Home Sweet Airstream: Making Progress!

This weekend was a busy one. Got a full 8 hours in on Saturday and then another 3 before church on Sunday!

Last weekend, the tip of our brand new soldering gun from Home Depot had cracked after just a few minutes of use, so even though I got a replacement with no questions asked, I also bought one for half the cost at good 'ol Harbor Freight and gave that a whirl this week. It worked great, so Saturday started off with the last of the 12v wire splices getting soldered and heatshrinked up. (Is that even a word?) Next up was leveling the trailer.

The side yard that we're working in has us at a bit of a sideways slope, and everything was going to have to be true and level before we could start riveting any interior walls back in. (The interior skin actually gives the structure a lot of it's rigidity when it's all together.) I also wanted to get the frame up on stands to relieve pressure from the axles and tires. It's bad for axles and tires to sit unmoving for long times, I probably should have done this in the beginning..

Dom said it felt like I was gonna tip it over, haha!

Close enough.. ;)

Next up was walls! We're gonna be reusing as many panels as we can, so for the bottom ones in the rear we just flipped them over and from left to right and started lining them up. The holes didn't match up with the old holes (as expected), but we were able to use most of the existing holes in the skins and just drill new holes into the frame members. I discovered the wonders of Clecos (so glad I bought those!) and got to try my hand at riveting for the first time! It's all very cool. A little tedious, but cool. :)

We ended up having to split the insulation in half since it was so thick. Just means each piece will go twice as far!

First walls are up! You have no idea how good this feels.. :)

On Sunday I headed back out to the 'Stream to put a few hours in. We had some heavy rain about a week ago, and it was good because it let me know where all the little leaks were. There were 6 in total, but thankfully they were all in "expected" locations: 2 at the rear vent fan, 2 around the A/C, and two on the side where a small puncture hole is and where 4 exterior rivets had popped out. I will be replacing both vent fans and the A/C soon, as well as patching up all the exterior holes and riveting those missing rivets back in, but for now I fired some duct tape down in case it decides to rain in the next couple of weeks. While I was up on top, I also had a chance to remove the HUGE old school TV antenna.