Spent a day driving for work, I was sent to the coast. Lunchtime was spent at Pacific Beach State Park. It was good to spend time in a campground and daydream of being snuggled in our Flying Cloud. Eating clam chowder and playing go-fish. Gives a ton of motivation to keep moving on this project.
Took a 30 second (max) walk, rain drops as big as gumballs.
Back to trailer work on the weekend. The time has come to finish all the projects on the underside of the trailer and get ready to insulate and cover.
Brake line all prepped and ready to hook up.
C channel was bolted in place.
We decided to use 1" rigid insulation in the belly (the silver stuff at the top of the next photo. Our frame is 4" thick and I was concerned that if we just used R-13 fiberglass, it would settle over time and create an air pocket between it and the plywood. We elected to fill that potential void with rigid insulation. The belly is well insulated now, with R-13 plus R-4.5. One downside to the rigid is potential for water to collect between the rigid and plywood. I don't believe water will accumulate there, since a small airspace is maintained between rigid and plywood. Water or water vapor should be allowed to dissipate. Time will tell.
Katie's dad Ted came up again to help with this part of the project. With his help, we cut and glued all the rigid into place. He cut the fiberglass and passed it to me. Next we got our templates out and started tracing and cutting the new belly skin.
I'm assembling enough sheet metal tools to become dangerous. Now I need to acquire some skills to back them up.
The rear piece of skin is where we started off. Not the easiest place to find your groove.
We started out by getting the sheet centered and crimped on between the frame rails, then worked our way out.
Part of the fun with this piece was to locate the holes I put in the frame members for stabilizer jacks. I hadn't learned about the hole finder tool yet... We got them located and new jacks installed.
Compound Corners using flat sheets of aluminum turned out to be more than Ted and I could handle. I called in the big guns, Katie and Leon to the rescue!
Katie went to work as Ted and I watched and helped. She was able to get both rear corners finished up. It turned out to be a pretty tough weekend with some success. We did get all the underbelly projects finished. We set two layers of insulation and managed to cut and fit one very difficult piece of skin. Bending belly skin into place is humbling, to say the least.
