I realized as I put this post together that it covers almost exactly a year's worth of work. My schedule this summer has been much tighter than last, so I haven't had nearly as much time to work on the Cardinal. As if I didn't have enough distractions, I stumbled on a tow vehicle I couldn't pass up- not quite what I was looking for, but it's been entirely too much fun in the five months we've had it. I've been driving it to work every day to get the bugs worked out after sitting for the last 30 years or so.
1955 Ford Courier sedan delivery with a National ambulance conversion, a bit over 50k miles, has a spiffy rear folding jump seat and a passenger's bucket that swivels to face it.
Last fall I'd discovered why the laminate on the table and countertop were so badly degraded- they weren't laminate at all, but prefinished 1/4" Masonite. The kitchen countertop was backed up by plywood only around the sink, the rest consisting just of the Masonite supported (barely) by the perimeter of the cabinet frame. I'm all for light weight, but that's way too flimsy.
To further complicate things, I wanted to make certain that the original aluminum moldings would fit when I was done, and I had to maintain roughly the same thickness of the Masonite if I didn't want to expose a light stripe where the shellac was thin.
I carefully traced and cut a piece of 1/2" MDO to fit just inside the perimeter of the cabinet frame, and installed cleats to let it sit flush with the outside of the cabinet. On top of that I laminated a piece of leftover 3/16" ply, leaving it oversized to support the Wilsonart over that perimeter. I then trimmed it down to match the cabinet body with a flush-cut bit, which I also used to cut out the sink opening to match the original opening in the Masonite.
The result with the Wilsonart laminate installed is almost exactly the same height as the original Masonite, and much, much sturdier.
One side of the kitchen cabinet sits right next to the bed, and I thought it would be nice to have a small, finished cubby there for reading glasses, phones and chargers, etc., etc. I'd always liked the radius cutout storage areas seen in some Oasis trailers, and I thought I'd make a very small and simple version of one of those. Rather than just sketch an opening and hit it with the router I designed just the opening I wanted in some CAD software and 3D printed a router template, sort of a third-world CNC mill.
Cabinet installed in the trailer- I need to get both this and the tall cabinet in to support the walls before I can remove the overhead cribbing that's currently holding them up. The cribbing has to be off before I can laminate up the perimeter rails (or whatever they're called, the rounded structural element that runs all the way around each wall). As I've mentioned before, my working space is too tight to just remove the walls and lay them flat as is normally done.
 |
Not for the introverted. |
To further complicate things, I wanted to make certain that the original aluminum moldings would fit when I was done, and I had to maintain roughly the same thickness of the Masonite if I didn't want to expose a light stripe where the shellac was thin.
 |
Sink ply removed, cleats in place to support new MDO top |
One side of the kitchen cabinet sits right next to the bed, and I thought it would be nice to have a small, finished cubby there for reading glasses, phones and chargers, etc., etc. I'd always liked the radius cutout storage areas seen in some Oasis trailers, and I thought I'd make a very small and simple version of one of those. Rather than just sketch an opening and hit it with the router I designed just the opening I wanted in some CAD software and 3D printed a router template, sort of a third-world CNC mill.
Cabinet installed in the trailer- I need to get both this and the tall cabinet in to support the walls before I can remove the overhead cribbing that's currently holding them up. The cribbing has to be off before I can laminate up the perimeter rails (or whatever they're called, the rounded structural element that runs all the way around each wall). As I've mentioned before, my working space is too tight to just remove the walls and lay them flat as is normally done.
Comments
Post a Comment