1978 Sovereign Frame off

[wcronin4]

Hey David

Thanks for opening Colorado Dave’s Airstream Parts and Emporium.

I PM’d you with all my details.

Thanks for your continual willingness to help.

[wcronin4]

David- received the door guide and installed. Thank you again

[dbj216]

Happy I could help out a bit. You are most welcome. Keep the faith going.

David

[wcronin4]

Hey everyone.

Working on ceiling storage cabinets in the bedroom. All the plastic tambour plastic parts are broken and brittle. While I can find some plastic parts on line, I cannot find the end cap plastics. In addition, the sheet metal is cracked in all the corners. While I am generally impressed Airstreams light weight designs, the design of these particular cabinets does not represent AS’s finest hour.

But it isn’t all bad. I like the way the general shell is suspended from the ceiling.
And I like the look. So I was thinking about putting or attaching a tradition cabinet face-frame to the front and making traditional cabinet doors.

The challenge is how to attach the face frame to the existing aluminum frame.

Has anyone tried it? Anyone have any thoughts on why this is a good or bad idea?

[dbj216]

The 70s Airstream overhead cabinets were light weight and low cost for sure. There are many versions of overhead cabinets that can be made given enough time, which us retired guys have plenty of.

Here is a photo of the overhead cabinets in the wife's 86 Limited. They are hickory wood and not light weight or low cost.

And here is a photo of the cabinets in the 66 Trade Wind. They are plywood boxes with big doors than hinged upward.

So there are many ways to go with overhead cabinets. Can of beans rebuilt his using the Airstream aluminum extrusions and extra tambour door pieces.

Food for thought.

David

[Can of beans]

I have more of the plastic parts I used for my overheads, but they look like they work differently than what you have. I'll try and get a picture of them tonight.

[Can of beans]

here are the extra parts, but I don't think they will work with your cabinet style, they are pretty different in construction.

[wcronin4]

Hey Everyone

First a thank you to Colorado Dave for contributing a door glide to Faith's anatomy. Looks at home in the pic below.

To Can of Beans, I believe that there may be a couple of your plastic Tambour parts I can use in the ceiling cabinet above the fridge. I'll take a pic of what I need and post it tomorrow.

However, for the rest of the ceiling tambour cabinets, the sheet metal was too damaged to take it back to original. After closely examining the way these simple cabinets were constructed I built a "test" face frame and positioned it in place to see how it would fit.

I loved how it fit, but the original sheet metal needed to be adjusted to make sure the cabinet would be level.

You can see from the pic above I put patches over the cracked aluminum and then took about a 3/4 inch section out of the support straps. I had to fiddle with how much to take out so that once the face frame was install, all would be level. Why did I have to take that section out. In the original, the tambour hardware gave the front frame a "bowed out" appearance. When I applied the new face frame it straightened out those bows and caused the bottom to sag. Taking the section out, did the job.
At first, I was concerned about how to attach the new frame, but as you can see from the pic below, using the original straps, they provided an excellent attaching point and once the frame was install, it stiffen the whole unit up.


Here is the new frame painted and installed.


Here is a pic of the unit after the galley/bedroom wall was painted and installed.

I haven't decided what kind of doors to install. I have some router bits to create raised panels, but that might look to formal when compared to everything else. Since the top of the face frame protrudes further than the bottom, I have been wondering if gas type struts would suck the door closed given its configuration.

That's a problem for another day.

Later this evening I want to post a pic of the twin bed tambour cabinet that I recently finished cleaning up and painting. I love the copper metal accents and the way they work with the grays and whites in the interior.

[wcronin4]

Sorry I got some of the pics in the last post out is sequence.

Here is the pic of the refurbished twin bed.

[Iansk]

Hey Bill,

It’s a pleasure to see you plugging along. My AS is still in limbo as I’ve been upgrading my Avion and doing a bunch of work on another Avion as well (not mine).

Faith is looking fantastic, can’t wait to see you on the road.

Ian

[wcronin4]

Thanks, Ian. Nice to hear from you.

Progress is slow, but I’m enjoying the work. Fun to see what was a roach-infested mess turned into something.

Your neck of the woods has a climate similar to Central Florida in the summer, so you know how hot and muggy things are right now. That has really slowed progress.

During the last deluge T-storm, one of the two remaining vista windows started leaking again. I’ve done all I can do to save them. I’m done. I just got the aluminum in to remove them both. I should have pulled them months ago.

Hope Covid hasn’t slowed your work down.

[Can of beans]

You can definitely have any of those parts in the picture. I like your face frame conversion. The 72 cabinets had flat fronts like that with Tambour doors. My theory is part of the reason they switched to the curved front face was to help to keep the Tambour straighter side to side. I noticed that all of my damp damaged Tambour has waves in the straight sections. but with normal doors you can definitely leave out the curve. I'm a terrible wood worker, so making cabinet frames seems daunting to me. I come from the world of steel, just weld up the gaps and paint over them. I tried to sell my wife on laser cut aluminum cabinets at one time, and she wouldn't go for it.

[dbj216]

Your new bedroom overhead lockers are looing great. And I agree with your color scheme. Light and modern, but still the vintage Airstream look.

Our 86 Limited has spring loaded struts to hold the wood doors open, and keep them shut. They work quite well. Gas struts would work too.

I used to enjoy the summer season, but not so much anymore. I just don't like hot weather. Come on October.

David

[wcronin4]

Can Of Beans - Thanks for offering up your tambour door parts. I will need some or all of them. I have to pull the galley overhead bins out of storage and see how bad they are.

I will post some pics of the pasty’s I need in the next few days. Thanks for your willingness to help.

[wcronin4]

Can of beans. - can’t believe “the parts I need,” was autocorrected to “the paste’s” I need.
Got a chuckle out of that.

[wcronin4]

Hey Everyone

Well, one of my remaining vista view windows is leaking again. So I have decided to remove them altogether.

Have the metal to do to cover over, but with the inner skin on I can’t get a bucking tool in to use regular buck rivets.

I checked with out of doors mart and shaving tool for Olympic rivets is $399.

Since I’m only using less than fifty rivets, that’s a pretty expensive tool.

Any one have one they would like to sell or rent or let me borrow?

[dbj216]

Yep, I got one in the rivet tool box. It is very dusty. I also have the buck rivet drill out tool, but you may have that one, or you center punch them.

I think you are wise to close off those vista view windows. They are not worth the effort, and in the Florida sun, the shade would be pulled a lot of the time.

I am not a fan of Olympic tri-fold rivets. I do believe they are adequate for a vista view window, but maybe not a side widow. I pull them with my hand riveter as the air riveter seemingly is too fast for them to form right. Seal them up good as they are prone to weeping leaks.

Some day I'm going to learn all about aircraft rivets and marine rivets. They are blind rivets like the pop rivets, but they seal tight and are very strong. They are as expensive as Olympic rivets, maybe more.

So PM me and we can make arrangements to send the shaver to you.

You know, I am getting better at shaping the dome on an Olympic rivet with my Dremel tool. Not as fast as the shaver, but okay for a few rivets. I've also been known to pull a 5/32 pop rivet tight but not break the shaft. Then I trim off the shaft and shape the rivet. I feel I get a little more strength that way.

David

[wcronin4]

David - I would prefer not to use Olympic rivets as well. But with in inner skin on, I don’t see how I can use my buck rivet gun and bucking bar.

IANSK gave me a primer on the down side of using Oly rivets. So I get how important it is to seal them up.

A blind buck rivet would be best.

When I get my rivets in, I’ll PM and take you up on your kind offer.

Some of the oly rivets come with a rubber or neoprene washer. I am assuming they should not be used with the washer.

[Can of beans]

Are you keeping the pull down shades on the interior to cover the holes, or skinning over them also? Could you use a longish piece of flat bar as the backing bar to reach over to the side? I ended up using 8" long 1/2" bolts as backing bars in a couple spots to reach down between ribs and window frames, it seemed to work fine.

That being said, my back vista views window frames are held in with Olympic rivets, it appears to have been done during the original ownership as a warranty repair, so after all this time they don't leak.


Are your vista's leaking at the rivets holding the shade up, the rivets for the frames, or the glass to aluminum interface? I had leaks where the plastic shade frame was riveted to the skin, I ended up not riveting the plastic to the skin, and using double sided "extreme" tape instead. My other leak was the glass to the frame, and that's where the dow 797 came in.

[Minno]

You should take off the gasket on the Olympic rivets before you install. We used Trempro (Vulkem) in the holes before we shot the rivets in, and have had no issues with leaking over time. Our trailer had had 2 side front panels replaced earlier in her life, and they used Olympic rivets on those with Trempro. There have been no leaks there either. If sealed correctly, they should be good.

Kay