the story of Rucio

[Peter_Crowl]

Originally Posted by Vickie B.

Jen---this is so much fun! Love everything you've done-----so glad you are sharing the pics with us. Color scheme is fantastic---Wish all we gals could get together for the shopping/decor. as I'm not sure my husband understands why the fuss about the details.

High five on painting your frame brown!

Sisters on the Sly? :~)

[Bobbie Mayer]

Looking great!

The secret to the porta potty is don't empty it until just before the next trip. (By then most odor has been chemically digested.) Of course, this doesn't work for long trips. But I felt like you at first, and now I like having it- it hardly takes any room and is easy to maintain and sure beats having to run to the campground restroom in the middle of the night.

[Rusty01]

Congratulations on your trailer. You're doing a great job making it your own. I have owned mine for over four years and have hauled the porta potty all over the place but like you, am intimidated, so have never used it. I hope you enjoy your little trailer for years to come. rb

[Nancy]

Jen, where did you buy the Dritz grommets? I went to our local fabric store and could not find them in my small town. You didn't happen to get them online did you? Our Walmart didn't have them either, but we don't have a fabric section at our Walmart.

Do you feel you really needed the header tape? Probably would depend on the fabric.

You got 50 yards of header tape because you are going to go into business making curtains.

Nice job. We look forward to seeing more later.

Nancy from the still frozen north.

[jen b]

Thanks everybody!

Nancy, I got the grommets from a vendor on amazon dot com. They're available in a couple of places in the www, in various sizes and colors.

I think the header tape is useful for this curtain style - without it the top of the curtains would flop over the grommets. And who wants floppiness, really?

I'm headed over to Pittsburgh later today to spend the weekend working on installing cabinet doors, new marmoleum flooring, installing table hardware, and more. Excited! I'll probably bring Rucio on back to Philadelphia at the end of the weekend, which will be pretty great.

[cpaharley2008]

take plenty of pictures, especially on the floor install. something I've wanted to do

[jen b]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

take plenty of pictures, especially on the floor install. something I've wanted to do

If you mean of the lino installation, can do!

[francene]

You're doing a great job, Jen! I'm enjoying reading your breezy commentary, and looking at the photos.

I'm about to sew cushion covers and your 'just do it' approach is the kick-start I needed to get going.

Nice thrift store finds; you'll have a really nice trailer when you're done.

Fran
'74 Compact II

[jen b]

Originally Posted by francene

You're doing a great job, Jen! I'm enjoying reading your breezy commentary, and looking at the photos.

I'm about to sew cushion covers and your 'just do it' approach is the kick-start I needed to get going.

Nice thrift store finds; you'll have a really nice trailer when you're done.

Fran
'74 Compact II

Fran, good luck with your sewing! My feeling about the matter is that I won't learn if I don't do it myself, and not being a perfectionist I'm usually satisfied enough with what spits out of my sewing machine.

I spent the past weekend back in Pittsburgh working on lil' Rucio. We made a ton of progress, though were delayed when the RV place didn't finish their stuff on schedule. I got the camper back a full day later than anticipated, which put a big dent in my ability to get everything done that I wanted to do. A bummer particularly because I'd taken friday off work and then ended up twiddling my thumbs for part of the day. But at least the RV place got most of the things they'd agreed to do finished. There were a few things they didn't get to, but the stuff that DID get done was done nicely.

I forgot to take a photo of the exterior work - the new floor and the paint job on the frame. I'll try to remember that this weekend when I go back to work on it some more.

So, another parade of photos coming up.

I started with putting my drop-leaf table together. I used two basic hinges to let the drop part drop, and my solution to keeping the drop side up was to get some door pull handle thingies through which I would feed some small boards cut to fit snugly.

I need to come up with a solution to the inevitable scuffing up that is going to happen under there, but haven't figured that out yet.

Pictured here are two views of the table, with and without the supports, as well as the moment I finally wrestled Rucio away from the RV place.

[jen b]

Next was getting the sheet of Marmoleum cut to size. The vinyl I'd ripped out last month was a pretty accurate fit, so I'd saved it to use as a template.

I really really like the Marmoleum. It is heavier, thicker, and definitely not as easy to work with as the sheet vinyl, but I am impressed with the quality.

[Vickie B.]

Dang, girl---table is pure genius!

[jen b]

We got the cabinet doors assembled with their hardware and hung up. The inside of the Burro is pretty much a Dali painting. Slumps and dips everywhere! So that is a challenge when you are doing things like deciding where to put the door-catch hardwares.

There were some challenges working around the old door holes. There is one where I think an old catalytic heater might have been that sort of resists reasonable door coverage. My dad and I decided that this year the quickie doors he did will do the job, and we can consider something fancier for a project for next winter.

I added a mirror to the inside of the tall cabinet door. We made three shelves for that closet, but I haven't done photos yet. I brought the shelves home to paint, and will try to remember to photograph them in place on the weekend.

Also shown here: I used a piece of Reflectix to use as a sort of core for a headliner.

[jen b]

Vickie, thank you! I have to say I was inspired by Danny H's lift-leaf table in his Scamp. It would not have occurred to me before seeing his photos to do that sort of special table engineering, but I think it might work.

This is the smoothed-up inside floor. I used some mirror glue to stick the mirror up, and had most of the tube left, so I used to rest of the tube to fill holes and divots in the floor. I recommend good ventilation for this kind of thing! The glue might have been responsible for the headache I had later that day, whoops.

We also ran a grinder around the floor to remove any sticky-uppy screws and bolt heads, in order to make as flat a surface as possible on which to lay the Marmoleum.

[jen b]

Random items:

1. our weekend work list
2. an hilarious package of wing nuts

[jen b]

I made the headliner by spray-gluing marine vinyl fabric to the reflectix strip I'd cut. I still need to do the bits that go below the front and back windows - that's on the list for the coming weekend.

Casting about for adhesive ideas for sticking this assembly to the ceiling, we settled on liquid nails. We stuck that up the last thing on saturday night, leaving it propped overnight.

Alas, I think the low overnight temps did not favor liquid nails stickiness, and while I was puttering during the late morning the next day, the headliner shook itself loose. We re-stuck it, re-propped it, and when finished for the day left it with a space heater running to keep things closer to the liquid nails preferred temperature. I have to ask my dad whether it's worked okay.

[jen b]

And then finally, the floor went in! With the headliner at least *present* if not firmly stuck, along with the new floor, the inside of the Burro was totally transformed! It went from cruddy dark hole to clean bright and charming. That was pretty exciting.

I decided to not bother with gluing the flooring down. It is heavy enough to keep itself in place, and besides, there are two table cone bases plus an entry threshold strip helping hold it down. I think I will tape the edges down with gorilla tape to prevent dirt and stuff from sneaking under the edges.

[jen b]

Now, even though that still-to-be-covered chunk of raw fiberglass is pretty glaringly obvious, and the headliner props were very clumsy looking, before I headed for home on Sunday afternoon I had to dress at least the front dinette area up a little to see how it was going to look.

My plan is to head back to Pittsburgh this weekend, finish up stuff like the below-window headliner sections, tape the floor edges, and install the new LED taillights (if they get shipped in time). I hope to have enough time to line the kitchenette cabinets with some contact paper to pretty them up a little inside, but that can happen just about any time. If all goes as planned I'll bring Rucio on over to Philadelphia on Sunday and camping can then commence.

[Vickie B.]

Love it all! Inspiring!!!

[Donna D.]

As I said before, I'm plenty WOW'd I dont think you'll regret NOT gluing down the flooring. Appears you'll have plenty of anchor points and if you should choose to redecorate, you'll be able to use it as a template (again)

Too Cool!

[jen b]

I have a bunch more photos to add once I get them off the camera for processing, but I now have a ready-to-camp trailer! I headed out to my folks place in Pittsburgh over the weekend to finish up the odds and ends, and then Rucio went on its maiden not-camping voyage across the PA turnpike, about 325 miles. My mom and dad sent us off in a celebratory shower of mini marshmallows.

Suffice to say I am pretty thrilled that it towed well, I managed 22mpg with the Forester on the hilly turnpike, and I parallel parked it in our storage lot parking spot in Philadelphia without incident.

I am still waiting for my LED lights to ship so I can install those, but otherwise we're done...for now. These things are never really DONE-done, are they? My dad has had such a good time helping me fix up this trailer that he's not ready to quit yet. He's talking about finding sufficient garage space over the winter so he can patch and shore up a bunch of funky places and screw holes in the fiberglass, engineer a better spare-tire holder that would involve welding something to the bumper rather than having the spare hanging right on the fiberglass wall, and give the whole thing a paint job....and then he wants to take it on a long trip to Alaska. Go for it, dad!

The gel coat is in terrible condition and some previous owner or another had attacked certain areas with some RV paint and a roller brush, so I think some paint and a clear coat would improve things immensely.

Anyhoo, stand by for more photos to come.