A Hard Day's Work

Today was a very productive day with little Skipper.
We have set up the trailer at a local mechanic's shop who is excited to be working with us, he has restored one other Airfloat before for the Arizona Science/ Geology foundation, so he was elated to see another Airfloat come into his shop. He let us set up all of our equipment and get to work under large aluminum canopy; he doesn't seem to have many other projects going at the moment so we are able to work on our project at full speed ahead.
Today Kyle and I got to work on the underbody of the trailer which could use some repair. After the years the front end of the underbody started to deteriorate, so we lifted the trailer up and started pulling all of the junk (rotting wood/ old insulation) out from under there to replace it with some new fiberglass insulation and aluminum paneling.
As we were doing this very dirty job we encountered a new problem... The entire front end where the underbody and the front of the trailer connect seemed to have never been touched, since 1951 when this thing was built, and was coming apart from itself because the nails no longer held in the rotting wood. Not good.
But luckily a gentleman named Victor was around the shop and able to help us out a bit with his plasma cutter :)

So we began the process of replacing the inside front wood, underbody insulation, and removing the old, rickety, tongue of the trailer to be replaced. If none of this makes any sense, the pictures should help. More work tomorrow as well!

 

This is what the old vertical beam looked like when we ripped it out.

This is the new piece that we fabricated. We needed a 2" piece so here we are cutting a 1/2" piece of plywood to screw to the 1 .5" rod on top.

Installed—With a few adjustments, we got it to fit perfectly. 

The reason for this piece, is now the 90 degree angle of the front and side of the trailer can be securely fastened to this beam, instead of just being glued together. It will create much more strength in the whole front end of the trailer.

Get yer' wrenches out ya'll

A classified ad from San Diego County was shoved in a rickety piece of the underbody for some crafty insulation. It's warming to know that so many years of traveling, and yet this baby is in pretty fly shape!

Black Widow Smashing (I'll take on the Karma)

Tongue Piercing (or splicing...do people still do that?)

Ahhh

AHHH

Going...Going

Gone.

Good work, Victor 

(Even while we were holding our breath as your plasma torch caught some of the flaky wood on fire, good thing you had that spray bottle handy.)

Power temporarily disconnected.

Let me chime in on this blogdizzity. My captioning of the photos pretty much says it. We've been working on this thing with the wonderful smarts and fearlessness of Victor. While we had originally planned to do every square inch ourselves, the vision seems to flow more naturally while working with someone who has done this.

Combined we accomplished about a week's worth of work in 5 or so hours. Tomorrow we'll finish the paneling underneath. Originally it was a wood/tarpaper contraption that prevented water from reaching the vital wood/steal framing. The current floorboard looks like a sheet from the hardware store—it's been so well preserved from the current under paneling.

I'm not sure who the subject of "underpaneling" may be of interest to ... but I hope there's someone out there that this is inspiring to underpanel their ... couch .... or table. Okay, so maybe this whole trailer thing doesn't span borders of subjects or interests, but regardless—it's fun to use our hands. For we would not be the people we are today without them.

To Love, Propane, and the Sweet Reincarnation of 2 never so friendly Black Widows.

K McD

Solar Culture

As we begin to sort out the technicalities of our mobile home, we find that it isn't nearly as difficult as we had originally thought it might be. Things just seem to keep falling into place for us.

We decided long ago that our trailer would need to be self-reliant, self-sustaining, we cannot rely entirely on non-renewable sources of energy for our journey. So we researched solar panels. Being in Arizona, you see solar panels everywhere. Yet, the city of Tucson could be entirely run off of solar energy, with some left over, but why isn't it? Large corporations such as Tucson Electrical Power hope to never see the city run cleanly off of solar, and this is happening all over the world. There also seems to be a general lack of awareness when it comes to renewable sources of energy. For instance, I had no idea how cheaply and easily our travel trailer could be powered by Solar... And the benefits!
We will actually get back 55% of all the expenses we put towards the solar panels, including wiring, batteries etc. The state of Arizona provides 30% tax rebates, and the federal government provides an additional 20%. So we found a beautiful 100-Watt Polycrystalline Panel from a company called Grape Solar out of Oregon, and with that great tax incentive, we decided to get two!
With these two solar panels we will be able to power our light fixtures, charge our cell phones and laptops, and do much more! The company said most people run small microwaves (we won't have one of those) with all of that power, it might be helpful for us to save some since we will be in the cloudy northwestern U.S. but even still these solar panels pick up tons of sunlight.

Here is a photo of our new panels and batteries. The best batteries for storing and converting solar energy are actually golf cart batteries!
  

Now we're just waiting for those fun toys to come in to instal them! Then we'll be working on installing a stove and propane tank.

Here's a fun photo of Donna's (Kyle's Mom) 1962 Chevy Nova which she recently restored, and our 1951 Airfloat hanging out!

A funny story.... Kyle has been taking the trailer in to a mechanic he has become friends with just around the corner for some knowledgeable advice. For instance, the tongue on this trailer is very old and needs to be replaced to fit two batteries and a propane tank (They are working on welding this new tongue together). While Kyle was in the mechanic Boyd's shop yesterday a man told him that he makes a living by transporting trailers across the country. He has been doing this work for many years and has driven over 250,000 miles with various trailers, new & vintage, and said that in all of his years he has "never seen anything like [our trailer]!" That just shows how very rare these Airfloats are. They stopped producing them in the 1950's, so for us to have one that is in such great shape is truly a miracle!

Adios!

Lights, Camera, Action!

It has been relatively slow going on trailer restoration lately... Kyle and I both acquired part time jobs here in Tucson to save up a bit of money before we hit the road which is great! But because of our lack of endless time to commit to restoration, we do not have a whole lot to report today.

We did, however, get all of the trailer's external lights working yesterday which was a huge feat. 

Between blown fuses, wiring mishaps, ordering new (vintage) lights etc., it was a long and daunting project. But we can now officially say that the electrical work is done!

Here is a picture of Skipper with her front Clearance lights and rear Running lights in working order:

Now that we have the wiring complete we will be installing two new circular lights to the backside of the trailer. In my last post I showed a photo of the backside of the trailer where we had some temporary brake lights magnetically attached to the a/c unit.
These new lights work as turn signals, running lights, and brake lights. 

We have already installed one which was an interesting process.... Drilling into Skipper is not something we love to do, because the aluminum body is original (1951) and does not have many holes in it. But after we did all of our required measurements, we drilled in and installed the first brake light. It was like watching a drill go into a Coke can. No wonder this thing is so light-weight!

Everything went well and we had a celebration beer afterwards. We decided to hold off on drilling in the second brake light because it may be easier to do the new coat of exterior paint and then drill in. 

So that's where we're at as of today! Things are looking good from the desert and we can't wait to have more to report :)

Making Progress

In the past two weeks we've made quite a bit of progress in turning our trailer into a home. We've ripped out a wall or two in preparation for turning the once barber shop area (complete with vanity mirror, hydraulic barber chair, the works) into a dining room/ creative space. We've also completely re-wired all of the external lights which are necessary for traveling safely across the country. Here are a few images of our progress so far!

First things first

Hello out there!
Maddie here, just created our blog page! Very exciting as we will have much to share on our great adventures. Currently Kyle and I are residing in Tucson, Arizona fixing up our 1951 Airfloat "Skipper". You may see us refer to the travel trailer just as "Skipper" we thought it was the perfect name for our little bungalow.
Now first things first, to introduce ourselves...
Madeleine: Photographer, Graphic Artist. Graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Photography & Visual Communication. Enjoys yoga, holistic health, beauty, hiking, swimming, playing soccer, art, writing, singing, drawing, making pictures, using my hands to create.

Kyle: Graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Environmental Science and Communication. Freelance writer, journalist, scientist, farmer, computer technician, yogi, photographer. Kyle enjoys, biking, hiking, metal work, cooking, playing basketball, drumming, etc!

We met in college and share a love for adventure and the unknown. We have traveled to the island of Kauai, Galapagos, Peru, and Ecuador together. We both enjoy learning about and experiencing diverse cultures and hope to find many of them in our journey across North America in the near future.

Now that we've introduced ourselves, its time to introduce Skipper to the internet!

Here she is the day Kyle found her in Arivaca, Arizona.

The Skipper is a 16 foot travel trailer that was being used as a Barber shop when Kyle first stumbled upon it. We are now in the process of restoring it to travel across the US!