I’ve been working on three different things, depending on the weather. I took all hardware off the drawers and cabinets. The existing hardware all matches, but I don’t like it much. It’s old mild steel that ironically was original finished in “antique”. The kind that’s just a slightly dark varnish. So here’s the hardware.
The middle one in the second picture is the door catch, which grabs the one on the left. It’s very positive- you have to squeeze the top and bottom to release it. So I soaked the catches in denatured alchohol and scrubbed off the black, then sandblasted everything so it looks like this:
Then I primed and painted. Just a rattle spray can, but hopefully it will last for a while. I used “metallic antique brass”, which I think will look a lot better with the wood. Looks nice I think, but I’ll leave alone for a few days to let the paint really harden. Won’t be actually using this for at least a week.
All the cabinet doors and drawer fronts were stained dark. Look like this:
So I’m sanding those down to bare wood. Have a lot more to do, but they look like this after sanding.
I have to sand every square inch of wood. I’ve probably done a third of what I have to do.
And I’m working on the framing. I have a local welder building me new wheel wells from 1/8 inch aluminum. Going to be strong and light. These one of the old wheel wells I cut out:
An ugly combination of plywood, a strip of galvanized steel, and nails. LOTS of nails. Just designed to leak and rot. The wood in the wheel well was rotting on both sides. The wood on the right side of the trailer, once the well was cut out, was a little water damaged but not much. I drilled a number of holes into the lowest 2×2 and put in about a cup of ethylene glycol using a plastic syringe.
The left side was worse. The bottom 2×2 and one vertical was rotten. Also, I’ve gotten the water heater, water inlet, and furnace. I need to tweak the framing as necessary to support those. So on the left I removed the bottom 2×2, sistered a section of the 2×2 under the window, and rearranged the supports a bit. Sorry these pictures are so poor. On the left side I’m up against the fence. I left just enough room to walk around the trailer.
The new wood at the top of the picture is glued (gorilla glue) to the existing 2×2 that runs under the windows. The water heater will go at the bottom right of this picture, to the right of the wheel well. Once I cut the hole for that I’ll put in whatever framing is necessary. Also I’m running out of those angle clips (just cut from a 1×1 aluminum extruded angle). I need to make another couple dozen, and when I do I’ll add some here. Probably do that tomorrow. I need to do a similar rebuild on the right side. That’s on the agenda for the next non-rainy day, .