Sunday, January 26, 2014

1959 Tradewind restoration wrapping it up

Wow, what a project! After about 1000 hours over a period of 9 months, I can say the Airstream is finally done. Yeehaw! The last few weeks has been busy finishing the end table, dinette, and upper cabinets for the bathroom and kitchen. Then polyurethaning all of it and reinstalling. I finished hooking up the vent hood, and added the vanity lights, and under cabinet lights in the kitchen. I cut the cushions to the right size using an electric knife, which worked great. I was able to reuse most of the cushions from the 2006, which saved quite a bit of money. Shelly sewed all the curtains, and shower curtain which turned out great. She told me if I wanted zippers on the cushion upholstery, I would have to do them myself. She hates zippers, and me being hard headed, I thought I would try. Thankfully, they are on the backs of the cushions, but by the last one, I had gotten pretty good at sewing them on.  I only had to make one window screen, and had enough latches to put two on the bottoms of each window. I used mirror brackets on the tops to hold the in place. 
This is the preliminary  placement.
In the meantime, we went to a WBCCI rally at the L B J grasslands near Decatur, Texas. It was a boondocking rally, and the weather was great for January. There were almost thirty Airstreams attending this rally. Just about everyone had their dog or dogs there, and was interesting to see the interactions of all the different dogs enjoying the freedom. 
 Hike about two miles to another ridge for this shot




The awning was the last major accomplishment. The awning is from the 2006, and apparently is a slight different  curve than the 1959. 
 Rebuilding the awning
 Attaching the awning
I learned a lot rebuilding this Airstream, and still plan on rebuilding our 1957 Overlander. But that will have to wait until next fall before I start. 

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