FAQs
FAQ: How do I add a top-deck to my Mundo?
So you’re interested in adding a top-deck to your Yuba Mundo? You’re not alone! The Mundo’s top-carrier offers an impressive amount of real estate and addign a nice deck over the tubing enables passengers to ride in comfort and keeps loose cargo well managed -especially if you use nets to secure your cargo. If you’re relatively handy and have access to a small collection of power tools, it’s quite easy to build a super-solid, basic, affordable cargo/passenger top-deck for your Mundo.
Top-deck with net and stoker set-up
We recommend using a single 1/2 inch thick piece of beautiful kiln-dried fir. Kiln-dried wood is lighter than air-dried wood (due to minimal moisture content) and therefore better resists shrinking, warping and flexing. Kiln-dried wood also ensures that the timber isn’t dipped in pesticides and fungicides, like its air-dried counterparts. When selecting your wood, make sure to look for a plank that has very straight grain from one end of the board to the other. This will ensure uniform expansion and contraction throughout the life of the deck. The dimensions of the deck that we use is 7.25 inches wide by 29 inches long. We love the width of the top-deck as it enables us to keep the deck in place while utilizing the top-carrier’s tubing for bungees, straps, tie-downs, etc. After cutting the deck to size, we recommend hand or machine-sanding the edges, then finishing all surfaces with marine-grade rosewood oil (or similar, low-VOC, high-UV protecting and waterproof coating).
Unfinished fir top-deck
To attach the deck to the Mundo’s top-carrier, we use 1/2 inch, double-hole plastic conduit clamps, held to the deck using flat-head, 10-24 x 1.5 inch machine bolts, recessed nicely into the top of the board. SImply mark the holes where you want to mount the clamps and drill through the board. The machine bolts then slide down through the board and into the mounting holes in the plastic conduit clamps, which then wrap around the top-carrier’s tubing. The plastic conduit clamps are designed to handle relatively harsh temperature variances, so they should weather well.
After you finish the deck, simply add rubber padding above the top-carrier tubes where the top-deck rests.
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Comment from a friendly visitor:
“…The moisture content of the wood doesn’t depend on whether it was dried in a kiln or not, but rather where it’s been sitting since then, since wood always absorbs/releases water to come to equilibrium with its environment.
What you really want is wood that is in equilibrium with the environment your Mundo is in. I don’t know about you, but I keep mine in a shed outside. If I used freshly kiln dried wood at 8% moisture content it would probably have to absorb water to come to equilibrium with the outdoors. This means I’d have an increased chance of warping.
The best way to avoid warping is not to worry about how the wood was dried but rather to choose wood that has been sitting in the final location for a while and then (as you recommend) to pick a piece that is flat and straight grained.”