More insulation and paneling

This weekend I worked on the insulation and the furring strips in the Spartan.

I have a friend that has given me a bunch of Birch panels to use. When I went through them it turns out several of them are not birch, they look a little like Red Oak but smell very fragrant when cut like Cedar. Of course Cedar could be what the inner layers are made of.

I decided that I would install these panels on the ceiling and the Birch ones on the walls for a two-tone effect.  I experimented with several stains on both pieces and in the end we settled on just varnish for the Oak/Cedar panels and two coats of amber shellac and one coat of varnish on the Birch.

I put up the first panel in the front center of the ceiling.

Next was the panels for the curved part of the ceiling. I tried installing the panel but it would not bend.

 Here is my first attempt at bending the panel.

Needless to say this did not work, the panel straightened out once I took it out. I have since found out that you need to use hot water and towels. The hot water will soften the glue holding the plys together and allow it to keep it's shape once it dries.

In the meantime I continued installing insulation and furring strips, I'm using a lot of the original furring strips because they are in good condition, I'm making new ones for the ones that aren't.

One thing I find pretty amazing is that I am using the original 66 year old screws to hang the furring strips and panels. these are Phillips head screws with a flat tip so pre-drilling is required on the new strips I put up. I am  installing the old strips using the same holes so no drilling is needed on those. I would love to see someone try to re-use today's cheap Chinese-made screws 67 years from now! Not gonna happen!!

One of the challenges I had was what to do with the open areas where the pocket windows slide into. What I ended up doing was using 1/2" rigid insulation in these areas.

So after getting the first panel up I am wavering on if I want to do the two-tone thing or not. when I first came up with the idea I thought the panels might be Mahogany (it was dark in the warehouse). Now that I see that it looks like Oak I'm not too crazy about the idea. I'm not a big fan of Oak (I have some hang-up where it looks too gaudy 80's to me).

I may take it down and just use the birch. Of course this will require that I buy at least 10 new panels because the ones that my friend has are not top grade (another thing I didn't notice at first because of the dark warehouse). I can use them in areas that will be covered or partially covered but not in the open areas.

I need to make this decision very soon as I am running out of time before our first camping trip (month and a half).

Fixing Leaks

It's been a while since I've been able to work on the Spartan but I finally got a chance the other day.

It's been raining a lot so I really needed to finish sealing all the leaks. I went around the inside of the camper and caulked all the seams that I had marked when it was raining with Dicor.

The next thing I did was to install some foam weatherstripping all around the back window, it was leaking through the window really bad.

I also needed to make the patch for the roof where the heater vent was.

A few months back I removed the homemade vent stack. They sure weren't stingy with the roofing tar. My original plan was to just put a small circular cap over the round hole but then I realized two things, one, the hole has a lip, and two, the plate is metal, not aluminum.

I decided to go ahead and remove the plate and make a new one out of aluminum.

I cut the new piece out, drilled all of the holes and then riveted it into place. I used Butyl tape around the edges and lots of Dicor inside of that.

I then trimmed the excess butyl tape off.

I'm using Olympic rivets but I dont have a rivet head shaver. I'm going to try my hand with a dremel first. If that doesnt work I'll look at possibly getting one.

Here is the inside of the patch.

It rained three days straight after I installed this and no leaks!

The next thing I did was drill the holes for the window drain tubes.

I will be replacing the hoses soon.

The last thing to do with leaks are the two doors, I have a lot of work to do on the door frames to stop the leaks there. Hopefully I can do that this weekend.

Pressure Washing, Window Felts, and Banana Wraps

I finally got around to pressure washing the exterior yesterday.

The two above pictures really give you an idea of how dirty it was.

I installed the window felts and cleaned the windows also. I was really surprised at how easy it was to replace the window felts.

Here is the window channel without the felts in it.

The old felts were so rotted they fell apart and about the only thing left was the bead.

It was just a matter of removing the four screws that hold the top felt in and removing the window. then I cut the new felt to size and popped it into the track.

The windows are now weather-tite.

Here is a before and after of one of the windows.

It's amazing how well the windows cleaned up, aside from a small scratch here and there and a little bit of bubbling at the edges in the laminate they look brand new.



I also worked on the last of the banana wraps. First I took measurements and cut the aluminum to size, then I bent the bottom 5/8" over for the lip. To do this I made a homemade brake out of some plywood strips, a 2x4, and some hand clamps.

I then bent the piece by hand to give it it's curve.

I then made a smaller one for the part under the door.

Here is the section before installing the wraps.

Here is the section with the two pieces in place.

I still have to get the curved piece back into place then rivet everything together.

Metal Work

I spent the day doing miscellaneous work on the camper. There are a lot of small things left to do before I can put the flooring in and the walls up.

The first thing I worked on was the U channel near the rear of the camper under the roll down windows. They were completely disintegrated from corrosion.

I was able to make some U channel out of the aluminum countertop. It had already been hacked up so I wasn't going to be re-using it anyways.

With that done I was able work on the banana wraps in the same area on the outside of the camper. These were completely corroded too.

I cut the new piece from the countertop as well and installed it.

Next I installed the thresholds in both doorways.

The last thing I had time to do was one of the roll down windows.

You can see how gunked up the mechanism is. I pressure washed everything, dried it, and greased all the gears and the sliders.

Here is the window ready to be reinstalled.

Here is the window installed.

The window crank works much better now.

I didn't get a chance to work on what I really wanted to work on today.

The flooring is Engineered  wood, it's called Natural Cherry. I will get it installed sometime this week.

Other front side window

This window went in MUCH easier! Turns out I cut the other window 1/8" too big which is what made it so hard to get in. I may take the other window out, trim it down and reinstall it.

We installed this window in about 45 minutes compared to about 4 hours for the other one.

I'm holding off on installing the center window until I get the couch in. The center window is 26" tall, the doorway is only 24" wide so getting it in through the window is my best bet.

Tail Lights

I got the tail lights installed yesterday.

One thing I want to mention that is very important. Be VERY careful how tight you install the screws for the trim piece and what you use to install them with. I used my little Ridgid impact to install the screws, the combination of the impact and torquing the screw down too much caused the lens to shatter. At $75 a piece for originals that's a very costly mistake.

I also began working on installing the front wrap around windows. I clamped the piece of lexan directly to the camper and traced out the window shape on to it. Then I cut along the line with my jig saw,  then I used a scribe set at 1/8" to make a new mark because the gasket takes up that much all the way around. Then I cut along the new line. I intalled the gasket in the window opening to get the proper length for it.

I will install the window today when I have a second set of hands for help.