The Shed magazine April/May 2025 issue 120 on sale now
On the road again – new life for old caravans
The allure of a classic caravan can be strong, and many of these gems are being lovingly restored – in fact, Beach Hop even has a prize for the best retro caravan.
In this issue, we showcase three very different caravan restorations—one by a man who owns a company that has been building caravans commercially since the 1950s and is now a household name in caravans and Motorhomes.
The second is a lovingly restored 10-footer that started off a real basket case, and the third, well, friends christened it a turd emoji when they saw the project bought by Marty and Zoe.
Their caravan was destined for their annual pilgrimage to Beach Hop, where thousands gather to show off their super-primped or lovingly restored classic vehicles and caravans
Valve radios: Retro Radio magic
The family gathering around the wireless to listen to the Friday evening programme may be a thing of the distant past but the beauty of those old valve-driven radios lives on in the dedicated work of Retro Radios.
Based in Dannevirke, Alister Ramsay works from an assortment of sheds, a garage and a container lovingly restoring old valve radios and radiograms. In a workshop redolent of the glory days of the 1940s to the 1960s, with nostalgic posters for Life magazine and a smattering of old cameras – another hobby is collecting old cameras – Alister works to a background of smooth jazz issuing from a variety of beautifully restored valve radios producing warm-toned music to set the mood.
Video of From Rust to rrroarrr – part three
In my first two articles about the rebuild of a bitser 1952-ish AJS 500 motorcycle, I outlined how I welded a broken cast-iron cooling fin on the motor, checked the magneto ignition and got the head repaired.
I also described what I had learnt about nickel plating (using surplus nickel welding rods and then nickel tape) so that I could make a relatively cheap substitution for chromium, eg on pushrod cover tubes and bolt heads.
Nickel plating was also used to build up a worn kick-starter shaft as a part approach to stopping the kick-start from jamming; I also ground back a couple of teeth on the starter quadrant gear.
My bitser’s gearbox
The gearbox is a Burman CP type, used on many English bikes, with a code G45 L47 stamped on it.
The L in the code refers to the month of assembly, so November.
47 is the year: 1947. So this would have gone into a bike probably in 1948. (My claim to be rebuilding a 1952 AJS looks shakier.)
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