1957 Cardinal travel trailer restoration

New joists installed and new biscuit-joined floor cut from the template I'd made earlier.   I was pleasantly surprised that the new floor was as stiff as it was with nothing but butt-joint biscuits holding it together- the temporary braces I'd planned on installing turned out to be completely unnecessary. I'd originally planned on installing the floor as one big biscuited piece, but out of concern for the muscleworthiness of my help I decided to join the last 24" piece in place on the trailer frame, since it can slide straight in from the back. Test fit for new floor. I assumed I'd have some trimming to do, but it fit perfectly the first time. New floor back out and on the work platform, Marmoleum relaxing overnight prior to trimming. Cutting this with shears outside the trailer is a breeze compared to trying to trim it in place. Pattern is #3423 Painter's Palette, pretty wild period pattern which should be a champ for hiding camp d

It's been a busy six months since the last post, and much has happened. I replaced all of the skirts and sills and reframed a goodly portion of the curb side. I ditched the generic whitewood I'd ripped for this previously (most of which I ended up recycling as bracing), and bought a load of poplar instead. Much, much stiffer, nice stuff. In the name of overkill I even cut the wheel openings from solid slabs of 8/4 poplar, rather than the random nailed-together chunks of 3/4" fir the factory used. Kreg screwed together, it adds a huge amount of rigidity to the whole wall.   There was some sidewall damage from a stress crack in the skin near the door- that's a false back in the tall cabinet that a PO put in to conceal the damage, yuck. You can see where I've cut back the floor to give access to replace the rotten sills (all of them). I left the cabinets in as along as possible in order to provide support to the walls while cutting out the rot.

The skin is all off. The new space is mighty cramped, but I'm grateful to have power, especially working through the winter- a little Pelonis disc furnace does a nice job of taking the chill off, before it gives its all as the future built-in trailer furnace. More to come on that, should be a fun side project. Factory wiring. I'm sure this is up to code, somewhere, maybe. I'd previously ripped a stack of fir (well, generic whitewood) 2x4s down for my 2x2 framing, but as usual I eventually overthought things. Cue a trip to Crosscut in Portland and a load of lovely poplar dimensional lumber, including a slab of 8/4 for the wheelwell sills. No mere 1x8s nailed together here, no sir. Should be considerably stiffer and sturdier than the whitewood (or the zero-grade, extra knotty stuff used at the factory), and ostensibly lighter, too. As it turns out, the whitewood 2x2s still came in handy, although I'd prefer if they hadn't. I knew the bulk of my skirts nee