Little Girl Refurb 1972

[Tony S]

Chris and Kay

Thanks for posting all the pictures and great descriptions of your work. I am a woodworker and I know quality woodworking and I think you have done a super job. I go to your pictures for inspiration and direction as I work on my 1973 TW. You have answered questions for me in the past and I appreciate that. I have two quick questions. One is I can't see how you hook up the tub p trap with the platform "box". I suspect I am missing something. To put it another way. If you would, could you tell me how did you hook up the tub p trap?

The other question have you weight your master piece yet? What did she weight in at? I am worrying about my TW getting too heavy as I move forward.

Again you have provided us all a great service though your efforts of this thread. You truly deserve to get out and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

many thanks

Tony

[pbearsailor]

Absolutely beautiful job, Chris and Kay!

Isn't it great to be able to actually use your trailer after all those years of work?

Cheers,
steve

[Tony S]

Steve yours is another great thread!!

Tony

[worldinchaos]

Wow- absolutely amazing results. I can just tell from the close-up photos that you have some amazing attention to detail. Well done, well done.

The tone of the wood and the grain set a very nice ambiance for the trailer. It looks very "live-able", yet not too cluttered and "lived-in".

Very impressed. I would love to meet you on the road some day and see it in person, but I guess this will have to do for now.

[Minno]

Originally Posted by Tony S

I have two quick questions. One is I can't see how you hook up the tub p trap with the platform "box". I suspect I am missing something. To put it another way. If you would, could you tell me how did you hook up the tub p trap?

The other question have you weight your master piece yet? What did she weight in at? I am worrying about my TW getting too heavy as I move forward.

Hi Tony,

To answer your second question first, no we have not gotten her weighed yet. Still need to do that.

On the p-trap, refer to post 266. I cut a hole in the floor for the p-trap, and it actually extends below the bottom of the plywood a bit. I made a box out of plywood that I mounted under the floor to protect the p-trap and to keep critters out from under the tub.

However, I installed the box before I installed the tub. Kinda a mistake. I also had sealed the box to the floor with vulkum, another mistake. One of those hindsight things, as in asking "Why the heck did I do that?" when I went to install the tub. I really thought about ripping the box off so I could make sure the p-trap was glued properly to the tail piece coming off the drain of the tub, but didn't go that route. Instead, I set the tub in place, and then carefully measured the length of the tail piece I needed. I installed the drain and tail piece onto the tub, and made sure it would seat into the p-trap ok from above. It all worked out ok, and doesn't leak at all. But, if I ever have to do that again, the box to protect the p-trap will only be installed with pocket screws without any sealant. As it stands now, if I ever need to service the p-trap, I'll need to cut the box off the bottom of the floor.

Chris

[Minno]

WOW umm gee I we umm Thanks!

Kay

[HiHoAgRV]

Originally Posted by Minno

To all,

We are humbled by the number of people that view our thread each time we make a new post. Even when we don't post anything new for a few weeks, the number of views continues to increase daily. Early on, we were encouraged to post details and even more details about what we're doing and how we're doing it. And we will continue to do so. We've been inspired reading other full restoration threads as we undertook our project. Nice to know we're passing that inspiration forward.

Thank-you for your kind words and encouragement. This is a great community!

Chris

I have been following you guys for a while and love the details. It's very rare to find a complete thread that covers it all with the level if expertise that y'all have shown.

True craftsmanship.

Thanks!

[Tony S]

Thanks Chris

I went back and read the post around 266 and looked at the pictures. I am very familiar with your picture of the drain set up. I have been to it many times. It helped informed me, to get my bearings, from early on in my work. You folks, Lance, Bart, and Steve of pbearsailor, above as well as others have really been a help by your examples and answers to my questions.

I will make my base a little different. My P-trap and drain are threaded so will have to have access to it. I didn't catch that difference.

Oh, I didn't make my black tank but I did make the shower pan. Again the idea was a combination of Bart's shower pan and pbearsailor's black tank with the base could work from you. The shower pan was fiberglass/epoxy the stitch and glue method. I post a few pictures. It shows where in the process I am at.

Many Thanks

Tony S
Rogue River, OR

[Minno]

I like your shower, Tony. Glad we could be of help on your projects. We have learned MUCH from others on the forums, and continue to learn as we go. The next big learning "curve" for us will be figuring out how to cover the pipes in the lower walls around the rear of the trailer in the bathroom. The idea is to go from below the countertop (which isn't in yet) to the floor with a "wall" to cover the pipes. It'll be compound cuts and curves, or maybe something really flexible we can curve. Chris has been avoiding it for awhile but pretty soon he'll have to bite the bullet when he runs out of other projects!

Kay

[Tony S]

Kay, I will be doing the same thing to cover the pex and electrical wrapping around the back of TW. I have a few ideas on it. I am thinking or exploring doing it like you build a cedar strip canoe. When building a canoe you use forms and 1/4" x 3/4" strips and staple ( or clamp) them to a form called stations. What I am thinking is I can do a top, middle, and bottom "station" from counter top down to floor to the shape I want and attach the cedar (or other) strips to it. Then I would epoxy it and paint or leave it "bright". One could leave the stations as top, shelf and a partial for attaching at floor. I have been looking at pictures of heads in sailboats for ideas.

I hope the shower pan is not too large. I think I am ok I wanted to maximize the space of it. It will, like many others used as storage during travel, bedding and such.

Anyway I don't have any pictures of my cedar strip idea but there is one of a my canoe. I figure if I can bend to this shape I should be able to form a cabinet with some flow to it. Oh the cedar strips are usually coved so they make the arc without gaps

Tony

[Minno]

Oh, that is a beautiful stripper (canoe - they call them strippers around here)! I'm familiar with how they are built. That's a good idea. We'll have to look at that. We could even use long strips of wood and steam them to shape. Of course, Chris would have to get a steamer.....
Thanks for the idea!

Kay

[perryg114]

It would be cool to make a complete trailer out of Mahogany, a big version of that canoe. Then you could pull it with an old woody.

Perry

[Minno]

Wonder how much that would weigh?

Kay

[Tony S]

The 17' "stripper" weights 63lbs, if I remember correctly. It is 12 or so years old.

Tony

[Minno]

On another topic: just a warning to anyone with wood floors and throw rugs. We have floating cork floor in the trailer and braided rugs. I had put a rubberized rug holder under the 2 throw rugs to keep them in place. Everything worked fine until our most recent trip when temperatures reached mid to upper 90's and humidity was also in the 80's for a week or so (and we were without air conditioning). I noticed as I started to clean the trailer that the backer had stuck to the floor! AARRGGHH! It didn't come off either. I ended up using Goof Off and a plastic scraper to scrape the stuff off the floor. Needless to say, the backer went in the garbage.

Kay

[KristinS]

Thanks for the warning, Kay. We did a glue-down cork tile floor and our cork specifically said "don't use rubber-backed rugs" which are really difficult to find, but we understand why now. I thought they meant because of discoloration, but melting is not something I had considered! Glad it came off though. What are you going to do instead of rubber rug backers in the future?

[Minno]

I've just got the rugs down for now. I've also heard rubber backed rugs can discolor linoleum or vinyl floors. In looking at those areas now, I can still see the little dots where the backing stuck. I think the only way to get rid of them completely is going to be to sand the areas and re-varnish. Yuck. I have the same backing on the same style rugs on the same flooring in our family room, and no problems so far. I think it was the heat and esp. the humidity that caused the problem in the trailer. I might just get rid of the backing in the house too, though!

Kay

[Minno]

Worked on a couple of minor projects over the weekend in between watching the middle two grand-kids.



I installed the 20 lb magnetic catches on the back of the four dresser drawers. Pretty simple installation overall. The locktite got away from me a bit on the one screw hole though. They do provide a positive grab when the drawers are closed, so we'll see how they do on our next trip.



One thing that's bothered us on previous trailers and this one is that there is no visual indicator to show that the water heater is on. The red light shows a fault, but not that it's on. So, I added a green LED from Radio Shack right next to the water heater control panel. It's glued into the panel, and wired to the back of the water heater switch.



We received the Zip Dee awning handles we ordered from Airstream and installed them too. Kay tried them out right away, and she can set up and raise the awning by herself now. Very simple design that helps a lot!

Chris

[Minno]

Finished another little project this evening. Added the 110 VAC outlet, and the 12 VDC/Cable outlet to the dresser area. The rough wiring was already in place inside the coat closet, so I just needed to added a couple of boxes and wire them in.

These will get a fair amount of use with our 12 VDC/110 VAC fan. We like to set the fan in the window and blow fresh air across the bed at night. Now we don't need an extension cord for it anymore.

Chris

[Hittenstiehl]

Chris and Kay

Hope you can take one more accolade. Your thread is almost equally intimidating and inspiring but right after we are in awe of your posts and progress I get super inspired that "yes we can" do this also. I have finally finished your entire post(s) and have reread many that now make more sense. Your easy writing style, explanations and good photo's help the pieces come together. Your sense of humor is also appreciated. We even have a separate "Minno" page in our notebook for questions to direct to you when we get to a particular project. Looking forward to watching you finish.
Question: It seems you posted the refurb in this continual thread and not a blog. Just making sure I am not missing anything?
Q: I do not find your photo's in the members section under Minno but all attached to this thread? Just making sure.
Thanks in advance