More Chassis...And Maybe A Sub-Floor

Have we mentioned that Tybee is a hoot? Really dogs in general are just great to have in your life because they are uninhibited, honest, and kind-hearted. While Tybee and Tyki haven't bonded in the sense that they lay around the house curled up against one another or share sticks to chew on. But they have bonded in their own unique way - at least I choose to think so.

Tybee loves to stand between the front seats and look out the car window. What she loves even more is to lay her head on our shoulder while we're driving or if we get really lucky she will lay her head on our arm when it's controlling  the wheel. And if Tyki's in the way. Well, he's put to use.

And Tyki? Clearly he just takes it.

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Back to RV work and more chassis talk. The chassis in the front of the RV needed to have wood boards screwed into it so the bedroom wall beams will have something to screw into once its built. 

Jerud cutting the sill plates for the chassis.

The very front of the trailer was easy to do because the holes in the chassis were evenly placed so putting holes in the wood board was quick.

The side chassis wasn't the same case. As you can see in this photo the holes in the chassis are far from level or evenly spaced. This makes it really hard to know where to put the holes in the wood boards.

When you're creative like Jerud, you have a solution to most problems. Nail polish!

Step 1: Apply nail polish over the holes on the chassis.

Step 2: Line up the wood board and press it against the nail polish.

Step 3: Remove the wood board and see where the screw holes need to be. This didn't work as perfectly as hoped because the wood boards aren't as straight and flat as the metal beam so a nail polished hole or two missed the board.

Jerud modified the process and rolled toilet paper into the holes and apply nail polish on that.

The toilet paper trick worked.

A couple of the screw holes were a mess so Jerud had to chase the treads. When the screws were placed in we realized that the lengths weren't correct...so we couldn't finish putting the sill plates on. Bummer!

We move onto working on the kitchen floor. Jerud and Andrew had cut out the sub-floor weeks ago due to water damage. We realized that we need a floor in place before we can rebuild the back of the RV. Then we realized that the floor can't be installed until the RV wiring that's located under the sub-floor is identified and Jerud figures out where the new wiring has to go. But in the meantime, he was going to cut new pieces of the floor so that it would be ready to be installed when the time came.

What the kitchen floor now looks like.

The floor joists are a mess from pieces of sub-floor boards that didn't fully come off.

Another view of what happens when you remove glued down sub-flooring.

Time for the belt sander to be put to work!

Each joist had to be sanded so the new sub-floor has something flat and even to lay on.

Shiny!

Jerud cutting out the new sub-floor.

Jerud used a router to put a tongue in edge of the new sub-floor, he also put a groove on the other edge.

Jerud used the Dremel to clean out the groove in the existing sub-floor to make sure the new sub-floor would slide in perfectly.

Done!

Except the sub-floor wasn't really done. After it was installed, Jerud noticed the thickness of a section of the new sub-floor didn't match the other new section or the existing sub-floor. Turns outthe OSB the factory used was slightly thinner than the OSB we got, and thinner than anything Lowes offered. We ended up sanding parts of the new sub-floor to even it out.

I've learned that working on a project like this I have to find bitch work to do at times. It's not because I like bitch work or Jerud hates me. Because I'm not as handy with tools as Jerud or able to tackle more complicated work on my own. This means there are times when he's working on something and I'm projectless. But there are so many small pain in the ass things that need to be done sooner or later. I've learned to find something to work on when I can't help out with a bigger project. This is fine with me because I hate not doing anything.

When you use a heat gun make sure you have the button pushed to "Hot" or else you're going to be waiting for a long time for the air to get warm. I'm not saying I did this.

This is as gooey as it looks. It's the glue that was used around the slide opening. Just scraping it off with a paint scraper is a pain in the ass. Apply a heat gun to it and it comes off like bacon in a frying pan.

Chunky strips of old butyl tape.

The walls have a strip of wallpaper accent. We eventually have to paint over the walls, but we can't leave the wallpaper on because it doesn't sit flush against the walls.

The wallpaper is glued down using some insanely strong glue. The best way to remove the wallpaper is to use a heat gun to melt the glue and then pull off the wallpaper. 

The weather is still cold. Cold enough that there's ice in the creeks. But it's super pretty.

Richmond Hill is a park close to home and we really enjoy hiking there with the dogs.

More ice on rocks with bits of ice fingers starting to form.

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