It's a girl!!!

[n2batr]

Shari, Great progress. You guys are doing an excellent restoration with attention to detail. I'm a little behind you all and my shell is off. I may have missed it but did you say who did your rechroming? I have several pieces I will need to rechrome and I'm in Wy. So if your reference is reasonably priced it may be useful for me to send to Colorado. Thanks Ed

[InsideOut]

Whew! Working hard this weekend!!! Taking lots of pictures, hope to have some time tonight to post them...

Fred's GT is done - new panel in place, rivets pulled, clipped & shaved. We've taken off Birdy's old panels, cut & drilled the new panel, made minor rib repairs and we're ready to get bucking. I doubt we'll have the energy to finish, but we'll get as far as we can ~

5:30 to 11:30pm on Friday
8:00am to 8:00pm on Saturday (even through the rain/snow lightly mid-day)
7:30am to ??? today (gorgeous weather...great encouragment to work outside!)

Hope to at least have her closed up before the end of the day, we leave Tuesday for a well deserved (albeit non-Airstream) beach vacation! Bring on the umbrella drinks!

Shari

[CanoeStream]

Wow Shari! I can see it now. All it needs is just a little imagination...

[uwe]

Originally Posted by InsideOut

Whew! Working hard this weekend!!! Taking lots of pictures, hope to have some time tonight to post them...

Fred's GT is done - new panel in place, rivets pulled, clipped & shaved. We've taken off Birdy's old panels, cut & drilled the new panel, made minor rib repairs and we're ready to get bucking. I doubt we'll have the energy to finish, but we'll get as far as we can ~

5:30 to 11:30pm on Friday
8:00am to 8:00pm on Saturday (even through the rain/snow lightly mid-day)
7:30am to ??? today (gorgeous weather...great encouragment to work outside!)

Hope to at least have her closed up before the end of the day, we leave Tuesday for a well deserved (albeit non-Airstream) beach vacation! Bring on the umbrella drinks!

Shari

Shari, Rob, Fred, et al....

Can't wait to see the outcome. We've been metalworking this weekend, too. You can see our results here: Metal Day

Plus, I found a really nice and original Globetrotter that somehoe followed me home...it's a 63, and needs very little to be perfect. Imagine that...buying a trailer and going camping in it with merely one run through with a vacuum. Somehow that feels wrong. Very wrong.
.Mac Web Gallery

[InsideOut]

Fred ('47WeeWind) brought his '64 GT over after work on Friday and we got it settled into Maxwell's spot while Maxwell is vacationing over at 'Coloradobus's' house. Fred wanted to replace the entire 3'x9' street side panel because there was a big gash (cleverly disguised with threshold strips) and an abandoned hole for the heater.

1) Fred starting to strip off the baggage compartment, lights, water heater cover
2) Drilling out "the first rivet"
3) Dueling rivet drilling
4) The panel is off
5) Cleaning up the old panel
6) The old panel laid out on a 10'x4'x3/4" plywood sheet, being used as a template to drill the holes in the new panel. We drilled right into the wood and used clecos to hold in place.
7) The old panel back in place for the night...good thing, it rained!

[InsideOut]

Woke up early to the high temp for the day. But that didn't stop us ~

8) The new panel is put on with Trempro in all the seams & joints...then the holes drilled to 5/32"
9) Let the riveting begin!
10) Olympic rivets - each dipped in a dab of Trempro before being pulled
11) Lots and lots of rivets!

Then we cleaned off all the "goo" with Goof Off...no pics, but a very messy job!

Jim & Chris came by to check things out & lend support and later in the day, we had some more Airstream buddies drop by ~ Thanks Mike & Clare!

[InsideOut]

While they were busy finishing up the GT on Saturday...I was drilling out all of Birdy's rivets. Since I was the one taking the pictures...there's none of me ~

The reason we are replacing Birdy's 3'x12' streetside panel is that it has a big scratch down the entire side, lots of rough holes from the old water heater, water filler & antenna and some black rub marks that make her look like an appaloosa.

1) Birdy's streetside panel Before
2) Removing the wheel well trim
3) After all the rivets were drilled, Rob worked on breaking the seal of 50+ year old butyl rubber sealer between the seams
4) The old panel cleco'd into place, waiting to be removed.
5) Good timing! Jim & Chris came by again to see how we were doing...just in time to lend and hand with removing the panel
6) Ta Dah! It's off!!!
7) Not much to the ribs...that's it!
8) Lunch time...view from the deck
9) The old panel ~

[flyfshr]

OK, that's it. I'm driving my TradeWind up to Denver. I need my curbside panel replaced and by now, you guys are real pros.

Nice work on both trailers. You guys put in some long hours. Keep up the good work. Sure wish we have Denver temps here this weekend. It got up to 98 today.

Brad
FF

[InsideOut]

We basically did the same thing as with Fred's - using the old panel as a template for the wheel well and rivet holes. We drilled them out to 1/8"...then once the panel was in place, re-drilled them with 5/32" to get perfect alignemnt in place.

We had another very helpful vistor today...Kip (Aerowood) came by today to check things out and give me a lesson on bucking rivets. So far, I have only been the bucker...I now know how to be the shooter! I like that much better ~ thank you, thank you, thank you Kip!!!

10) Cutting out the wheel well
11) Peeling back the plastic coating from "the good side"
12) New panel in place
13) Practice panel of bucked rivets - front side, different rivet types & circumstances
14) Practice panel of bucked rivets - back side

[InsideOut]

Originally Posted by flyfshr

OK, that's it. I'm driving my TradeWind up to Denver. I need my curbside panel replaced and by now, you guys are real pros.

Nice work on both trailers. You guys put in some long hours. Keep up the good work. Sure wish we have Denver temps here this weekend. It got up to 98 today.

Brad
FF

Thanks Brad...but we're not done yet! Get in line ~

Shari

[InsideOut]

While Rob & I were working on Birdy...Fred learned how to use the rivet shaver ~

12) First shave
13) Working on becoming a pro!

[InsideOut]

While we didn't get Birdy 100% done like we had hoped...we still have to buck the rivets, but it got too late to get started. Once you start - because of the cure time of the Trempro sealer, you have to finish before it drys. So, we will have to tackle that next time...but after our private "bucking" lesson - we ought to be good to go! As long as we start early in the morning. Unfortunately, the next two weekends we won't be able to commit an entire Saturday or Sunday to it...but on May 31st - watch out Birdy will be done too!

Then after Bozeman, we'll tackle Maxwell's streetside panel ~ should be a piece of cake!

Shari

[Zeppelinium]

Shari,

Nice work! and great progress. I need to be a better friend to Fred!

What kind of solid rivets are you using--universal or brazier? If the latter, where did you get your rivet set? I'm needing a brazier rivet set.

Can you post a link to a source for that exterior electical cover? And that edge extrusion you used for wheel well trim. Thanks.

One of these days I am going to get up to your place...I'll bring the new welder and make sparks fly!

Zep

[InsideOut]

The rivet & setting gear has been Rob's gig...I have no idea what exactly we have, but I know we have some "hard" and "soft" aluminum rivets that all have a gold coating on them that comes off when polished. We have short (4mm) ones & long (5mm) ones in each type - with 5/32" shanks and the heads are the same size as Olympics, plus some 1/8" ones in the "hard" aluminum. We got the "hard" ones at an airplane place by old Stapleton and mail ordered the "soft" ones. Sorry, I don't remember the technical stuff off the top of my head...I could look it up on the receipts though - but you'd be better off to ask Rob. I'm learning how to use them, but...the rest is kinda greek to me! I know Rob took Kip's advice for the most part ~

The "exterior electrical cover" - I assume you mean the one in the back - it's a Marinco 30A Easy Lock Power Inlet that we got from VTS. You also need to use the cord that goes with it. The porch light outlet cover is vintage and no longer available, except on eBay.

The edge extrusion is original, we removed it and will be able to re-install it. However, I believe there is a new trim that's very similar, also from VTS - I haven't actually seen it yet, but we plan on getting some for Maxwell when we get back to sprucing him up. Later this summer ~

Thanks for your encouragement...feel free to stop by anytime, although let us know you're coming so we can be sure to be around...got a busy spell hitting us over the next couple weeks.

Shari

[InsideOut]

Birdy has been on hold this week (5/13-5/20), we spent a glorious week in Cabo San Lucas. We saw several Airstreams...even one directly out our hotel window! It was a 70's Overlander/Ambassador - I couldn't get close enough to confirm with tags, but close enough to tell it was in sorry shape, about an inch of dust on it and no wheels...looked kinda forlorn sitting all alone in a big field ~

Shari

[InsideOut]

Last weekend, we had a very productive 2-1/2 days. We accomplished the following:

• drilled out the rivets for the 12' long drip cap
• drilled out all the streetside windows
• drilled out the rivets to the small panel that used to have the antenna on it and had a hole remaining
• riveted the entire streetside panel (3'x12')
• cut & riveted the small panel adjacent to the window
• riveted all the remaining c-channel to the panels all the way around the banana wrap (completing the floor installation)

Unfortunately, we were both working away and we didn't have any visitors (until happy hour ~) to snap photos. (hmmm...maybe one of the reasons we got so much done!) Bucking rivets definitely takes two people...so there are no "action shots" of that, just pics at break points.

Riveting was much easier than I expected...I was the shooter and Mr.InsideOut was the bucker. We only had two (of about 500) that we had to drill out and re-do. Not bad for a couple of armatures!

One side benefit is we have about 25% of Birdy polished now...the new panel!

Shari

[InsideOut]

So the following are the pics we did take...

[InsideOut]

This week we re-built one of the windows...the other two we will do tomorrow. Rob also finished reattaching the belly pan and tacking up the insulation to the underside of the floor.

This weekend we plan on re-installing all three windows and drilling out, re-building and re-installing the last one - a small one on the curbside. Pretty ambitious...but if we have time leftover I think we'll start on the Fantastic Fans and/or electrical re-wiring...we'll see ~

Although we have been working our tails off...the jury is still out as to whether Birdy will make it to Bozeman as a "hard tent" or we have to resort to "Plan B".

Shari

[utee94]

Originally Posted by InsideOut

This week we re-built one of the windows...the other two we will do tomorrow. Rob also finished reattaching the belly pan and tacking up the insulation to the underside of the floor.

This weekend we plan on re-installing all three windows and drilling out, re-building and re-installing the last one - a small one on the curbside. Pretty ambitious...but if we have time leftover I think we'll start on the Fantastic Fans and/or electrical re-wiring...we'll see ~

Although we have been working our tails off...the jury is still out as to whether Birdy will make it to Bozeman as a "hard tent" or we have to resort to "Plan B".

Shari

Y'all are just amazing. Your work is incredibly impressive. Thank you so much for sharing, it really is inspirational.

Does "Plan B" = Maxwell?

Keep it up and thanks for the updates!

-Marcus

[InsideOut]

Thanks for your kind words Marcus!

Plan "A" is taking BOTH trailers to Bozeman...one for us & one for my parents.
Plan "B"....uhhhh, anything but the four of us together in Maxwell for twelve days!!

Shari