Thanks guys, your kind praise is appreciated. I'm glad that I can offer some entertainment value.
I didn't get much done on the camper the last couple of days, but hope you still enjoy this post as much as I did.
A very special guest made the pilgrimage to Mecca on Friday. Anybody recognize this rig from central Texas?
It’s CapnTelescope (Brad) and his CNC Build. We shared a couple beers, gave each other tours of our builds, and had a meal together.
I especially liked the way he had a plywood cover on his horizontally tongue mounted spare tire. All he has to do is park, pull a folding chair out of the back of his truck, plug his propane camp fire into the jack in his vented tongue box where his propane tank is stored, and crack a beer; table's already set up.
That and the 12v truckfridge sourced fridge/freezer; gotta get me one of those. Lots of contained storage for all of the various utensils and galley items, with well thought out utility.
Here’s Brad trying TPCE on for size.
Suffice to say I valued the visit, conversation and comradery highly.
Since I’m doing a camera dump, we can get caught up on the other things I mentioned previously.
Here’s the hatch hinge spar after removing the masking tape; yup, peeled a bunch of poly varnish off and probably could have gotten away w/o having bothered. There really wasn’t much for drips and the front face of the spar is hardly visible anyway. I will refinish it, or paint it with the black enamel trim paint later.
Same thing on the underside of the hatch rib sill, the maple piece that ties the ribs into the bumper; masking removed.
And that last little bit back on the street side that didn’t get removed before Karl and I flipped the hatch the first time.
The curb side wall edge naked.
Finally, I cut a piece of plastic sheet to mask off the roof vent opening. The inside surfaces of the opening will be completely enclosed by the fan trim, so no worries about damaging the finish here; it’s already been soaked with the mix previously.
Today Brad, Larry, Karl and I got together to go to the spring tractor swap meet, despite the very wet weather we’ve been having. We kidded with Brad for having ‘brought the rain with him’, and with Karl for forecasting that the rain was supposed to stop early this AM. Poor Brad, he’s on a lap of America and it has been raining on him for at least a week, including everyday he’s been in New England, but seemed to be having a good time and trooped on.
We started out with pastries and coffee from the bakery in Colchester, did the swap, and had lunch afterwards at Harry’s burger stand.
We were hoping to find a fuel fitting for Randy/Wolffarmer’s tractor, which Brad could have taken with him to the Mordor event; but alas, we had no luck this year.
I was glad to have worn my rubber boots (with cozy alpaca socks) and carried my big umbrella. Most of the field is grass, but there were still some muddy areas. Surprisingly the weather didn’t seem to thin the crowd out too much, and the venders seemed to be giving good prices in order to help stuff move. Some sellers weren’t too well equipped to deal with the wet conditions and it was a shame to see some of the old stuff getting wet, but among us we managed to pick out some treasures.
One of the first items that caught my eye was this 10 inch slicing knife. Good quality, with stainless steel blade; I gave $2 and the guy threw in a second knife (of lesser quality, but still in fine shape) for free.
Sabatier is a French knife maker that appears to have a good reputation, and Robinson is still around. I assume it was a collaboration, made in France and imported.
Didn’t see much for stoves, lanterns or cast iron, but there were a couple of white gas heaters, including a matched pair, one Coleman and a nearly identical Sears. The only difference I saw was the label and slightly different colors of green. Weather was poor and I was struggling to figure out how to take pics with my phone, so only got a pic of the Sears.
This little heater caught my eye, Bunsen Davy. Turns out to be a kerosene heater used like a block heater to keep your car engine from freezing up overnight; like a smudge pot. Sorry, there was water on the lens, as well as the heater.
Another seller had an even earlier one that I got for $5. Even if I don’t restore it it makes for an interesting shelf decoration. Apparently the pics I took didn’t happen, so I will offer a link to the instruction sheet I found online instead, with future pics to follow.
Auto Motor Heater InstructionsThere was another booth with a large collection of kerosene lanterns on display, with many of them burning, but again, hard to take pictures with one hand holding the umbrella.
Once back at the shop Brad gave Larry and Karl’s wife Chris a tour. He mentioned that he was getting a drip thru his reading lights that was landing on his head while he slept, so we broke out a screw driver, a few tools and a tube of silicone, removed his external light fixture over the tongue box, and recaulked around the screws, wire hole and all of the rivet heads along the front skin seam. Hopefully that stops the rain for him.
From here he was headed back north for Maine lobster, then out to Mordor and on to the IRG, mostly boondocking and bouncing from place to place.
If you get a chance, crack a beer with him. You won’t meet nicer folk.
All I got done on the camper today was to tare a couple of empty epoxy cans and weigh up the partial cans I am working on now to make sure that I have enough epoxy to get the roof done. I have enough epoxy, but am marginal on the fast hardener, and don’t have near enough of the slow to do the job. On the fast I have more than 1.5x my base calculated need, but not 2x. The foam had been taking half again as much as my calcs, but on the last layup it was more like twice. On closer inspection the front upper wall/roof radius did get more coverage than other areas, so I guess it was a little fatter, but not horribly so.
Humidity was high, so I didn’t even do any patching, just went home and cat napped.
by GPW » Thu May 05, 2016 6:38 am 
I agree!
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