Outfitting, outfitting , fitting out the interior!

The major outfitting of the interior is complete, the built in night stand is built! 

The Rear Gaucho Couch/Bed is complete. The bed is now a true full size as opposed to a 3/4.

I didn't like the original legs that Shasta used in 1961 so I redid them using the leg style from a mid-century Modern Heywood Wakefield coffee table. I love the taper and the way they flow into the skirt board.

Over 1000 page views and still building cabinets!

The Major outfitting  is finally done. I still have all the doors and drawers to make, but the floor plan is pretty much done.

Upper Kitchen Cabinets are done.  

Side Gaucho Couch/Bed

Use to be the toilet but now is a gear closet and where a lot of the mechanical systems will go.

One Cabinet at a time, and they cost lots of dimes!

Made lots of progress this week, New wardrobe built

oooo round corners!

New Kitchen Cabinets base cabinets built

Closed in the back 

Looking in through the new back window. Note the new vent in the Ceiling

 Back of the trailer, The nightstand is loose and will be attached once the new tail closet is built in the corner.

Hey Cabbie, bring me some Cabinets!

We got some of the cabinets the cabinets installed and the new Dinette Benches installed. We had a chance of rain all day so I never took the tarp off the trailer, thus I still need to back nail them into place

Over the Bed Cabinet and Shelve missing its door, a wardrobe will go next to it.

Wavy front cabinet with birch doors! Needs to be back nailed from the outside.

New Dinette.

Curb side, will have a drawer installed in the opening.

Street Side, will house the h2o tank and pump and will have a flip down door on it.

Custom Cabinets

Since we removed the sleeping loft we wanted to add wavy cabinet that the airflytes had. The next two photos are of the face of the cabinet and lower is with the sliding doors installed.

This cabinet goes over the rear bed. The originals (below) didn't have a lot of details and were rather plain. 

I added the scallops to the bottom to "church it up" a bit.

Walled In

I had to rent a U-haul to get the walls to my house but I got the walls stood up today, I am amazed that they fit.

Started to skin the roof and add the ceiling bows

Stopped the skin so I could get the tall cabinets installed, now I just have to built them!

Looks like a Airflyte so now it is

Even my wife Jessica came out and worked on it!

We stopped taking photos and worked our tails off since we had some weather coming in. Hope the giant tarp doesn't leak!

The Skinny on the Skin

I got the wall skinned today, 1/8" birch to keep the weight down.  I glued all the frame members to the skins using waterproof glue. I also used a 23ga fine wire stapler to attach the skins at the seams and the bottom. I used the original style twist nails in all other areas. It will look like the original when done.

I picked up a bunch of gimp from our local RV Salvage center, its brand new but so much cheaper than Vintage Trailer Supply. My trip this morning to the Salvage yard turned out to be awesome,in addition to the new gimp, I picked up a chrome stove from the 60's and vintage icebox, tear drop marker lights, and some  Hehr window gasket that VTS doesn't sell.

Yeah I bought all the twist nails from our local Home Depot.

twist nails in place...pretty!

Astrodome No More, Hello Airflyte

So just a reminder for everyone, this is the trailer I started with, a fairly rare 1961 Shasta Astrodome. We liked the shape, in fact we loved it, but a couple issues came to light that forced us to change the shape to the more common Shasta Airflyte.

1) We needed to use a hitch extension to tow it with our Pathfinder, which I guess is safe, but seem to torque the hitch too much.

2) The upper front window frame was damaged by one of the Previous Owners and is pretty much impossible to replace. 

3) No kids or plans to have kids so we don't need the bunk, as only a kid could sleep up there.

Anybody who has ever done any work on a old Shasta knows they were not built very well. I decided to rebuild it with solid corners instead of the original little pieces of wood stapled together. 

Framing the walls is fairly easy when you have a complete original to go off of. But I was basically missing the front since that's where the Astrodome and Airflytes differ.  I had found a picture of  another Airflyte that was in restoration. Using what framing I had and the back ground in the picture I was able to scale the contours of the front roof.  It may not be perfect but its close.

Making the front curve template

This is the picture of  VSTF Forum member, FlyingHam, I used it to scale my contours. Using the siding on the house I figured it had about 2 1/2" to 3" fall to the front. I had a lot of the original uprights still in place so I used those for reference points.

The all new Walls: 

I used poplar instead of pine because I like working with better, its a little harder than pine but seems to weight the same or less, and since I own a custom cabinet shop I can buy it much cheaper than pine!

Street Side

Curb Side