Little Girl Refurb 1972

[wasagachris]

Hi MC is that one of those paints that goes on blue and dries white or is that the color you're using?
I see that the center piece is missing. Will you be putting it in later or do you have some sort of master plan involving something radical? Do you want to let us in on the secret plan?
Looks fantastic by the way.

[Minno]

Hi WC. The ceiling center piece is off right now for any extra wiring we might need to do (or, rather, HE needs to do - me wiring would be a scary proposition, at best). It's blue paint. We primed with white Bondz exterior primer, and are using Dutchboy Maxbond exterior paint satin for the finish color. And the name of the paint color really is "Pursuit of Happiness".
We've been toying with other ceiling finishes besides putting the center piece back up, but haven't made any decisions yet. Probably will end up with the regular ceiling piece.
Kay

[wasagachris]

Knowing Chris's penchant for doing extreme work I thought he might have had some grand design change like a mirrored ceiling or some thing with fiber optic lighting.
A limo shop I worked at installed hundreds of small fiber optics in the ceiling which was illuminated using a revolving color wheel. The end result was hundreds of little sprinkles of light that were constantly changing color. That would be cool to look at. Hint Hint.

[Minno]

Oh, please don't encourage him! Actually, I'm the one going for something different like maybe pressed tin. I also saw in one of the Airstream mags a year or so ago, an AS that had woven cane for the center ceiling panel. The sides were done in wood veneers, and the effect was wonderful! I think it was an Adairondak redo... HMMMM, maybe a nautical theme since we're painting blue and have fish swimming in a tank in the ceiling.... we could thin out the herd in the pond since they're spawning again...
sprinkles of white light would go with the quilt - the name of the pattern is Celestial Puzzle...
Hm, Hm... don't want to get a woman thinking too much, you know!

Kay

[72BamaStream]

Hey Chris and Kay!
It's your long-lost Southern girls down in Mobeeeeeeel!!!! We are so behind in following all of your work but, do know, over the last year and a half Tina and I have thought of you guys often and we will definitely be running through all the pictures and descriptions I KNOW y'all have posted during the process (so thorough you both are... it's great )... I opened my own business last year so it's been a little time-consuming, to say the least

LITTLE GIRL is looking fantastic!!! She's growing up so fast

Happy Summertime... I hope you two are well... no, better than "well"... I hope you two are FANTABULOUS!

Shar

[mello mike]

Lookin' good, Chris and Kay!

[chowman2011]

Great Work and coverage of Your(Chris and Kay) Progress!!!
I've enjoyed this post ALOT!

Need to get back to My "Refurbish"....

Cheers,
Christopher

[Minno]

WC - Fiber Optics, huh? Intriguing.... color and pattern possibilities boggle the mind!

Shar!!!! And Tina!!! Great to hear from you two again! We’ve thought about both of you often as well, and wondered how you were doing. New business, huh? I’ll bet that’s keeping you hopping. But I hope you still find time to get out camping and enjoy yourselves. Happy summertime to both of you too!

Mike & Christopher – thanks!

Feels great to be making some progress again. Rainy this weekend, and Kay’s off on a quilt retreat, so I’m here to fend for myself. Maybe I’ll go buy some fiber optic cable and so some experimenting. But most likely, I’ll work on priming, painting, and get back to the black and gray tanks.

MC

[wasagachris]

Hi MC the fiber optic cables were almost microscopic in size. IIRC the drill bit size was 1/32" or maybe 1/64" and then the ends of the cables were hot glued to a sheet of lexan that was mirrored. The efffect was like twinkling stars. The light generator box was about 4" square,running off 12VDC with a rotating 5 color wheel. Due to the arrangement of the fiber optic cables in the box the color change would sweep across the roof. It was really cool to look at.

[Minno]

Originally Posted by wasagachris

Hi MC the fiber optic cables were almost microscopic in size. IIRC the drill bit size was 1/32" or maybe 1/64" and then the ends of the cables were hot glued to a sheet of lexan that was mirrored. The efffect was like twinkling stars. The light generator box was about 4" square,running off 12VDC with a rotating 5 color wheel. Due to the arrangement of the fiber optic cables in the box the color change would sweep across the roof. It was really cool to look at.

Sounds like a great idea for a limo. Probably not so much for a airstream... MC

[Minno]

In addition to painting (second coat is on the rear half of her now), I've been working on the tanks. Biggest accomplishment on that project yesterday was gluing the 3" drain fitting onto the black tank.



Hole cut at bottom of tank on the forward facing side.



Here I'm set up to bend the flange on the fitting a bit, so it will fit tight to the curved bottom of the tank.



Flange bent to fit tank.



Fitting glued in place.


Today, I'm mixing up some more ABS slurry to fill in all the nooks and crannies in the inside to ensure nothing gets caught while draining. Also extra precaution against leaking.

On the painting project, I made a new vista view blind out of sheet aluminum. (One blind was missing.) All 3 blinds are now painted on both sides (second coat is drying). I also made new blind handles out of red alder, and they have 3 coats of finish on them (3rd coat is drying). I'll post pictures of them after I get the handles installed.

Chris

[Minno]

Vista view blinds:


Here they are, all painted with the new handles installed. Hard to tell in the picture, but they are the same blue we're painting the interior. I used super glue to glue the edge trim on each side. These edge pieces ride in the channels that the blinds go up and down in.



Here's the first blind in place. I discovered that the top of the opening was not square to the blind. Not sure why, but it must have always been that way since the bottom and sides of the opening are square. Anyway, I cut it square before riveting the skins in place.



Here's a more or less final picture of the blind in place with the edge trim installed. The edge trim looks really bad, and it doesn't fit the opening very well, so I think I'll replace it.

Now to install the other two blinds and finish riveting the skins back in place. Then we can prime and paint the front half of her.

Chris

[Minno]

Yesterday, I installed the two vista view blinds on the starboard side, and then we finished riveting the front head liner and inner skins in place. Then we primed, and got one coat of paint on her. Today, we did the second coat of paint on the front half.




Here’s a before pic, a primed pic, and an after pic, along with a closer pic of the vista view blinds.


With the painting done for now, we can focus on the other projects. In addition to the tanks, I’m now starting to work on the electric panel installation.



Here’s the panel we’re using, complete with the charger in the bottom. One 30 amp breaker for the main, one 15 amp breaker for the charger, and six 20 amp breakers for everything else.



Eventually, there will be a cabinet built that will house the panel. It will be directly aft of the fridge. This evening, I got the breakers and the 12 volt side ground bus installed, as well as the 110 VAC input from the shore power connector and two of the 110 VAC circuits connected.

Chris

[Lance M]

Quality work. As always. The blue makes the inside seem much bigger. Nice.

[ddstech]

Originally Posted by Minno

Yesterday, I installed the two vista view blinds on the starboard side, and then we finished riveting the front head liner and inner skins in place. Then we primed, and got one coat of paint on her. Today, we did the second coat of paint on the front half.

<img src="http://www.airforums.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=131043"/><img src="http://www.airforums.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=131044"/>
<img src="http://www.airforums.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=131045"/><img src="http://www.airforums.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=131046"/>
Here’s a before pic, a primed pic, and an after pic, along with a closer pic of the vista view blinds.

With the painting done for now, we can focus on the other projects. In addition to the tanks, I’m now starting to work on the electric panel installation.

<img src="http://www.airforums.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=131047"/>
Here’s the panel we’re using, complete with the charger in the bottom. One 30 amp breaker for the main, one 15 amp breaker for the charger, and six 20 amp breakers for everything else.

<img src="http://www.airforums.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=131048"/><img src="http://www.airforums.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=131049"/>
Eventually, there will be a cabinet built that will house the panel. It will be directly aft of the fridge. This evening, I got the breakers and the 12 volt side ground bus installed, as well as the 110 VAC input from the shore power connector and two of the 110 VAC circuits connected.

Chris

Looks great, really great. What paint did you end up using? Just curious.

[Minno]

Hey ddstech - we used Bondz exterior primer and Dutchboy Maxbond satin exterior paint for the top coat. The paint color is "Pursuit of Happiness".

I did get more wiring done Monday & this evening. The 12 VDC circuit wires are connected to the panel, as are the rest of the 110 VAC circuits. I also connected the battery we've been using to power the roof vents, so the charger has something to do. Right now, two 12 VDC circuts are being used (one to each roof vent fan), and I have four 110 VAC outlets wired in. Plus the roof a/c is connected. Now I can plug things in and get rid of the extension cords we've been using.

Chris

[Minno]

Finally made time to work on her again! Worked on Kayden's crib this morning, but this afternoon was spent doing floors in Little Girl.




We installed the bathroom floor, which is sheet vinyl over 1/4" luan plywood subfloor. The plywood is more to bring it up closer to the height of the other floor than anything else. It's glued and perimeter screwed to the plywood subfloor, and then the vinyl is glued on top of it. The missing corner of the vinyl is where the old battery box was located. I'm going to reinstall that box to use as a small exterior storage compartment.



After the bathroom floor, we started tackling the rest of the floor. Its engineered cork, 1 by 3 foot tiles that click-lock together. It came with an underlayment; which is the gray stuff you see in the picture. This is as far as we got before we ran out of steam. Been a long week for both of us, and we decided not to push it.

We'll get the rest of the cork installed tomorrow, and I'll post more pics.

Chris

[Minno]

And the floor is finished! Per manufactors recommendations (and our son-in-law who used to install floors), we will seal it with 2 coats of water based poly this week. Most of it went down fairly easily - had to do some finnessing on the front due to the curves but overall not the hardest job we've done so far. We took Uwe's advice to lay the whole floor before we started building cabinets. It definitely about doubles the price of the floor, but we decided it would be the best way and worth the price. It took 8 boxes of 3 x 1 ft boards (7 per box). We did not do cork the last 4 ft as that is vinyled for the bathroom. There is a definite difference in the warmth of the cork floor as compared to the vinyl in the bath - the vinyl is much cooler on bare feet. There'll be rugs on the bath floor, though. We are very happy with the look!

Kay

[Lance M]

Beautiful! Cork floors are great. Nice work.

[reinergirl]

Love the variations in the floor. Would you share what brand/name you used? Its really beautiful!