Bongo Fury

Greetings <<Bongnauts>>

We have 4m of Speedy Fineline Silver Effect Aluminium Curtain Track, has anyone used this to fashion a curtain rail around the front of a Mazda Bongo cabin from the rear of the front doors (where the curtains are gathered) and around the top edge of the windscreen (rather than the standard fitment that goes across the rear of the front seats)???

N.B. It will bend and twist but will not elongate/compress (it is, after all, aluminium)

A piccy of the track is here: http://static.online2buy.co.uk/images/n ... silver.jpg however I would definitely NOT recommend buying it from online2buy.co.uk owing to a bad customer care experience....

I Would appreciate photos (either online or offline) to help me on the way......

Kind regards

Dr B

Bear in mind that if you hang curtains from a rail they will hang down vertically and effectively intrude quite noticeably into the overall living space. Even if this may not be space you are anticipating using, the psychological effect is of a smaller interior volume.

An alternative is to use the type of sprung edged shades which adjust to fit thewindscreen space.

The ones I use are silver on one side and black on the other. At night I have the silver side facing inwards to reflect heat back into the van while the black side faces the public and appears totally invisible to casual observers. On sunny days the silver faces outwards to keep heat out as well as giving privacy.

I had curtains in a previous van and they needed a length of net curtain springy wire along the bottom to hold them away from hanging vertically and keep them following the slope of the windows. They were also a pain to slide along the track.

Frank

Diplomat, do you have photos and where can these be sourced please?

we are in Southampton and will have a windscreen and two side screens available soon.....

Are they the sucker type? We are looking for the best solution to cover windscreen and front door windows.

nope, they use brackets that screw into something

Wendy'n'Alan wrote:Diplomat, do you have photos and where can these be sourced please?

Sorry, I've just revisited this thread. It so happens that I recently took pictures of most of the things I frequently mention on the forum including those very screens. The bad news is that I haven't yet had time to upload them to Photobucket, mainly because they need resizing which is time consuming and receive less time than swanning around in the daytime and sitting on forums in the evening!

I got the screens from a £2 shop but havent seen them recently so I've found a link to similar ones (assuming they're black on the other side).

http://www.amazon.com/Large-Size-Spring ... B0046JNZ8A

In use, mine look more like these but are joined together like the first ones.

http://www.amazon.com/Auto-Expressions- ... auto_img_z

I use them in the front and back windows, whilst for the side windows I have cut to shape pieces of foil backed thick camping mat which press fit into the apertures. By swapping from side to side these can also be installed silver or plain side out. They all stow behind the permanently lowered offside and nearside rear blinds. The only blind I leave raised is in the sliding door so I can see better at junctions. My windows are mirror tinted so the pads just add to the blocked view from outside.

Hope this helps until I get pics on Photobucket.

Frank

Are they the sucker type? We are looking for the best solution to cover windscreen and front door windows.

.... YES they are suckered, the curtain rail is screw in type, apologies

UPDATE, the aluminium rails would provide a rather nice way to cave your head in if we hit anything solid and there is no way they were ever going to take the twist I needed for them to work .... Soooo I have got hold of some Swish Furniglyde track, some Button Hooks ( recommended for top AN side hanging) and tonight some hanging brackets since despite softening the rail using hot water and/or a fan heater, there was sufficient remnant spring left in it to begin to pull the headlining above the front windscreen away - if you softening it beyond a certain point it will deform unacceptably (learned this on a sacrificial 10cm length)

Using the brackets the furniglyde track will follow the headlining above and behind the door and then run close to the bottom of the headlining above the windscreen on the brackets (9 or 10), the headlining is not structural so plenty of mounting points are being used - if you get behind the lining on sides of the windscreen (remove the grab handles) you will see the clump of wires that need to be avoided at all costs!

The curtains will pull back and fasten back with existing tiebacks and there will be approx a 1cm loss of visibility at the top edge of the windscreen. Since we unlikely to need to convert "purple pixie" for anti-aircraft duties this should not be a problem

========== SUPPLY DETAILS =====================
NB: Avoid Online2Buy at all costs, they sent an order to the wrong address in the first instance and then refused a refund of carriage as "I had had it in the end, hadn't I?"

2x Swish Furniglyde Track 200cm & 2x Swish Furniglyde Button Hooks packs

From Terrys Fabrics
Unit 6-8 Winpenny Lane, Newcastle under Lyme
ST5 7RH
United Kingdom (Great Britain)
Tel.: 01782 566666
Fax: 01782 566660
Email: [email protected]

Swish Furniglyde curtain rail brackets (obsolete since 2003)

From Ebay Seller: hadrians1968
Hadrian caravan ltd
stockton on tees,
Cleveland ts176bn

Hadrian Delivered the goods, literally, ordered Sunday on line, arrived Tuesday AM, will post photos as the Furniglyde system with (obsolete) brackets looks like where the smart money goes!

Excellent tips there - look forward to seeing the pics

The Swish Furniglyde curtain rail needs to stay flat in plane section i.e. not twisted BUT gently curved using heat to meet the curve of the line from behind the seatbelt mounting round the front corner of the headlining to above the centre of the windscreen... got one side done tonight, ran out of screws (cropping them to length with ... a small pair of bolt croppers) BUT Helen has given it the thumbs up to the half done job

....Next stop Kingstons Car Spares tomorrow morning! Top class car spares shop in Southampton http://www.autoinsider.co.uk/local/car- ... _46545.php

I have posted the conclusion of our voyage around the fitment of curtains in a Bongo to a new thread that hopefully will be confined to further refinements to the art: http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... 66#p567766