Door to dork.

Doors are a pain in the butt! We could not find windows, or trim in the shape we wanted, in a natural silver aluminum finish. We spray painted them silver.

The doors are made from the drops gleaned from cutting the door openings. I packed 1/8th inch luan around the edges of the opening and traced that shape to the door blank. This will give plenty of clearance for the doors to shut on the weather stripping.

The weather stripping was installed with caulk and staples, making sure to overlap the corners to shed water. The door is hung on piano hinge over top of the weather strip.

Always a dry fit.

This was the most nerve wracking part of the build so far. You do not want to miss cut the rough openings for the windows! They are all plunge cuts with a skill saw, which are notoriously difficult to get straight.

Then the window is simply glued and screwed to the door panel.

After a whole day of work the doors are on.

Hustling buns now.

Now we are cooking with grease. The inside of all the parts are done and today I got the second of seven coats of varnish on the outside. The wave went on really well this time with just touchups around the edges. I still get a little heavy handed with the sander though, and got two thin spots on the white. I'll probably be the only one that ever notices.

I am doing a few things to speed up and improve the process on this side. I am finishing all three pieces at the same time, taping off the edges so there are virtually no drips, and vacuuming through the sander so there is much less dust and tack-ragging. All the varnish should be done by the weekend.

It has been so cold and wet here, but I got the garage hooked up with a little heater. A good hoodie and some tunes help too.

We are so excited to get to the assembly stage. I am going to start disassembling the trailer and shedding any thing not necessary. Dry fits, bed lining, electrical, spars, bulkheads, cabinetry, windows, skylights... woo hoo!!! It's about to get fun, and my new friend Todd has volunteered with some help. I am going to need it.

Painting the Inside

The last coats of varnish have dried on the trim ring and door. Finally!

Mosquitoes kept landing in the varnish on the door, which was odd because this hadn't happened before. Not one mosquito the entire time we were varnishing our huge first side. Weird. Maybe next time we'll use a fan to blow them out of the way.

This weekend we flipped over our first finished side and began work on the inside of the panel. We set it up on painters pyramids so the finished side doesn't get scratched. Jeremy sanded it out nice and smooth.

When Jeremy originally painted the outside of the panel he taped the unfinished side so when the varnish ran over the edges it wouldn't bleed. The varnish that ran over pooled on the tape so I cut it off with an xacto knife and Jeremy sanded that out too.

Then he stained it white. Everything covered really nicely. You can tell that the trim ring and the side panel are two different colors. Believe it or not the trim ring started out this white color as well. After sanding and many coats of varnish the color dulled into this "sand" color, as I like to call it. The white definitely changed the color of the wood but isn't as striking anymore as when it is first applied.

Jeremy and I both love it. Next is sanding seal and a first coat of varnish! Stay tuned!

Catching Up

Last weekend we made a lot of progress. First we cut the inner diameter of the trim ring.

This is what the side will look like with the trim on.

Then we taped off the door and cut it out.

Kate is a great photographer.