Another busy week at home! Front windows and new fans...
I am fortunate that I have worked from home for the last several years as a professional longarm quilter, so during this time of "staying at home," my clients and I have been conducting our drop offs and pick ups in a no-contact, scheduled visit. This week I had several beautiful quilts to finish, so Dennis decided to work on those front window frames.
When we opted to remove the fiberglass end caps and install aluminum segmented end caps, that made the old plastic window frames, yellowed and brittle from age, virtually impossible to reuse. We tossed around trimming them to fit, and using fiberglass to finish them nicely, but then we'd probably just paint them silver to blend in. So, Dennis decided to give it a try at making the frames from aluminum, too.
Dennis has built several aluminum airplanes, and has been working with aluminum regularly for over twenty years. Even so, he characterized his methodology as the "brute force" method of window frame building. He spent two full days of tedious trimming and fitting on each window.
I think that's the part of building (or in this case, rebuilding) a huge project like the Airstream that is difficult to explain to others. He routinely heads out to the shop from 5am until noon, takes a lunch break and a rest, and then heads back out from 1pm until 5pm (or later), nearly every single day. That's ten hours or more a day, and I head out to help him on days that he needs extra hands, or when my "expertise" is useful. LOL. For example, I was out there nearly every day of the interior wall installation, because fitting and hanging large sheets of floppy aluminum is a challenge by himself. Plus, the work just went so much faster with me there to pop a cleco in a hole as he drilled, or rivet a sheet into place while he cut more metal.
He's out there now preparing to install our new MaxxAir fans that arrived from Amazon yesterday. We are grateful that even during an apocalypse, Amazon ships.
He shot a couple more videos this morning to show off the windows and talk about the fans we bought. Enjoy!
Lori
When we opted to remove the fiberglass end caps and install aluminum segmented end caps, that made the old plastic window frames, yellowed and brittle from age, virtually impossible to reuse. We tossed around trimming them to fit, and using fiberglass to finish them nicely, but then we'd probably just paint them silver to blend in. So, Dennis decided to give it a try at making the frames from aluminum, too.
Dennis has built several aluminum airplanes, and has been working with aluminum regularly for over twenty years. Even so, he characterized his methodology as the "brute force" method of window frame building. He spent two full days of tedious trimming and fitting on each window.
I think that's the part of building (or in this case, rebuilding) a huge project like the Airstream that is difficult to explain to others. He routinely heads out to the shop from 5am until noon, takes a lunch break and a rest, and then heads back out from 1pm until 5pm (or later), nearly every single day. That's ten hours or more a day, and I head out to help him on days that he needs extra hands, or when my "expertise" is useful. LOL. For example, I was out there nearly every day of the interior wall installation, because fitting and hanging large sheets of floppy aluminum is a challenge by himself. Plus, the work just went so much faster with me there to pop a cleco in a hole as he drilled, or rivet a sheet into place while he cut more metal.
He's out there now preparing to install our new MaxxAir fans that arrived from Amazon yesterday. We are grateful that even during an apocalypse, Amazon ships.
He shot a couple more videos this morning to show off the windows and talk about the fans we bought. Enjoy!
Lori
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