Dale and Terry get a '66 Tradewind

[dbj216]

My old 66 Trade Wind had the world's worse toilet. A porcelain bowl and a steel slide valve housing with a crazy actuator. The thing was heavy. Mine was leaking and rotted out the subfloor. I was very glad to get rid of that thing and replace it with a light weight 5 gallon pail. I put a sack of cat litter in it and called it a composting toilet. Hey, it fit the budget.

David

[Slats]

Our old toilet looked the same. That actuator spring was scary, triggering fearful memories of the mayhem that lurks in strut springs.



On another note, yesterday was devoted to a vent cover and cutting out a hole for the bathroom sink. The counter top will be laminated with bright white formica, a testament to my sore lack of ingenuity. The space between the vent cover and the street side wall will be filled by a towel rack. A test run of the LED lights on the bottom and top of the medicine cabinet confirmed my bright idea to install them for their indirect lighting effects. Now I just have to find a creative way to hide their 12v wires running to the electrical panel a few feet away. Who could have envisioned that medicine cabinet lighting in the early stages and run wires behind the wall? Obviously not me.

[dbj216]

I've disassembled struts before. If that spring gets away, mayham does happen. Same with garage door springs. Stored energy is dangerous to the inexperienced like me.

Your vanity cabinet, medicine cabinet look awesome. You have class woodworking skills.

Nice weather here, keep the project going. No goofing off. At least our trailers aren't virus contagious.

David

[Slats]

Thanks for the kind words, David. Actually, I've never made cabinets before, but I kind of enjoy trying, even though an orthodox cabinet maker would surely smile at my amateurish attempts, as well as the time it takes accomplish them. The weather here was nice today, but all I managed to do was clean out a bunch of clutter and make a bathroom towel rack. I ripped a couple of 20" 1x2 mahogany boards, drilled out some 1/2" deep 3/4" holes in them and stuck a couple of 3/4" aluminum tubes in between them. The drill press came in handy for this. Now that vent cover does not look so awkwardly out of place.

[ttbikes]

Looking good slats!

[dbj216]

I agree with ttbikes: Looking good. Hey, what tool did you use to make a flat bottomed hole for your towel bars? End mill?

David

[rmkrum]

Probably a “forstner bit”. Makes a very precise flat bottomed hole, best used in a drill press. Has a small pilot point and flat cutting blades. Big box home improvement stores stock them.

[Slats]

That is exactly the kind of bit I used in my cheap Harbor Freight drill press. I just set the stop at 1/2" and drilled away.
Yesterday I added some aluminum corner molding to the plumbing vent cover, with which I seem to have become obsessed. I do like the way it carries on with the aluminum towel bar theme. I also like the light produced by the LED bars above and below the medicine cabinet.
A start was made on roughing in the plumbing wall for the shower tub, the end of the line for the Pex.

[Atomic_13]

Pro level work, Dale! Looks great.

[Slats]

Thanks, Brian. Your compliments are directly deposited to the memory bank.

[dbj216]

That aluminum corner molding does look very nice. Is the molding a 1/2x1/2 aluminum angle? And how did you attach it? I ask, as I need some angle molding for my current project.

Thanks Slats,

David

[TouringDan]

Dale

Ditto the same question as David.
I like the aluminum towel bar and the aluminum trim. Nice work.

Dan

[Slats]

The aluminum angle is 1/2" x 3/4". I got the angle with one the 3/4" side because I sanded the birch plywood a little to vigorously at one spot through the veneer and needed a wider piece to cover my mistake. I would have preferred to use 1/2" x 1/2" stock.
As for attaching it, if you look closely at the picture you will see one rivet in each piece about halfway up. I put them there just to hold the molding in place and will put another rivet at the top and the bottom when I finish things out.
I bought a 4'x8' sheet of super white Formica this morning, fully intending to do the bathroom counter top, but got sidetracked trying to envision what to do on the other side of the bathroom, i.e., how to reconfigure the tub/shower space. I think I have a plan that involves a small angled divider wall running from the the curbside side of the rear window to the edge of the tub, but figuring out how to anchor it is a challenge, given the compound curved surfaces in that tight space. Luckily, I had a 3' piece of aluminum C channel bulkhead (or whatever it is called - the stuff that the divider walls fit into) lying around and was able to bend it enough to contort it roughly into place to get at least a vague idea of how it will all come together. I may have to fashion one side of it into serial bendable tabs with a dremel cutting disc or something. Stay tuned, if only for the laughs.

[dbj216]

Thanks slats for the aluminum molding description. We are using some as a shelf face molding to hide the end cut. Looks "Airstream-y"

My Sovereign friend calls the wall attach extrusion the "F channel". I guess it does look like an F in cross section.

I used one of the trailer tires as a bending mandrel when I was matching (kinda) the curves of the bathroom walls. I have seen folks make some snips in the flange to keep it from buckling while bending.

David

[islandtrader]

Originally Posted by Slats

Luckily, I had a 3' piece of aluminum C channel bulkhead (or whatever it is called - the stuff that the divider walls fit into) lying around and was able to bend it enough to contort it roughly into place to get at least a vague idea of how it will all come together. I may have to fashion one side of it into serial bendable tabs with a dremel cutting disc or something. Stay tuned, if only for the laughs.

If you go to post 161 of this thread you may save yourself some frustration. They talk about the F channel challenge. https://www.airforums.com/forums/f44...-150509-9.html

Keep up the good job...

[Slats]

Like David, I have engaged in the tire-as-mandrel experiment, sometimes luck, other times with mixed results. What I did with the shorter F channel pieces used in mounting my medicine cabinet (pictures above), was to employ my Dremel's cutting disc to cut into the F channel flange at one inch intervals, making bendable tabs that rivet flush to the wall. It may not be pretty, but it is functional. If onlookers draw back in horror upon opening the medicine cabinet and seeing the unsightly tabs, so be it. On the shower rear wall, I'm even thinking of cutting intermittent slots in the sides of the channel itself to aid in bending. I'm normally way too partial to form over function in many, if not most, matters. But the further along I get in this process, function is starting to shove form aside, in favor of getting stuff done. Thanks for the link to that thread speaking to the F channel dilemma, at turns educational and depressing as it was.

[islandtrader]

Originally Posted by Slats

But the further along I get in this process, function is starting to shove form aside, in favor of getting stuff done. .

I am with you on that for sure! Attaching the walls is coming up soon for me, so hurry up with your trial and errors so I can skip some pain and suffering

[Slats]

Well, I try to do trial and error at a more deliberate, measured pace, so hurrying it up may pose a problem. For instance, I'm now thinking of doing Formica laminate for my bathroom shower divider wall, whereas, back at post #183 I was so sold on some mildly opaque translucent poly something or other, to the point of actually cutting a piece and putting it in place. Upon further reflection, however ................

[dbj216]

Shower walls in Airstreams are a PITA. Airstream likes thin plywood with vinyl wallpaper stuck to it. I've seen some elaborate shower stalls here on these forums.

Me, I go to a big box store and buy a sheet of FRP for $50. I cut it the shape of the plywood shower wall and then glue it down with that special contact adhesive. Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic (FRP) is made as a shower wall covering. I did the Trade Wind, the Overlander and my friend's Sovereign all the same way. No artistic imagination in me.

Not fancy, but functional. Like the way Airstream hung a overhead locker over the tub / shower area in the 75 Overlander? Wet storage. The 76 Sovereign has a completely different plastic wall there instead. Better. I run the shower curtain as a "U" covering up this cabinet some.

David

[Slats]

A few days ago I could not even pronounce Formica and had never used a router. So no one was more surprised than I when a little Formica, some spray contact goop, a couple of dowel rods (barely enough, as it turns out) and a nifty little Bosch router combined to produce a passable bathroom countertop, touched off with a square faucet. I kind of like the mixture/contrast of angled and round metal that has taken shape here. Now I need to find some little hidden hinges for the medicine cabinet door/mirror. Any suggestions?