Preparing a 1991 Scamp 16

[John McDonald]

Originally Posted by honda03842

Though not beautiful it worked very well last year except Ginny had to seperate the frying pans by a paper towel.

Looks great! To my way of thinking shelves under a sink should be functional, utilitarian, efficient...not beautiful.
I had a professor once from whom I've stolen a number of great sayings. One is, "perfection is a false god." To which I will now add my own - thanks to you - beautiful shelves under a sink is a false god.

Cheers John

[Darrell in Al]

I really enjoyed reading about your improvements on your Scamp, I started doing ones on mine days after getting mine. still need to get to your level of improvements. I'm full timing in mine.

[honda03842]

We have started replacing our pressboard cabinet doors. The existing doors, particularly in front of the sink had absorbed water and were 'expanding' around the edges.

We are making the doors of 1/2" plywood birch and will be urethaning the doors.

The following picture shows one of the doors before urethaning.

[SusieinNC]

Eager to see the new awning you plan to do. Chandler at Parkliner is in search of the perfect awning for the ParkLiner. Maybe he will see your idea and it will work for the ParkLiner.

[honda03842]

We're replacing all our doors with Birch plywood. The previous doors were expanding via the absorbtion of water, particularly near the sink, after 21 years they were looking tired.

I simply cut the plywood to size and multi-coat urethaned it.

[cpaharley2008]

Are you replacing all the rest of the cabinet fronts, I like what I see.

[Thomas G.]

Originally Posted by honda03842

We're replacing all our doors with Birch plywood. The previous doors were expanding via the absorbtion of water, particularly near the sink, after 21 years they were looking tired.

I simply cut the plywood to size and multi-coat urethaned it.

Looks good. Did you use the veneer edging?

[honda03842]

I am replacing all the cabinet fronts and doors. I think there are 20 doors and drawers. I've finished 13. I think I'll probably do them all except one before we leave, the bathroom door.

I have not used veneer on the edges, maybe at a later date. For the time being I have run the edges thru our planer and gave them 4 coats of urethane. Actually I like the way they look.

In no way am I a carpenter but they look nice, at least nicer then the former doors and drawers.

Cost so far $28. I expect by the time I'm done the cost will be $56 plus a couple of days of my labor.

[honda03842]

Susie.

I've posted a picture of our son's trailer with the awning.

We will make something almost identical to his but longer. The nice attribute is that it does not require drilling any holes in the trailer. As well it's very lightweight material, 2 0z per square yard.

Ginny will begin sewing it shortly. The material is light enough to be sewn on a home machine.

To store it when traveling I'm adding a second fence post storage compartment to our trailer, primarily for the poles.

[cpaharley2008]

Norm,
In the picture showing the awning is that your unit? the reason I ask, it appears you have 2 jacks in use, a flip up style on curbs side and a scissors on the other street side. Why is that?

[honda03842]

Susie and Harley,

The post with the picture of the Awning is in post #267 of this thread. The Scamp is our son's 1977 Scamp 13.

The awning is suspended from the roof by 3 or 4 3M plastic hooks, the kind that are removeable without damaging sheetrock or wall paper.

A plastic pipe runs thru a loop in the material and simply drops over the hooks. The pipe thru the loop is actually two pieces that slide into each other.

We used a fair amount of pipe but have considered collapsible tent posts.

Like any first we've considered a number of small improvements that Ginny and I will try to implement. It's main characteristics are no holes, very light weight, water proof, dyi, inexpensive.

It will probably be our next project after the cabinets.

[honda03842]

Last year we kept a piece of memory foam under the bottom and rear of our couch. It made the couch more comfortable during the day time and just took minutes to get or store each day for the bed.

On our trip we met Dave and Paula who had a more elegant solution. They bought two small self inflating ALPs camping matresses that spend the daytime under their dinette cushions and appear at night to add that extra sleeping comfort.

One of the neat features is that they can be set to different levels of support.

[honda03842]

All upper cabinet doors are installed, leaving only the big closet door. The following pictures looks like the upper doors are darker than the lower doors. This is simply a case of evening lighting.

Ginny and I like lighter colored doors paraticularly in a confined space. As well as being lighter colored I believe that they are also marginally lighter in weight.

[Steve Hammel]

Norm, they look beautiful. I'm thinking of doing the same only with the oak veneered plywood. Very easy, very light weight fix.
Did you ever consider making a big "flip up" door for the uppers. I'm leaning that direction because they don't open during traveling. Of course if I changed out all my hardware the stock style doors would probably stay shut also.

[honda03842]

Steve,

I would prefer flip up doors. Besides resisting opening, you never bump into them when they're open. In our Motorhome they were all flip ups (and oak). Defintely better looking than the faux wood look.

The existing hinge holes were the stopper. Where ever we have a potential 'travel door opener; we add a little bungee cord before leaving.

[cpaharley2008]

Flipping the upper cabinet doors was one of te first things I did to the egg camper, you only need one hand to remove items on those hinges that no longer work.

[honda03842]

Jim,

What did you do about the holes where the former side hinges mounted?

[Steve Hammel]

"What did you do about the holes where the former side hinges mounted?"

When I did my Trillium I simply used a hard epoxy and a brush tip of paint.

[honda03842]

I've replaced all the cabinet doors and drawers, that leaves the closet doors to replace.

While replacing the upper closet door, I realized I could increase the size of the closet opening by removing a 2" strip from the top and a one inch strip from the bottom.

This doesn't add any more volume to the closet but does permit easier access.

The first picture shows the closet as purchased, the second after the cuts.

[Eddie Longest]

Norm
Marine-tex epoxy (white) is a pretty close match for the gelcoat on the Scamp cabinets. I use it for filling cabinet screw holes. I use a counter sink to slightly soften the edges of the hole. Tape around and overfill the hole slightly, just before it sets really solid tale a razor and slice off the excess flush. Then apply a super thin coat and sand and polish to a smooth finish.
Eddie