I should be insulating every spare minute I have available, but there are plenty of little projects that don't involve itchy, nasty fiberglass to keep me from my favorite part of the project.
The other night I noticed a photograph of what appeared to be a polished Trail Lite license plate light on Airforums, so I decided to see what mine would look like if I took off the layers of silver paint. I thought the thing was simply made of cheap pot metal, but turns out it seems to be aluminum. I sanded it with 320, then 400 grit wet sandpaper and then polished it with a cotton polishing wheel on the bench grinder. It cleaned up well. Still concerned that it might just start rusting, I took it by a plating shop to look into having it chromed. They claimed it is solid aluminum, so we will have to see whether it starts rusting (for those wondering, it does not attract a magnet).
I also finished putting the refrigerator access door back together and (as usual) couldn't resist giving it a little touch up polish.
The inside of this door has a very nice example of the original Zolatone. I'm going to leave that one original when we paint the rest of the interior. You can also see the new gasket cut to shape in this photograph. I'm going to try riveting this back onto the trailer tomorrow night.
Saturday, Ryan had a little spare time and came over to help me rivet on the refrigerator vent cap and finish a few other small riveting jobs that required a second worker to man the bucking bar. I'm very happy with how this turned out.
We also finally put the VIN tag back on the trailer. I had bought a reproduction VIN tag, lost it, bought a second reproduction VIN tag, and in the end decided I liked the polished original better anyway. This is a lesson in how not to save money on your restoration. I hate to admit it, but I probably have about $300 worth of parts that I bought but no longer plan to use. I may be having an Airstream yard sale at the end of this adventure. 
I also mounted the new radio antenna and reattached the CB antenna.
The CB antenna was missing a small bumper towards the front that keeps it from rubbing on the aluminum skin. I had been keeping an eye out for something that would work as a replacement until yesterday when I found this simple rubber appliance foot at True Value. It works perfect and I just attached it with a stainless screw and a liberal amount of Vulkem under the bumper. I still need to find a similar, but taller, bumper for behind the door.
But even though I truly hate insulating, I've kept at it a couple hours here and there. If I can con Andy into coming up from Portland this weekend, we might be able to start putting up the end caps this weekend. From what I've heard from others who have wrestled with the fiberglass end caps, they might take a while to get back in place.
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Insulating feels like the job that never ends...err... maybe that's polishing... or maybe that's fixing the C-channel... or maybe it's attaching the new belly pan... or re-sealing the windows... What I meant to say was that you'll be done with the insulation before you know it! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip on the license plate light.
Great idea to leave the fridge access panel with the original Zolatone!
I have a question about the rivets you used to attach the name badges. They look different from the one beside it. Are they?
Someday'59, you are correct. The gold rivets for the name badges are 1/8th inch rivets. The shiny rivet you see next to the name badge is a standard 5/32nd rivet that is used for all the structural pannels, windows, c-channel etc. If you drill out the rivets holding the name badges, make sure you use a #30 bit so you don't make the hole to big for the smaller rivets. The gold coating polishes off easily, I just haven't got around to that yet.
ReplyDeleteNorm
Oh! Good to know! There's got to be a #30 bit around here somewhere...
ReplyDelete~L
By the way, you probably already figured this out, but each size rivet requires a different rivet set for the rivet gun. I'm lucky cause Ryan loaned me a riveting kit with a ton of different size rivets and rivet sets. I bought 5/32nd braizer head rivets from VTS and their rivet set for the vast majority of work, but we also used a fair amount of universal head 5/16 inch rivets for some of the larger holes as well as the universal head 1/8th inch rivets for the smaller nameplates.
ReplyDeleteI didn't have access to the modified brazier heads VTS now carries, so I used 5/32 universal for all of my bucking. They are very close in head size and appearance to the original brazier heads that Airstream used to buck mine together 47 years ago.
ReplyDeleteThe progress looks great, Norm! The insulation is coming along, and that shiny license plate light housing looks amazing. Mine was really rusty, I don't think it's solid aluminum like yours is. Or perhals other steel parts around it just rusted ONTO it and it was all on the surface? I coated mine with POR15 and stirling silver topcoat, but I'm not very happy with how it looks-- especially not after seeing how beautifully yours turned out!
-Marcus
Thanks Marcus. I'm still uncertain about what metal the light itself is actually made from. The inside really does look like pot metal. I did notice that the small metal cap over the light (the one we all relplace with the red lens from VTS) is definitely steel as it was very rusty and is magnetic.
ReplyDeleteNorm