We learned several new skills this week working on the Dogcatcher. I bought a cheap router, cut a couple of dados, took the cheap router back and got a Bosch 2.25 hp. What a difference that made. Cuts are smooth, the router doesn't bog down and bounce around. It was a great investment (in lower blood pressure).
The week started with our frame building. We went with 3/4" plywood and cut a bunch of holes in it to lighten the weight of the walls. We are building 10' walls so I overlapped 2 sheets (about 2") and glued them together. Seems pretty strong.
I saved the cutout pieces to use for insulation patterns later on.
Then came what has been the most frustrating part so far. We wanted a contrasting accent strip of wood across the face of the wall similar to the "Lil Diner". Steve's manual explained it in great detail and we jumped into the wall cutting certain that things would go smoothly. Well after a hour or two of butchering wood I switched from the router (still the cheap one at this point), tried a RotoZip with no success and finally used a jigsaw to get the pieces cut out. It was a stressful day but things worked out well in the end. We had a backup plan of adding pinstripes if the joints between the different woods didn't look too good.
Then it was on to epoxy and fiberglass (another first for us). It still amazes me to see a "white cloth" disappear when putting the epoxy on.
While waiting for the epoxy to set up we built the little wall area for the front of the TD. We're thinking we might use some of this area for the electrical and battery but we aren't sure we want the battery near our head when sleeping.
That's all for this week. Next week we may try to stand the walls up.
Hope everyone has a great week.
James & Rhonda
... More to come later.
