Friday Finesse and Fun!

At the risk of sounding incredibly repetitive, today was an amazingly beautiful day!  70 degrees and sunny.  My perfect weather kind of day!  The Carpe Diem is really coming along and today, as the title says, was a day of finesse and fun.

Started out enjoying my cold water by using my newly installed cup holders!  I love the cedar accent I was able to create yesterday.  

I had originally planned to make a false bottom on the shelf area to hide all my electrical lines.  Turns out I didn't need to do that; I bundled all the wires up and tucked them under the insulation on the far right side.  However, you never want to 'paint yourself into a corner' so to say.  So, I decided to make the back wall panel 'removable.'  It won't be easy, but it is possible to take out the back wall panel, simply by pulling on the top board.  Essentially, I just glued the cedar strips to the insulation.  Then I tacked a cover strip of wood at the top to 'join' the roof and the back wall.  If I ever need to get to it, I can!  This, by the way, was how it looked when I started adding the cedar strips.

All the cedar strips are in place.  Also, take a look at the Fantastic Fan.  I installed the fascia around the fan.  It pulled the roof together so nicely I think.

Bracing in place.  I found using sections of plywood to distribute the force and pieces of PVC pipe cut to length and then smooshed against a small piece of insulation makes very secure bracing.  Notice those cool new drink holders in fold up position!

Top piece in place and glue braced for overnight drying.  Notice the molding strip along the top of the roof over the doors.  More on that in the next photo.

Soaked the two molding strips that will go along the ceiling over the doors.  After soaking them, I braced them in their bended positions and will let them sit overnight.

Bulkhead doors removed.  I decided I would insulate the bulkhead with 1/2" insulation.  Half the thickness of the cabin due to the small area.  I think the insulation will help shield the cabin from the heat that is absorbed when the sun hits that front section.

Insulation loosely installed, waiting for glue and bracing.

One of many leg boo boos I have created by cutting insulation panels on my lap!

Cedar strips in place in the bulkhead.  I realized that the insulation can be used as an excellent brace by wedging it into place and using friction to press back against the surface being glued.

Okay, big task for tomorrow:  trim up the first door's insulation and headliner cover and cover the second door.  I'm hopeful my amazing daughter will help me with that.  If I have time, I may try cutting the mattress to the pattern of the floor.  Yikes.  I'm getting incredibly close to being done on the inside of the Carpe Diem.  That means I will be able to start on polishing the body soon!

Gorgeous Day!

Today was magnificent!  I love the weather when it is 70 degrees and sunny.  I embraced the sun today and set up my work table on the patio in the glorious sun.  Okay, to be truthful, I slept in late and by the time I got outside the sun had crested and the sun was only partly on the patio.

A perfectly blue sky; the moon is hiding directly in the middle.

My big challenge today was to install the rest of the insulation and finalize the interior electric.  Mission accomplished on both parts.

In this image you can see the switch for the porch lights in place.  I'm going to need to do a little finesse work to install it.  Notice how nice the insulation and headliner look in the corner there.  I will finish the back wall by installing the cedar strips.

You can see in this image that I installed a strip of cedar right next to the door.  This was a cool thing I thought of because I needed something solid to anchor into for the cup holders.  I used 3/4" foam insulation instead of the 1" that I had been using.  With the cedar strip glued to it with Gorilla Glue, it came out to be the same thickness as the covered foam.  Once it has completely set up, I'll install the drink holders.  You can also see in this image how I used the foam to form 'panels' that were then covered with the headliner material.  I actually didn't have to glue them into place.  They are held in place by friction.  The small bolts that hold the door frame in place are all that was needed to hold the panels tightly in place.

After cutting the panels, I used Loctite 300; it is specially formulated for Marine applications and high heat.

Heavy coats on both the fabric and the foam.  Again, this adhesive was formulated to work on foam.  Normal adhesive would 'eat' away the foam.

This stuff had exceptional tack.  It was simple once the fabric was cut and sprayed to make the panels.

Here they are ready to install.

The great thing about doing it this way is that if I ever 'did' need to remove a panel, It would not be difficult to do so.  It is also very simple if I ever need to install any type of hardware on the outside of the teardop, I can simply pull out a panel and attach the hardware; then simply pop the panel back in place.  I am going to put a piece of cove molding along the entire 'seam' between the cedar and the insulation panels.  I tested it out today and it is a 1" cove molding that will bend perfectly.  This additional friction will hold things neatly and give a really nice finished look.

 

The reading lights look really great I think.  I like the accent color and the way the silver looks against the brown.

 The power port worked great today to charge my phone while I was in the teardrop working.  

Tomorrow I will need to figure out what I will do with the bulkhead area.  Part of me would really like to have the cedar strips and insulation in there.  The other part of me worries that if I insulate it I will take away valuable 'space.'  Not really sure what will go in there.  Probably shoes, jackets, rain gear; maybe even fishing poles?  I'm sure my wife will have some good insight on what to do there.

The teardrop this evening as I was finally cleaning up at 9:00 p.m.  It was a good eleven hour work day!

What a Mess!

“What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches.”
Soren Kierkegaard


Today was my last day at work for about eight weeks.  Having this eight weeks 'off' is truly one of the greatest blessings of teaching.  These days and weeks are the time of the year in which my soul is repaired and nurtured.  I have had lists of movies to watch and books to read during my 'off' time.   It is the sum of these moments that make me, as a teacher, "What the teacher is..." according to Kierkegaard.

Now, like most teachers, I will be doing a lot of stuff that directly relates to my work the other ten months of the year.  I am taking my final class for my library media specialist certification.  That class is an online class through National Louis University.  I'm excited about it because it is an application of technology in education; both of my passions in one class!  I have a multitude of projects for school that I have been waiting to have time to dream about and complete.  I'll work on many of them throughout the weeks, in between re-starting my exercise program that somehow got side tracked as the winter months droned on and on.  I have a hand surgery, for carpal tunnel, in a few weeks.  My plan then, obviously, is to have the teardrop completely 'finished' by the time of that surgery.  We have one trip planned later this month; we'll be taking the Carpe Diem up north; hopefully all the way to Canada!

With that, today was a cathartic day.  I was able to come home early and went right to work on the teardrop.  I decided that I was going to finish the door trim and insulation.  Like I had mentioned before, I had finally gotten the 'right' weather stripping.  I ordered the 1947 Chevrolet pick up truck weather stripping.  I had to purchase some specially designed adhesive for this application.  I also had to figure out how to mount the brass door latches.  These are the mechanisms that the lock snaps onto in order to seal the door and be able to lock it securely.  This required taking off the wood trim from around the doors and cutting it in order to place the brass striker.  You can see in the image below how the weather stripping is mounted and the spot where the brass striker is placed.

It was really hot out today and the sun made working on these tiny details exhausting.  I applied the adhesive and then gently worked the weather stripping into place.

You can see in this image how nicely it fit. 

It took a little finesse but I think it created a pretty good seal.  I am not sure I have the brass strikers perfectly in place; it takes a bit more pressure to 'snap' the lock into the striker's proper position.  I may try adjusting it a bit.

You can see from one of the images above that the inside of the teardrop was a mess; this is due to the fact that I hadn't cleaned up after myself in several days; especially after getting the cedar installed on the ceiling.  So, I decided not only to clean the inside of the teardrop, but also the workshop area.  My workbench and work area was a disaster and truly needed a good cleaning, dusting and sweeping.

My work table has become a dumping ground.

My workbench; I think it's under there.

My scrap pile of stuff I 'need' but am not using currently,  seriously needed some attention.

The workbench and tool area looking a bit more respectable.

Scrap lumber area organized and sorted.

Materials that are going to be used in the next steps of the teardrop project.

Reading light fixture.  Now that I have the beautiful cedar, I need to figure out another way to mount the light.  I'm thinking I may just pick up a nice piece of smooth cedar and use that instead of the one I covered in headliner material.

One last fixture to fix.

This was a 'rough' fit of the insulation panel on the door.  I used a piece of chalk to mark the areas that need a bit more tweaking.  All in all though, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.  Special thanks again to my awesome daughter!

Totally cleaned the inside of the teardrop.  It really needed it.  I also installed the headliner on the door panels for the bulkhead and then put the sliding doors in place.  

I love my fish eye lens!  It works so well for small spaces like the inside of my teardrop!  It really does help get the idea of the 'full' view.  

Tomorrow my main goal is to finish installing the cedar strips (I'm going to decide whether to install it in the bulkhead and/or at the back of the shelf area.)  After that, I want to re-mount the reading light fixture.  I am hopeful that I can finish installing the insulation and headliner on the driver's side door and possibly get the other one started.  Then, if time allows, I would love to finish the AC power inlet and the possible extensions for the cabin area.  That's an awful lot of tasks; I'll get as much done as I can.

Insulation and the Smell of Cedar

A successful, but shortened weekend.  I wasn't feeling great this weekend, but I did manage to get a couple of things mostly finished.  I installed the insulation on the ceiling.  I used the PL 300 adhesive, which is especially formulated for foam board.  It seemed to work well, but it did not have as high an initial tack as I wished it had.  I ended up needing to brace the ceiling panels.  I suppose I could have been more methodical about it and cut specific pieces of wood to brace the ceiling, but I just used whatever I had in the workshop.

 

I let the insulation cure overnight; actually I ended up taking two evenings to get the whole ceiling done.  I did the front one night and then the back the next.  I would have liked to have done it all in one session, but the bracing that was needed slowed me down and made it kind of difficult to maneuver inside the cabin.

I had some help from my amazing daughter.  She helped me cut the material to cover the door insulation.  This was partly experimental and partly finesse work; she is much better at this than I am.  Plus, I loved that she was taking part in the process.  She'll really appreciate the doors a lot more now!  We'll use the spray adhesive to hold this all in place; it's pinned now so that we could experiment with how to apply it.

Fashionable, even in the workshop!

 

One door prototype ready for installation.

I invited my wife out to give her insight on how to proceed with finishing the ceiling.  She was not a big fan of the carpet on the ceiling.  Instead, she suggested, maybe we could use cedar or tongue and groove pine.  She was right; the finish would not have been what I wanted on the ceiling, no matter how carefully I tried to install it. 

 So, I went to the hardware store and purchased some incredibly aromatic cedar.  I wish there was a way to capture the lovely smell!  I used the 1/4" thick cedar on the ceiling and it worked beautifully!  The only thing that was a little tricky was getting it to 'stay' on the ceiling.  I was using the PL 300 adhesive for foam board to hold the strips in place.  That worked okay until I got about four strips in place and the combined weight started to pull them off.  

I purchased a brad nailer at Lowes and tried using 5/8" brads every six inches or so.  That sort of worked, but the brads were only anchored into the foam; so they didn't have much holding power.  I ended up needing to brace the ceiling, which made working a bit tough.  You can see from the images that I finally figured out that using one thin piece, which bent, allowed the pressure to be spread across the entire area being supported.

I finished the entire ceiling today.  I'm thinking about putting it in the bulkhead section too.  It would make the cabinet/closet a bit nicer and would make it smell great too!  The Fantastic Vent was going all day today and made working in the cabin bearable with the sunshine pounding down on the teardrop.

One really interesting thing I discovered this weekend.  The teardrop's temperature gauge showed that the insulation is making a huge difference.  Without the insulation, the interior temperature rose to over 114 degrees.  With the insulation, the highest it got this weekend was about 80 degrees.  It was a little cooler, but still, that shows that the one inch of insulation is making a big difference!

After letting the ceiling 'cure' overnight, I'll be anxious to add the weather stripping seals and then try out the door with the insulation.  I'm looking forward to receiving my baskets this week.  One last week of school responsibilities; even so, I should be able to do some work each evening.

Lots of Electric Work

Spent a lot of this past weekend working on electrical projects on the Carpe Diem.  I am not a fan of electrical work.  I would say that the stupid butt joint connectors I worked with were the main reason I detest electrical work.  I can't imagine soldering the connections that are above my head as I'm clambering around under the trailer.  I used heat shrink butt joint connectors; let's just say that the percentage of them working as planned was pretty low.

Today I worked exclusively on the trailer lights.  I should say that I worked while waiting for it to stop raining.  Even though the teardrop is jacked up, crawling around on my back on the wet pavement was less than ideal.  Except for the butt joints, everything went as planned.  Unfortunately, I couldn't test the connections today.  I'm hopeful that next weekend will be beautiful and I can pull the Carpe Diem out to the road and give it a proper test.  All I can say is, those trailer lights better freaking work!  I don't want to have to crawl under the teardrop again to make all those connections.  I took my time.  I heat shrunk and taped everything very carefully.

Last night I took some images of the teardrop's lights.  You can see that I didn't get the spare re-mounted as of the images.  I ended up throwing everything in the cabin last night.  But, the lights work!  It wasn't pitch black out, but it was dark enough to see how the light looks.

I like the LED fixture in the galley.  It swivels and throws off a lot of light. 

The porch lights are much brighter than I thought they would be.  

Night vision red dome light.

Regular dome light.

The reading lights are as bright as the the dome light; but I really like the warm iridescent bulbs in the fixtures.

Here we go.  Short week.  Already looking forward to working on the insulation of the cabin.  Happy Memorial Day!