![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wait, it can't be mid August already
Wow, quite a bit of radio silence on here lately, huh? Well, it is summertime and I've been even busier than a usual summer. Last week was dominated by two projects: the awning and the rear cabinet. In between picking away at those was work and a quick visit by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
derien's brother and his girlfriend.
The awning was the longer of the two projects and still isn't finished. I am building it out of PVC and tarp based on a picture I saw on the web. Most of the time involved was spent figuring, planning, fretting, measuring, and finding the parts. The actual construction didn't take that long, but I had to do it in stages to make sure everything would fit together right. We put it together and did a good bit of the fitting on Sunday. It appears that the planning has paid off. The only part of the tarp that was loose was the edge that connects to the drip rail of the van and I intentionally saved working on that until I had everything else connected. Now I've made a bar to stiffen that side, which might have to be lengthened after a bit more testing (it's easy to lengthen because I made it out of tent poles pieces and I've got plenty of spares to add). All that is left is to test that and paint the poles, which are 50% done.
The other project was the top rear cabinet. The prior cabinet had the air conditioner blower system in it, I removed that on Wednesday evening. On Thursday evening I drove up and traded cabinets with the local vanagon mechanic. Unfortunately, the replacement cabinet had been home to mice. No permanent damage, but a lot of the things mice leave behind when they live somewhere for a while. I washed the cabinet in bleach water, then softscrub with bleach, then began peeling the old contact paper off. It was a big job picking all the glued on stuff. By Sunday morning we'd finally got it all off and I had recovered all the parts that had contact paper with vinyl headliner material I had. The cabinet looks good and now we'll have more storage space.
I should probably be out ripping the fridge out of the van and replacing the drain pipe, but I don't want to take on that intricate a task at the moment. So I'll try to get caught up on my email and LJ comments.
derien's brother and his girlfriend.The awning was the longer of the two projects and still isn't finished. I am building it out of PVC and tarp based on a picture I saw on the web. Most of the time involved was spent figuring, planning, fretting, measuring, and finding the parts. The actual construction didn't take that long, but I had to do it in stages to make sure everything would fit together right. We put it together and did a good bit of the fitting on Sunday. It appears that the planning has paid off. The only part of the tarp that was loose was the edge that connects to the drip rail of the van and I intentionally saved working on that until I had everything else connected. Now I've made a bar to stiffen that side, which might have to be lengthened after a bit more testing (it's easy to lengthen because I made it out of tent poles pieces and I've got plenty of spares to add). All that is left is to test that and paint the poles, which are 50% done.
The other project was the top rear cabinet. The prior cabinet had the air conditioner blower system in it, I removed that on Wednesday evening. On Thursday evening I drove up and traded cabinets with the local vanagon mechanic. Unfortunately, the replacement cabinet had been home to mice. No permanent damage, but a lot of the things mice leave behind when they live somewhere for a while. I washed the cabinet in bleach water, then softscrub with bleach, then began peeling the old contact paper off. It was a big job picking all the glued on stuff. By Sunday morning we'd finally got it all off and I had recovered all the parts that had contact paper with vinyl headliner material I had. The cabinet looks good and now we'll have more storage space.
I should probably be out ripping the fridge out of the van and replacing the drain pipe, but I don't want to take on that intricate a task at the moment. So I'll try to get caught up on my email and LJ comments.