Road....worthy

Finishing up the cabinets!

Building cabinets from scratch is hard but rewarding.  I was gifted the quartersawn oak face frame material by my friend Adam - who passed away recently.  So these cabinets are going to be all the more special....(& I'm trying really hard not to screw them up)

 List of stuff I did for the first time on this cabinet project:  built cabinets of any kind, used pocket screws (kreg jig), used shellac, used a biscuit jointer, used vinegar & steel finish, assembled cabinet drawers, installed recessed hinges, etc, etc.

I ordered the drawer boxes from Barker (link: http://www.barkerdoor.com/Baltic-Plywood-Dovetail-Drawer-Boxes-p/drawerbox-baltic-dovetail.htm )  These were perfect and you can order them in 1/16" increments.   I ordered them unassembled and unfinished.  They went right together with a rubber mallet and bit of glue.  The boxes do need some sanding and then I finished mine with "emmet's good stuff" which was leftover from finishing the raw edges on my butcherblock counter.  Lots of other products would work just as well.

 In case you're wondering about my "shop" - for most of the work, it has been this bench I built in my garage out of 2x4s and plywood.

 You can see that the floor is now in.  It's a sheet marmoleum product.  Abbey flooring in Missoula installed a 3/8" subfloor and the marmoleum for less than $800 total.  Then, I wrapped the curved booth with 1/4" wacky wood from intermountain wood products.  I'll come back later and finish the face with a quartersawn oak veneer to match the cabinets.

Here you can see the hard rock maple butcher block, 2 burner stove, stainless sink, faucet, faceframe,  and drawer boxes installed.

(Another view)

Looking towards the rear.  You can also see the electrical system tie-in work starting to happen.

I chose to go with recessed, soft close hinges.  Honestly might not be the best choice in the long run.  The hinge mount is super solid in the door but there is only one screw holding each hinge to the face frame and even those are slotted mounts that can move.  After having mounted them, I expect them to fail at some point and am already thinking about what I'll do when they do fail (no good ideas yet)

Here I am mounting the drawer faces to the boxes.  If it isn't clear from my blog, I highly recommend this order of process; 1) Mill all of the face frame material to the exact same thickness 2) The doors and drawer material needs to be all the same thickness too.  I did everything at once and made it all 3/4" thick.  3) build the face frame with a kreg jig and pocket screws with glue  4) build the doors and drawer faces  5) Install a cabinet floor  6) build the cabinet ends and dividers - I mounted a sheet of 1/2" plywood to the aluminum wall so that I could put screws anywhere and not worry about hitting wires, plus it gave me a nice and square top lip for the counter that I squared the end panels and dividers to.  6) Mount the face frame and square everything up.  7) Cut the countertop to length and install.  8) Once mounted, cut the holes in the countertop for sink, stove, etc.  9) Mount the hinges to the face frame and either run a piece of material (wood) to the back so that the hinge is supported  or use a hanging bracket that is normally optional with the hinges.  10) Assemble and install drawer boxes flush with the face frame.  11) install drawer faces, recessed hinges and doors  12) I haven't done it yet but looking forward to installing knobs/pulls/handles next.

 Here you can see the first two drawer faces and the first door going in.  so far, so good...














Here's the final product!!!  (I'm really happy with how this has turned out so far.  Still needs pulls and the new (atwood xt) furnace isn't working, so I'm waiting to install one that does before finishing the under sink cab)

Veneer backing in curves?

Anyone have a good recommendation for a thin backing material for the base of my booth/dinette/couch/sleeper?  I'm putting a "U" shaped booth in the front of my 67 Streamline Duchess.  I've framed in some three curved radius along the base.  My plan was to use 1/8" door skin material and then use a real quarter sawn oak veneer.  The doorskin can handle the radius (~ 6") and I'm looking for alternatives that will be a good backing for my thin veneer material.  Recommendations?  Ideas?

Here you can see the basic shape outlined in masking tape. 

 This is a drawing with measurements of what I've framed.  Pics of framing below.

This shows the beginning of the frame and the black metal table legs.  This is a cool design that swings down to sleeper height.  It also is mobile and can go outside.

Here you can see the finished frame with 3 radius corners.  Still trying to figure out the best way to support the table top.  I've thought 1x2" oak in the straight aways but then am not sure what to do in the curves.  Ideas?

Working on where to put the seams in the plywood & cushions.  I want them to line up so its easier to access under seat storage.  Thinking I'll permanently mount seat plywood in the corners and then leave the three other sections as access. 

 In this section, I'm thinking one big piece of plywood/cushion.  Not planning to put in a hinge, just a small lip to keep plywood in place and then velcro the cushion.  

One last overall look at this phase.

Construction

The phase of new construction is now underway.  I was going to leave the interior end caps in place but there was still a mouse smell - so I pulled the endcaps, cleaned them, and sprayed them with Kilz primer.  Then, I used an enzyme cleaner and doused all of the skin inside the walls.  Smell is all gone now and I've started installing Reflectix insulation.

This was one of the last bits of insulation.  You can see pest damage & tunnels.

Reflectix insulation going in.

Wiring from under the chassis.  Brown wires are for the brakes.  120v black (with plugs) and red wires are for the 2-way holding tank heaters.

Cast your votes!

Interested in this project?  Want to help determine how it turns out?  I've added three poll questions to ask folks following the blog what equipment and material choices they'd like to see used.

1) Which fresh/cold air system?

2) Which wet bath concept should I use?

3) Which furnace should I use?

In order to vote, view the blog on a computer screen and see the options in the left column.  For some reason, it doesn't work on the mobile site.

Reattaching the shell

 Finally have the shell back on the chassis.

In this picture, you can see that I've removed the sawhorses and have begun lowering the shell back onto the chassis/floor.

As with lifting it, I use a bottle jack to support half the shell, put some short legs on the wood frame and lower it down to the new level.

The 'C' channel and brackets attaching it to the studs were in bad shape.  In this picture, I'm fabricating new L brackets to make the attachment. Easier to drill holes in the large material before I cut it.  

  Cutting the new brackets.

Piling up the new brackets.

Reattachment is tricky.  This Streamline trailer had belly pan wrapped and crimped on the 'C' channel.  I'm faced with the challenge of trying to figure out how to make sure my wood floor has the right radius corners (old ones were so rotten I had to guess), attach bellypan, attach shell, attach floor, and sprayfoam the underfloor.  In this picture, you can see that I've crimped one section of bellypan so that I can lower the shell over it.

 Removed most of the external wood framing.  These back two legs are allowing me to use floor jacks to adjust the shell for final touchdown.

 Instead of rebuilding the curved corners, I'll keep them and wrap as much new material over them as I can.

 This extra sheet of new is to guide the lip of the shell over the new bellypan lip.

 All of the external wood is gone and starting to lower the back.

 Installed the rear 'C' channel and lowered the shell.

 All of the interior wood framing is gone and starting to make solid attachments all around.

Finished Wastewater System

Wastewater system is done!!!  Both holding tanks are in and glued.

I had to alter the frame but was able to put two holding tanks between the floor and belly pan.  These tanks are from Inca Plastics and are 23 gallons each.  Tanks were just a bit warped and didn't fit within the dimensions on the blueprint, so I had to cut some of the iron and re attach.

 Here you can see the cable valterra valves.  I welded a piece of angle iron to mount the handles and will figure out how to make that look pretty later.

Things are starting to look good!  The new wheel wells are beautiful.  Lafe Shoopman of L&C Custom did a great job on the wheel wells and only charged me $300 for both.  I lifted the trailer 3.25" with the new InlandRV (dexter) torsion axles and so I took three inches out of the wheel wells.  This should give me precious extra cabinet space.  My only complaint is that InlandRV did not respond to three requests asking them how much travel I should allow for with the new axle setup.  Annoying.  I couldn't wait forever so I just cut off what I added in height.  If that doesn't work, I'm going to be super pissed at InlandRV.

Put the trailer back under the shell!  Oh hells yeah.  Feels great, can't imagine how good it'll be to get it reconnected - much less useable!

So far, it's looking pretty good.  The rear end was completely rotten, so I didn't have much in the way of templates.  My plan is to lower the shell down onto the chassis and make the final adjustments to the wood and attach the bellypan, etc all at once.  I think I'll be able to do any needed modifications but we'll see:)  I also plan to use structural sprayfoam under the wood floor as I put the belly pan on.  Lots of stuff in the airforums about how sprayfoam falls apart but I can't find a credible account of closed cell foam failing - so I'll give it a try.  Properties are too good to pass up.  Fiberglass batt is popular but it's also the reason I had to do a frame off in the first place!

Turning the corner...

Finally turned the corner on my restoration project!  Can't tell you how good it feels to be constructing instead of destructing.

 Steel work is done! 80% new steel.  New ribs, hitch coupler, step, tank supports, etc.  Everything looks great and is mostly square:)  I say mostly because the galvanized ribs in on either side of the wheel wells were a little tweaked and I got them close but not perfect.  One turned out being 3/8" bigger than the other. Everything else is surprisingly perfect.  Like within 1/16" end to end.  BIG SHOUT to my friend Adam Pfiffner (Bloxx & Pfiffner Design Build) who is renting me shop space & helping me get the hard parts right.  Like installing the axles - his design, layout, & welds are perfect. He's the one that helped me with hard and important stuff like axles, hitch, steel design, etc.   

Now starting to install the wood floor.  I went with 5/8" marine plywood (AB) and then coated both sides and edges with smith's two part epoxy.  Very happy with the smiths product.  Using two kinds of fasteners from vintage trailer supply.  one is a bolt through and the other requires a drill & tap.

Floor is all cut and almost done with the smiths epoxy coating.  Must admit, I'm nervous about the shell fitting my curved corners.  The front should be very close because I was able to save sections of the old floor to use as templates.  The rear floor was so rotten that I had to guess.  

 Finalizing my floorplan.  This is the fun part!  Originally, I was going to work around the existing floorplan and infrastructure to make it work for our family of 4.  Going the full monty means I have total flexibility to do whatever I want - & that's pretty cool.  Here's a simple sketch of my design.

Laying out the floorplan with masking tape.  This was awesome to see it lifesize for the first time.  

 Installing the plumbing.  Bath is giving me the most headaches.  I want to do a wet bath over the wheel well.  Why doesn't someone make a kit?  I've looked everywhere and can't find one - so playing with ideas to build my own.  you can see a fiberglass pan here but I'm not going to use it.  After consulting Kent @ Blue moon, I've decide to bite the bullet and go with custom stainless pan & fabrication.  Then I'll do teak or similar accents.