Another '69 Sovereign!

We sold both the Spartan and the Safari and bought another '69 Sovereign!

We've already begun the restoration as we have a camping trip planned for early march.

You can check out the blog here: 1969 Airstream Sovereign

We've bought a new camper!

We found a 1970 Airstream Safari that needs a lot of work. We will be doing small projects on it for a while and will begin restoration in a few months.

our "new" camper!

We've bought another camper! It's not an Airstream though, it's a 1948 Spartan Royal Mansion. The restoration of it is going to take a lot longer than the Airstream did. Feel free to check the blog out from time to time. Updates will be coming slowly though.

Airstream sold

We've sold the Airstream. We really loved it but it was time to move on to other things. We will go back to tent camping for a while. Some time in the future we will look for another one to restore.

Finishing the cabinets

I haven't posted in a while because we took our first real camping trip with the Airstream. I'll post more on that later.

Last week we finished the cabinets. First I sanded them down completely and then stained them with Red Chestnut from Minwax and finished it off with 2 coats of satin poly.

Here are some pictures of the sanding process:



And the staining:


Here are some pictures from just before our trip:






There are still a few small things left to do like install the 1/4 round trim for the floors.

I'll post about our trip later.

Laying the floor

Yesterday I laid the new laminate flooring. It was easier than I thought it was going to be once I figured out the proper way to make the cuts for short pieces. With regular flooring you just measure and cut a board to length. With laminate you have to make sure to cut the proper side of the board because each board edge has a tongue or a groove that needs to connect to the piece next to it. I messed the first cut up but was ok after that.

Since the first 3 feet up front will be covered with the couch I decided to use plywood for that area. It's hard to start thinking like a renovator and not a restorer, this is something I would never do in restoring an old house. I would have laid the flooring from one end to the other, my thinking being that someone years down the road might want to change the layout of the room, I dont ever want someone coming behind me and saying "what were they thinking!" But in the camper this is fine, the layout of the room will never change because this is the only place for the couch.

I was able to get the shape of the plywood to fit so perfectly by cutting a piece of underlayment to fit in the area then tracing it onto the plywood.


Here are a few pictures of the progress:



And here are a few shots of the finished area:




I still need to stain and install the 1/4 round molding.

I also repaired and installed the smaller shade on the curb side of the camper:


Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the repair itself. It was broken about a foot from the back end. the metal pipe had rusted away. I cut it back to good clean metal then cut a piece of schedule 40 PVC to the proper length, then I trimmed down a pressure treated 2x4 to fit inside both pieces of pipe and used deck screws to hold it all together. It came out very strong, I cant flex the area at all. I put a PVC cap on the end, drilled a hole in it and used a threaded rod for the pin that holds the shade in place. I made sure to screw the rod about a foot into the 2x4 inside the shade. then I drilled a hole in the end of the threaded rod for the cotter pin. the shade itself covers the PVC so it looks perfectly normal.

Attaching the shade fabric to the camper was tough, there is a small groove that the edge of the fabric has to go into then you use rubber window screen trim to hold it into place.

The shade mechanism still works fairly well but the threaded rod in the repaired end makes it tough to roll up the shade. I may revisit this fix sometime down the road for something a little better.

Next up is sanding and staining the cabinetry.

Window repair, building the cabinets

A lot has been accomplished in the last few days. Most of the work has been in the kitchen area. On Thursday we cut the countertop for the sink and installed the backsplash:

And then installed the sink:

I had to use a Forstner bit on the underside of the counter for the faucet to fit as this countertop is thicker:


On Friday I finally installed a new window to replace the broken one. I was going to use a piece of acryllic temporarily until I could order a new window but after seeing how time consuming it was to take the frame out I decided to use a piece of Lexan and make it permanent. There are about 50 large rivets holding the frame in place.

Cutting the Lexan to fit was another challenge, I did this by laying the frame over the Lexan and curving the Lexan to shape, tracing around the inside of the frame then adding 1/4 inch all the way around.

Cutting the Lexan is very hard, it's not like acrylic where you can just score it with a razer and snap it, it has to be cut all the way through. I used a combination of a plastic cutting razer knife and my dremel with a cut-off wheel. The dremel died right as I was finishing the last cut.

Once the window was cut out the next issue was getting it into the frame. I think the Lexan I got was a little thicker than the original glass because it wasn't wanting to fit with the window molding in place. I finally was able to make it all fit though, in this picture the molding is still not completely pushed into place. I did that by using a dull chisel and soapy water:

It's a good thing I didn't try to use acrylic because it never would have survived installing it into the frame. Once the window was finished I reattached it to the Airstream with new rivets. I used Dicor caulk between the window and the camper for a water-tight seal:


Yesterday I worked in the kitchen area. I didn't like how the counter area by the fridge was turning out so I started over:

I'm gluing as well as nailing everything together:

This is my platform for the fridge, the front will be covered with a piece of Luann:

The area is now complete except for a few small trim pieces, a drawer front, and sanding/staining. Here are a few pictures with the appliances test fitted into place: