Not sure if I would call call today a success or not, lol.
I'm building outside so I've been keeping an eye on the weather. I'm on the west coast of BC, so we get a fair bit of rain this time of year: not conducive to laying up fiberglass....
Yesterday was a write-off but this morning looked promising - some big ugly clouds cruising around but some light patches and not much wind. I keep my glassing stuff in a tote so I can keep it warm indoors but can take it all outside at once when I get a break in the weather. After about an hour of doing other jobs while waiting for the weather to make up its mind, I figured "Ok, let's do it !".
I got the stuff together, got the tarps off the trailer, and mixed enough epoxy to make the rest of the fillets and to wet out the cloth for the rest of the floor. Once I had committed to the job by mixing the resin and hardener, Ol' Man Murphy reared his ugly head: it began to HAIL and the wind picked up.....
@#$%^&^%$# !!!!!!!
I scrambled around resetting the tarps as a canopy and used some 2X4s as tent poles. Except for a few drips that meant keeping a towel handy, I caught it in time and the wind wasn't strong enough to do anything to the tarps.
I separated half of the resin I had mixed and set it aside - fortunately the temps are cool enough right now that I have hours of working time before the resin gels. I mixed filler in to make the compound for the fillets - because the cloth can't make a 90 degree corner, this gives the inside corner between the floor and the wall a rounded radius. It also acts like an adhesive to make that joint stronger.
[It was dark when I got done, but I'll edit a filleting pic into here]
Once the fillets were done, I was on to laying the last two pieces of glass onto the floor. Now, I have a floor that's 5' wide and the remaining space is 9' long. I figured I'd do the glass across the floor in three 3' strips with an inch of overlap, so I bought 5yds of 6oz cloth - yet the third piece is about a foot too short to make it all the way across.
As it is, the last piece isn't critical anyway because it's the back corner of the floor and the cabinetry going in there will be structurally stronger than anything I do to the floor. I need to get more cloth anyway, but...grumble grumble grumble....
I can cut up what's left of that piece into tape to join the seams in the wall panels, which is the plan for next weekend. A bit of good news: despite being built in 1972, the 110V heating element I want to put in the fridge in lieu of the original 12V one is a stocked part. It's $80, which is about twice what McMaster-Carr sells them for.
Even though the Canadian dollar is at par, our prices are still higher.....
In other news, I was offered this trailer today:
If I can tow it out, I can have it. Despite the local kids having gotten at it, it's got registration and the suspension looks good from what I cold see crawling underneath without a flashlight (the tires aren't even flat !)
Obviously the shell will go to the dump, but it's got a stove/oven, a huge 8 cu ft fridge, and a furnace that works...apparently
Still, it IS a tandem and he's got 2 40# bottles and a glass cover for them, though they're probably expired. I guess he used it as a camp trailer while he was working remotely (hence the huge LPG bottles) and had local water so the tanks were ripped out and a small freezer built into the front wall. The lights are all there and the awning hardware looks ok (the cloth is trashed)
I don't even have space to build the one I have, nor do I have the truck to move this one.
Somehow I don't think my very-tolerant wife would appreciate the humour in "it followed me home, can I keep it ?"
by Wobbly Wheels » Mon Feb 06, 2012 10:45 pm 
