How we made cushions for our fire truck camper

Making the cushions for the camper was always one of my bigger worries. I had never made cushions or a mattress before in my life nor had I ever used a sewing machine. Therefore I dreaded the work.
Eventually it was time to put the cushions into the crew cabin to be able use the truck more. I bit the bullet and ordered fabric and foam to get the work done.
One of my other worries is cutting foam pieces. I hate doing that as it usually does not turn out straight in any direction. So I made sure to order the foam pieces already cut to the size we needed. When I unpacked the foam the disappointment was the bigger, when I saw that the foam was delivered only as the raw 200x60x15cm blocks. In my first panic I ran down into the basement to weld a fixture to guide the knife straight. After the first few welding points the Argon gas from the welder was empty and as usual in such situations it was at the time when all stores were closed. So I gave up on that Idea.
The next idea was to simply use a metal guide to make sure the knife did not run out in any directions. That actually worked quite well. But see for yourself in the video, how we finally made the camper cushions for the crew cabin of Red.

How did we end up with a firetruck?

Renault TRM 2000

The idea to build a camper on a truck base was already born last year. Without thinking much, I bought a truck base that I liked from the looks and the features, a Renault TRM 2000. Unfortunately the truck I bought was basically a wreck. With many hours of work I got it to a stage that I was somewhat comfortable driving it. I also built a wooden box all by myself which I had planned to build out as a camper.

But once the box was complete, we noticed that the vehicle was not practical for our family. The frame of the TRM with the portal axles was very high, a feature which I initially liked. But it turned out that it was a pain to climb in and out of the truck several time a day. It was also quite difficult to get our dog up into the truck. Most 4x4 truck bases would have the same issue with the hight. We also realized that for our travel destination, 4x4 would not really be needed. While browsing the adds we noticed that we always liked the Mercedes LN2 fire trucks and the VW- MAN G90 4x2 truck with crew cabin. We started bidding on a few G90 trucks on the auctions, but were always outbid. Eventually a Mercedes 814 came up on auction. The minimum bid was set to €6000 which we found to be rather high for this type of truck from the auction. Sure enough, nobody was bidding on it. Therefore I called up the fire department of the town that was selling the truck and offered €5000. My bid was accepted and we were owners of an expensive surprise egg.

In the end I was able to sell the portable pump with a VW beetle 4 cylinder boxer engine which had remained with the truck for €750. In addition I sold the siren compressor, the radio and the suction hoses as well. So in the end we paid €4000 for the truck.

Now we are in the process of converting the truck into a simple camper. The following video will introduce the truck: