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Pahaska · 06-11-2010, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wheel interested

Looks good John. Have you tried putting a high gloss over the red oak?

I have the first coat of semi-gloss poly on them. After several coats of that with light sanding between, I will put on a high-gloss top coat.

The doors on the small cabinets are cut from wood that I removed from the trailer earlier when I replaced cabinet door fronts with different material. Except for the routed edges, the original finish on them is still good. I'll try to match that with my final finish.

Pahaska · 07-05-2010, 07:58 PM

we are on the way back to Texas with a new,long storage door in the street side of the bedroom. Jackson Center did a great job of installation, albeit slow. I had them leave the mouse fur across the inside of the door. I'll cut it away when I start the bed swap.

I will have a clean 2005 RV queen mattress available for free for anyone who will pick it up anytime this weekend or later. Never used without a mattress cover. PM or email me if interested.

tallytwo1994 · 07-07-2010, 10:30 PM

Looking forward to seeing photos. You do such nice work!

Carol

Pahaska · 07-09-2010, 12:31 PM

After 2 half-days of work in the trailer, things are beginning to shape up. Most of the first half day was spent, moving things around, removing the bedside table, and disassembling the queen bed. Since my garage is crammed, I have to work around most of the items that were stored under the queen bed.

This morning, I took the new cabinet to the trailer and started assembly. The first hurdle was to find the center line of the trailer. The bathroom door is not on the trailer center line. Since the two sides are not the same at floor level, a simple measurement didn't work. I finally placed the two storage modules against the bulkhead with a 29" stick between and measured at bed height to center them. That worked out to 34" bunks and that fit my calculations. Once centered, I screwed the two storage modules down.

I placed the cabinet in the rear and tied the old queen bed sides between that and the storage modules. I then centered the cabinet by again measuring the bunk widths at bed level. The trim that was on the queen bed pedestal worked out just fine where the old bed sides meet the cabinets.

I'll finish the bunk tops tomorrow morning. I'm using as much of the old plywood bed top as possible. The balance will be 11/32" fir plywood. It all will be under the mattress, so it doesn't need to match except in thickness.

The three photos show the view from the bathroom and the two storage modules.

Pahaska · 07-09-2010, 01:13 PM

Here is a closer photo of the center cabinet before I applied the trim over where the bunk sides join the cabinet.

The opening in the bunk side was for the drawer on the front side of the queen bed. The drawer front will be hinged to swing down to allow inside access to the storage under that bunk. The unused drawer will be disassembled to provide material to build the drawers for the cabinet.

By the way, I think the workers at Airstream must be paid by the staple. The partitioning under the queen bed was assembled using an ungodly number of staples; far more than were needed for structural integrity.

Pahaska · 07-10-2010, 01:56 PM

This morning, I put the tops on the twin beds. I used as much of the old queen top as possible. The curbside bed has just one seam, up in the curved portion. On the street side, I left the non-hinged part that is attached to the wall. Since it was fitted to the curve, that meant adding new pieces on both ends as well as piecing the last 8" at the front of the bunk. The pieced bunk is well supported by structure underneath to form a cabinet behind the old drawer opening that is separate from the area accessed by the outside door.

I still need to build two drawers and three drawer fronts to complete the rear cabinet.

Because the motion of the trailer tends to wear the mattress over screws or seams in the bunk top, I taped the seams with "Gorilla Tape." This stuff is really tough and sticks like glue. In the photo, I have not yet taped the seam in the curved area since I will need to temporarily remove that piece to trace a template to order custom mattresses.

I also insulated the heat duct in the non-heated storage compartment. The insulation will be wrapped with plastic removed from under the queen bed for protection.

I now have an amazing amount of storage, far more and more accessible than under the queen.

wheel interested · 07-10-2010, 02:37 PM

It's looking super John. That's a great idea to insulate the heating duct too. We have found that the air is not as warm as we would like in the bedroom, adding the wrap would probably help. We will have to copy your fine idea. Thanks.

Pahaska · 07-11-2010, 04:58 PM

I finished out the bunks this morning. What was a drawer front on the forward side of the bed is now a hinged cabinet door over the same opening on the street side bunk. I was even able to use the original latch from when it was a drawer and just add hinges. Behind that door is a storage compartment that is partitioned off from the rest of the under bunk space. The partitions serve to reinforce the bunk top where I had to piece the plywood.

I am ordering 8" memory foam mattresses from Rocky Mountain in S. Carolina. Their price is good and postings on the web are favorable for both their product and their service.

Pahaska · 07-13-2010, 04:55 PM

I went out to the trailer and pieced together a Kraft paper template for the curve in the upper cabinet for the curb side. Sometimes I envy folks that modify SOBs with square corners. I bought a piece of the white edging when I was in Jackson Center and that should help any inaccuracy in the template.

I had originally thought that I could simply modify the street side night table; however, in studying the situation, I realized that the only right thing to do was to build another face frame to better match the upper cabinet on the street side.

The big difference is that I am making the curb side cabinet 4" wider to provide a place for the light switch and fan control right out in the aisle instead of being hidden on the aft side of the cabinet as in factory builds. The extra width will also make the cabinet a lot more usable.

I am using the door from the old street side night table. That means that I need to build another door above as it is not as tall as the cabinet. If I can find a big enough scrap of the bamboo, I will make the new door match. Otherwise, it will be a solid door.

Pahaska · 07-15-2010, 05:05 PM

The photo is the curb side cabinet ready to go to the trailer. I used the door from the old road side lower cabinet and a piece of gallery rail that I had laying around. It has only a coat of sealer in the new wood, so far.

The cabinet is in place in the trailer, but I found that I had the wrong screws with me, so it is only partially fastened in place. It does fit well, so my template-making was not in vain.

Pahaska · 07-17-2010, 03:08 PM

The cabinet is securely mounted in the trailer and the switches that were on the wall have been moved to the new, wider stile on the forward side.

I will also move the TV plate with the cigarette-lighter outlet to the front of the cabinet. I doubt whether we will ever use the TV outlet, but I will use the cigarette-lighter outlet for the Endless-Breeze fan and vacuum.

Since the bathroom wall is 1/2", rather soft material, I have used a lot of screws through the ledger blocks and into this wall. There are also quite a few screws into the aluminum inner wall.

I don't really like the gallery rail. I have decided to make a solid oak upper door, but the gallery rail will suffice until I get around to it.

I had to take 1/4" off the end of the valence. I did this by using a saber saw to remove the 1/4" plywood at the end after removing dozens of staples and peeling back the upholstery fabric. I can use the original mounting holes at the aft end and fabricate a new bracket at the cabinet end.

Roadtoaster · 07-17-2010, 04:12 PM

You do great work John. I want to do this as well but since we have more space than we have needed so far, this mod stays on the back burner.

wheel interested · 07-17-2010, 06:05 PM

I am a fan John, no doubt! I have my back issues of Airstream Life, do you know where I can find the directions for the flashlight holder, the book shelf under the fold-down table and the kitty litter scoop holder?

I will be anxious to see the door that replaces the galley rail. You should definitely publish individual direction kits with templates or a series of books. If I were closer I would beg for help!!!

Also I am not sure if you wrote an article on your valance lights or not but now that we have a 28' Classic I am following your innovations more than ever!!

Thanks for all the tips and help that you post.

Pahaska · 07-19-2010, 03:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wheel interested

I am a fan John, no doubt! I have my back issues of Airstream Life, do you know where I can find the directions for the flashlight holder, the book shelf under the fold-down table and the kitty litter scoop holder?

I don't use more than a pencil sketch on whatever paper is at hand, so there is no real drawings. I would think that the photos I post would allow folks with any workshop skills to copy most fairly simple things such as the flashlight holder, the book shelf under the fold-down table and the kitty litter scoop holder.

Pahaska · 07-19-2010, 03:13 PM

As far as progress on the twin conversion, the sheets and mattress pads were on my front porch when I returned from the trailer. Now, all I need are the mattresses, which should be here in about a week.

This morning, I bought a 4' wiring duct intended to conceal the cables to a flat screen TV. I cut the duct into appropriate lengths and used it to protect and conceal the wiring from where items were mounted on the bathroom wall out to where the items are now mounted on the new curb-side cabinet. Looks nice and finished inside the cabinet now, rather than a tangle of wires.

Sadly, the wires I was going to use for the cigarette lighter outlet slipped down into the wall when I was mounting the cabinet. I may cut a hole in the wall in the under bed compartment and fish them all the way down. That would put the outlet at floor lever, which would be better than up on the cabinet.

Pahaska · 07-21-2010, 11:49 AM

We travel with 2 or 3 cats, depending on the length of the trip. Whenever one of us goes to bed early or showers, there is always at least one cat scratching at the sliding doors.

I installed a cat door in one of the sliding galley to bathroom doors that ought to please the cats. There is just barely enough space for the sliding door with a modified cat door to slide into the pocket.

The sliding doors are hollow, so I alternated between a knife and saw to cut the opening. The cat door protruded too far from the door surface, so I used a belt sander to reduce the depth of the plastic flange as much as possible. I also had to take the sliding lock of the cat door. It was not needed anyway.

I sanded the cat door flap to make it quite translucent.

Now, I have to teach the cats to use the door.

tallytwo1994 · 07-25-2010, 07:14 PM

John,

The cat looks great. Too bad about the wires - but as always it not only works out, but works out better than planned!

Carol

Pahaska · 07-29-2010, 03:01 PM

I received an email from Rocky Mountain Mattress in NC that Federal Express will pick up my custom mattresses today. They should travel over the weekend, so I expect them to be here sometime about mid-next week. I'm curious how they will be packaged; I expect they are compressed, rolled, and plastic wrapped. Two custom mattresses, with shipping, no tax, were $900.

The mattresses are 8" thick with 3 major layers of memory foam plus a thin inner layer that is supposed to prevent hard body angles from digging through to the wood below. The original Airstream mattress was supposed to be a better grade in the Classic, but my hip would dig through to a hard surface and be sore in the morning, though a topper helped.

I'll post photos later. All of the drawer fronts have been installed. A cigarette lighter outlet has been installed, and drawers and cabinets lined with non-skid. I'm still working on installing the latches on the drawers. Everything has multiple layers of clear poly.

Pahaska · 07-30-2010, 04:38 PM

Starting to look a little more finished.

My new mattresses left Charlotte, NC on a FEDEX truck at 5:15 this morning our time. I figure they are heading down I-20 about 400 miles closer to me by now.

cosmotini · 07-30-2010, 07:29 PM

Looking good!

It looks like an added bonus having the night stand there is if you ever had to use the emergency exit. It would help getting through the window.