Slow Saturday

Even though I woke early, today was a slow day.  I didn't get my big task, the doors done.  But, I did find lots of great uses for the 'extra' cedar.  In fact, I don't think I will end up 'wasting' any of the cedar.

Task one was to take down the bracing from the night before and see how the molding trim worked.  In short, it didn't.  I guess I should have known that the wood really needed to be soaked longer and possibly put on a 'form' in order to achieve the tight radius to the left of the door.  The trim did not bend enough.  I tried nailing it with my brad nailer, but it was not strong enough to hold the pressure of the bend.

Off to Lowes for a trim run.  I found a piece of molding; believe it or not it is plastic that is 'colored' a 'natural' color.  It matches perfectly to the natural cedar and it bends a whole lot more.  I decided to use Liquid Nails and my brad nailer.  It worked pretty well; again, the trouble spot was the tight radius to the left of the door.  I actually left that section braced and will see what happens after a night of bracing and the Liquid Nails.

The picture before the one above was a bit out of order.  I added a panel of insulation to the shelf.  It's not glued in; again, if I ever needed to get to the wire runs, I can by simply lifting the insulation panel up.  

I used liquid nails to glue the cedar to the foam.  Much happier with the tack of Liquid Nails than the PL 300 adhesive.  

 

Almost finished.

Done.  Look how nice that trim piece pulls the ceiling and the back wall together.  I am very pleased with the 'plastic' trim piece.

I did try out the baskets before adding the insulation and the cedar, but this was my confirmation.  They fit perfectly and the lip of the shelf (which has a piece of foam glued to it by the way) holds them from moving forward.  There is about an inch of 'wiggle room' in the back.  You would think I made it that way!

You can see that the back of the totes fit exactly to the top of the cedar strips in the back.

Picked up a can of this Leak Seal.  I wanted to use it in the wheel wells.  I decided to go over the wood 'angles' I used to make the wheel well in the galley.  They've been treated and painted with the undercoating, but I found teeny tiny spots that missed the undercoating.  This just gave me an extra coat of comfort.

 

Here's a better shot of the flange I installed around the vent.  It looks great!

The porch light switch installed, glued and braced for the night.  Again, I really like the way the cedar accent looks.  It ties the design together nicely I think.

Finished up the little nit picky pieces in the bulkhead.  The only thing left to do in that area is to cover the side pieces of foam in headliner and glue the cedar strips to the 'floor' of the cabinet.  I'm thinking this is where we'll keep our shoes at night.

 

What do you when your teardrop is 5' wide and all the strips of cedar come in 8' lengths?  Well, you use those strips to cover the shelves and you line the built in storage bins to give them a super nice smell!

 

With some stuff in it!

 The back storage bin.  

I had been thinking about how I could install some simple curtains for some privacy in the teardrop.  Well, I found a solution.  Before the windows were installed, there were two angle irons that gave rigidity to the door.  When I removed them, I had to fill the holes with bolts and nuts.  I had made them very short to just 'dig' in to the foam core that will be glued to them.  Well, if you look closely, there are three nuts above and below the molding of the window.  If I were to simply add a larger bolt (one that would go all the way through the foam/headliner, I could use that bolt to anchor a curtain rod.  Aha!  Solution!  Now, to decide on a nice looking rod and to purchase the right length of bolt!  Then I get to choose a cool fabric that will pull everything together!

One last view of the shelf area.  You can almost smell that lovely cedar!  I'm so glad that I did not put 'cabinets' in this area.  By keeping it a shelf with the bins, I have a lot of flexibility.  Plus, by making this out of cedar, I've ensured a great smell, low chance of 'rot' and it will keep bugs out.  I was initially concerned about not 'treating' the cedar.  I was wondering if the cedar smell would ever be 'too' much.  Not a problem.  It smells great, but it's not too much at all.  I couldn't be happier with how it is turning out.

Father's Day tomorrow.  Would love to get both doors finished.  If I can get them done and installed, and then those last couple of things in the bulkhead, the Carpe Diem will essentially be ready for travel!  Can't wait!

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!

Electric and Other Stuff

So today was a mixture of many small projects.  I started wiring the trailer for electric.  I was a little intimidated by the idea of doing this.  I've had some negative experiences with electric in my house and have always ended up having the electricians come in and do it.  It just scares me too much.

So, today I started by testing out the various fixtures while connected to the battery.

Here are the two main interior fixtures, the dome light and the reading lights.  The first thing I had to remember is that sometimes fixtures come with different color wires.  Both of the above fixtures had white and black wires.  I just had to remember that black was hot on those fixtures.  I then connected the red wires to these terminals and all was good.  I was so happy to see both light fixtures actually light up!  Then I decided to wire the interior lights together to put them on one circuit.

The reading lights have a recessed connection, so they had to be installed onto a block of wood.  This then was screwed to a piece of hardboard, which was glued to the foam.  It all should work out smoothly for me when it comes time to cover it with the headliner.  I'm hopeful that I can put that section on in one large piece.

Here you can see how I braced the foam to the roof.  Using these planks of wood worked pretty well.  I used Gorilla Glue for the first time.  That stuff is interesting.  It's kind of like working with the extruded foam; it actually looks like that when it dries.  It also 'expands,' which regular glue does not do in the same way.

Here you can see the small pieces of hardwood that are glued to the foam.  This gave me something to 'screw' into for each fixture.

Here are the fixtures mounted onto the hardboard and foam.  You can see the channels I cut for the wires.

You can see the hole coming in from the cabin.  I just got plain lucky that the shelf in the cabin was at the same height of the counter top in the galley.  I was able to tuck the wires into the power center area very easily.

This is the hole going into the power center.

You can see how the fuse panel will fit into the side wall there.

Here you can see the two 12 volt power port holes and the small square hole is where the 12 volt battery meter will be placed.  I decided to use two steel boxes.  One will potect the back side of the 12 volt outlets and the other will be for the one 120 volt outlet that I will install after I put the power port entry hole on the outside of the teardrop.

Another big task was putting the original hinge back on.  You can see on the image above that I used the butyl tape to seal the top part of the hinge.  I then screwed into a 1" by 1".  This gave the hinge something to 'bite' into and I think allowed me to really tighten the hinge.

These clamps worked well to hold everything where I wanted it while I was screwing it in place.

Here is the 'porch light.'  These will be tied into the four small LED lights, one on each corner too. 

They will all come to a central switch on the shelf area.  I can't wait to see how these are going to look at night!

Everything worked!  I shouldn't have been surprised, but given my history with electricity, I was!  I had not had the chance to 'sit up' and use the reading lights before.  I found that leaning against the bulkhead, which is headliner covered foam, was very comfortable and the lights will work perfectly!

I thought I had done something wrong with the vent.  I couldn't get it to turn on.  Then I realized that you have to have the vent hood open for it to turn on.  It is quiet and truly moves a ton of air around.  It isn't too noisy, but just noisy enough to work for us as a white noise creator.

I also was able to fix up the drawers and doors.  I had done a poor job on their fronts.  I routed the edges of the doors and sanded their fronts properly.  

One of the last projects was installing the new screw/bolts that hold the struts in place.  These struts hold up the hatch.  It was amazing to me how much a small bag of stainless steel hardware can cost.  

Tomorrow I have to get the second half of the hinge installed and the vent and doors sealed up so that the teardrop can go out onto the concrete patio.