Rusty Lee vs Westfalia hinges?

[CoalMarx]

Are there any opinions on this? I ripped out the bed hinges from my van conversion thinking i would put in a Rusty Lee bed rock n roll bed. But now I'm thinking that was a mistake.

I see you can buy reproduction Westphalia hinges here: https://nlavw.com/home/724-t25-westfali ... inges.html

Not only are the hinges cheaper but they align with the back of the van properly so you don't have to build a platform like you do with the Rusty Lee.

Does anyone have a reason why Rusty lee would be better?

[Aidan]

looks good and they have the rest of the parts you need to make a Westphalia style r n r bed base

I've only seen one RustyLee bed close up, it didn't impress and the customer who had fitted it said he wouldn't have bought it if he knew what it was like to use and sleep on, though that was 5 years ago and design may have changed.

If nlavw have a template for the wood parts then I would say that  is a good option. I'll be reusing my full width westy bed set up but remade as 3/4 width in my new van build with new boards and upholstery

[davidoft1]

Personally find the Westy bed the best design, rocks n rolls as it should, rusty Lee etc all seem difficult to use to the point of nearly being impractical

[CoalMarx]

Thanks for all these views. I'll get the westy then. Weird i never saw much talk of them online, maybe they just quietly get on and do their job.

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[Aidan]

untill nlavw copied the parts the option was a used Westy bed or something else, as there's quite a few parts involved in the westy bed but they are fairly simple, it just needed someone to reverse engineer and get family in China to make the parts. Also these beds evolved over the years and not all bits are interchangeable; the multivan version with plastic vanity kickplate used a metal sheet base frame to fit the hinges to, the campers used 15mm vohringer like laminate board to make the base.
The complete hinges (or some of the variants of) are still available from VWClassicParts but not most of the other bits you need to complete.
Hopefully nlavw have also patterned the woodwork of the version they copied the metal parts for so you can build a complete unit, and have that either as precut parts or template/cnc programme to give to your woodcutter of choice

[CoalMarx]

People on here definitely know stuff about T25s.

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[R0B]

We also know a fair bit about T3s 

[mrhutch]

We also know a fair bit about T3s