ass battery.

The battery’s going to have to power the amplification system and the lights while we’re out roving the playa – or more importantly while we’re parked and people are playing for hours on end.

First thing you need is a really, really, really long battery cable. There’s no room for this huge deep-cycle marine battery in the engine compartment or anywhere near it.

The longest battery jumper cables made are only 20 feet, so I have to splice a couple of them together and somehow route them from the main battery in the engine bay, down beneath the truck, around the engine mount and driveshaft and exhaust pipes – and rearward to a place somewhere under the second row of bench seats because that’s where the auxiliary battery will be. And that means weather- and abrasion-proofing the cables – and that means cutting up some old inner tubes to serve as conduit and insulation … Continue reading

Why so quiet? We’ve been … busy.

We’ll get back with you shortly, with plenty of information on our progress. Thanks for staying tuned.

Ah, the Topanga Days parade. It runs the gamut, from the sublime (the Topanga Earth Mothers group, right) to the yin-yang-diculous.

We were to take off last in the parade, and pulled in and set up next to this Lamborghini with the disco-cold-sweat paint job …
Continue reading

So once we decided on the quasi-military paint job. we needed to finish it off with something. I designed this stylized X that might or might not be ripped off from the universal symbol for radiation. The first one came out pretty well, but will need some touchup. Just don’t look too closely …

You all showed us how to play today.

You toddled up and whacked away with sticks, silly grins on your 2-year-old faces. You strode up as if approaching the concert vibraphone you played in band, delicately picking out notes to tunes you haven’t played in 20 years. You hammered and drummed, pulling rhythmic tribal fugues out of the raw metal. You wheeled your disabled son up to Keyboard 1, watched his face light up, helped him hold a mallet and tap out a tune.

You played, in every sense of the word.

Thanks so much to all the folks at Maker Faire who enjoyed the van. You really touched us and showed us more joy than you can imagine.

More videos, photos and project details below … Continue reading