More walls!

Peter got another head start on me this weekend, heading up Friday morning while I was at work. He put up a ton of insulation and some more walls. Putting walls in is definitely a two-person job, so it is fun to work in tandem together: drill, cleco, rivet, repeat. We didn't label where pieces went as we took them off, but thankfully this hasn't been an issue because it's fairly obvious what goes where. Since this was all handmade to begin with, rivet lines are not completely even and not all holes line up with something to rivet into, which actually makes it easier to match the constellation of holes to the piece that goes there. Sooooo glad we got a pneumatic riveter; it is definitely faster and easier on the hands.  

We gave approximately +5 demonstrations of how our battery powers the Fantastic vent in the rear--I don't know if anyone was as impressed as we were, but it still has not gotten old for me!

The next day I got to work on stripping the last of the paint off of the remaining uninstalled panels. This was part rewarding (because I finally get how Citrastrip works and the most effective way to get this job done) but also part frustrating--because the vinyl is now peeling off! I am not sure if I ripped it by using the scraper too aggressively or if the combo of being exposed to the elements for the better part of the summer plus the stripper just did it in, but I am very disappointed because it is unsightly. My plan is to find something to patch it to slow/stop further separation. 

And the paint is not 100% removed--I stopped being a perfectionist about it. We will sand the walls down and treat them with deglosser and then hopefully the new paint will cover all the bumps and imperfections. I see why people fabricate all new skins, but I am still glad we went the route we did because reinstallation is much simpler with the originals. 

The exhaust vent we ordered to go over the stovetop is (1) too small for the existing exhaust hole in the skins, and (2) not compatible with the current exhaust vent cover on the outside of the Airstream, so we are going to go in another direction. Not sure what that direction is, but it's fine by me because this vent was ugly anyway. We picked a spot for the bathroom exhaust vent, but we have to mark it on the skin before it goes in. Peter wants to cut holes in the upper skins after they are installed; I am a proponent of cutting the holes before the skins go up. I will record who prevails. 

So now I understand why people make wire maps. I got so used to seeing the walls off that I forgot it would not be obvious where the ribs are once the walls. The walls can be so fiddly that once you've wrestled them into place you forget about where the wires are and where they might need to go and what ribs they might cross over to get there. For example, there is an outlet in the spot where the bathroom might be. We had that wall riveted into place with the outlet nested in its hole before we remembered we had intended to reroute that outlet about a foot over to the "bedroom." We drilled out the rivets and freed the outlet, but we have to remember to (1) free the wires from the junction box so they can be run further down the ceiling and between the correct ribs and (2) cut a new hole in the wall for the junction box to sit in. 

We ordered 16 puck lights, and Peter is thinking they should go in the upper wall skin instead of entirely in the ceiling panel. Bathroom will have its own light, so no puck lights in there, but probably three across the "bedroom" and three across the "living room." The remaining 10 should be spaced evenly in pairs along the main living space, maybe four in the "hallway" and six in the "kitchen" and desk area. We will need to measure! 

We pulled the old tail lights off--the lightbulb sockets are rusted through. I don't really want to replace the whole housing, so we are thinking we will either nest LED lights in the original socket housings, or we will try to mount the LEDs in the socket frame itself . . . and I guess by "we" maybe I mean Will. :P

We have the most challenging skins left to install: end caps, upper walls, and the ceiling panel. Hopefully Will can run the wires for the lights (I think the wires for the other functions like water pump, tank sensors, and range ignition are already in place) and then we will be able to put the last of them up. Peter brought his new nibbler and our roll of aluminum back to the apartment and he is going to try to cut the pieces for the end cap. If the back cap goes well, he may fabricate the front one also. We are in a hurry to get a coat of paint on there!