Been a long, long time

Yep, it's been a while but really there wasn't much to see.  OK, I take that back, we have made huge progress!  Without much narrative, here is a series of pictures we have taken:

Flat Flora - here she is all torn apart (this is where we left off in the last post).

A tiny picture of the trailer ready to go to the trailer repair guy - we were going to have her sandblasted.  The guys at the store treated us so shabbily that we decided to clean the frame ourselves.  And we bought a new axle, too, and installed it. Nancy Kroes came over from Kalamazoo to help us put it on and change the angle so we would have more clearance.  Thanks, Nancy!!

Gail spent hours with her angle grinder cleaning the rust off the frame.  It looks pretty good and we found the serial number.  Discovered that Flora is a 1966 Scotty, not 1962 as the seller thought.

We used POR15 on the entire frame.  Nice and shiny!

Here is the doorstep.

We didn't save the floor (a mistake we won't make again), so we had to figure out a way to determine where the floor supports go

Here is the floor (3/4" plywood topped with luan).  Glued, stapled and filled.

 Here's Gail, wielding her paint roller and can of exterior paint.  Two coats.

Here is the floor on the frame.  Just trying it out for size.  

Here is another lovely view of the floor.  It's a bit cattywampus because the wood is a bit warped.  We were reasonably confident it would flatten out after bolting it down.  

So, lots of stuff is missing here.  We moved Flora from Rachel's parents' garage to a location much closer to Ann Arbor.  A friend offered to let us keep the trailer and work on it in her heated barn.  It has made the process so much easier.  

Unfortunately, we picked the only snowy weekend of 2012 to move her.  We rented a moving truck with an auto hauler and went to pick up Flora and all the parts we hadn't attached yet.  Got stuck in the driveway (twice picking her up and once dropping her off).  

We finished the floor, built the drop-down floor and bolted the whole thing down.  Put two coats of Herculiner underneath.  

Here is the floor with part of the Marmoleum tile installed.  This is Rachel's first attempt at laying a tile floor (anywhere).  It went reasonably well considering the frame is crooked, which means the floor is crooked, which means it's really hard to lay straight-edge tile in a straight line.  

And here is the floor with the tile installed and partially trimmed out.  Still need to get the cove molding for the drop down. (And notice that the floor did flatten out after it's bolted down.)

In between all of this, we built the street-side wall.  Here it is, stained and varnished.  

That's it for now!  Until next time (and hopefully not too long) - Rachel & Gail

More work, more stuff

It’s been a few weeks since our last posting and we have done a lot.  Where we last left off, Gail and I had removed the windows and doors, stripped out the inside cabinets and rotten wood.  

 No Door Flora

We were back at it July 31^st.  It was so incredibly hot, especially climbing around on scaffolding attempting to remove as many of the screws as possible, chipping at the silicone caulk, putty, tar and whatever else was used in an effort to seal the roof seam.  

 Putty, putty and more putty

 Removing stubborn screws

Gail worked along all of the edge seams until we could lift off the skin in pieces.   

 Back skin gone

We got the roof off and then, watching the walls sway in the very light wind, we figured those needed to come off too. 

Basically, we were left with flat Flora.   

Flat Flora

We covered her up and left her to rest for a while.

Until next time,


Rachel & Gail

Finding cool stuff

We discovered that if you look through all of the drawers in various bins throughout the antique stores in Bay City, you will find some pretty cool stuff.  Here are a couple of hinges and a few drawer/door pulls we found over the July 4th weekend.

Gail is very patient when it comes to searching for things like this.  I just get squirreled (this is a reference to Up) by all of the other shiny objects and weird things that are found in antique stores.

Yep.  It's a skeleton (with a skull between its legs).

 What can I say?  This is pretty eye-catching.

We purchased this great Standard Skotch water jug with an amber glass liner.  It's not exactly in keeping with the interior designs we are thinking about, but for $8 I couldn't pass it up.

 

 Standard Skotch water jug

We also found this toaster that is identical to the one Rachel's mom has had for 40+ years.

Might be worth just keeping this one at home!

Speaking of interior designs, we have been looking at retro flooring, retro fabric, retro counter tops, retro, retro, retro.  The one thing I've noticed is that things that were pretty darn ugly in the 60's are still pretty darn ugly today.  However, there are some great on-line sites where we've looked at lots of samples and even ordered a few.  I'll post some pictures when the samples show up.  We found some commercial flooring we like at Home Depot. 

We got a lot of work done on Flora on July 4th, but we didn't manage to get any pictures.  I was busily snapping lots of pictures (do digital cameras "snap?") and then, later, when Gail picked up the camera, she said, "I guess you didn't see where the screen says there's no memory card..."  Uh, yeah, I didn't see that.  There are advantages to actually reading the messages that pop up on the camera.  I am usually the sign/screen/directions/fine print reader, but not this time.

It was really hot so we got as much done inside her as we could in the morning.  We pulled out the cabinets and what remained of the benches, plus the front and back windows.  Remarkably enough, the more we take off Flora the better she looks.  No, really, she does. 

This is the front left side with the two windows removed.

Last Saturday (July 16th), we were back at work, finishing removing the bed/couch, linoleum, the remaining window and the roof vent.  There is something definitely wrong when you can unscrew the fasteners from the inside. 

Roof vent removed (inside)

The roof vent removed (outside)

 

Here is the can partly full of the screws we removed in one day.

Many Scotty owners note that they pull hundreds and hundreds of staples.  Well, we're pulling drywall screws, hex head screws and square drive screws.  A few nails are mixed in there, too.  Most of the screws we removed weren't fastened into anything more than rotten wood.  Some of them were so rusted, the heads just broke off.  For a couple of weeks, we have debated whether we can save the floor.  No.

Left back corner floor

  This is definitely a complete tear down.

Out the back window (notice the big gap in the support piece - completely rotted)

The last person to "fix" Flora's leaks decided that caulk, window putty and silicone would work. 

 

Check out the putty and caulk used along the door frame

Next is to remove the trim (more drywall screws) and the top skin.  Then we'll deal with removing the sides.

Until next time.  - Rachel and Gail

Flora the Explorer Comes Home

Gail and I have been considering purchasing a camper for a while now.  We both have done the backpacking thing and decided it would be much better on our backs and bones to have a bed to sleep in off the ground.  

We considered new campers but had become smitten with the older "canned hams" of the 50's and 60's.  There are some pretty sweet refurbished trailers out there and I think looking at some pictures sparked our sense of adventure.  Besides, we needed a new project.

Last weekend (June 19, 2011), Gail found  an ad for a 1962 Serro Scotty Sportsman for sale in Gladwin, about two and a half hours from Ann Arbor.  She called and to make a long story short, we went and took a look. 

 It was love at first sight. (That's Rachel's dad checking Flora out.) 

 Front view

We wrote a check and went home to get ready for our new arrival.

We had a hitch put on the Subaru. Somehow thinking about towing a trailer with my 90 HP VW made my toes curl. We did some research on Scotty trailers, found that the dry weight of the Sportsman is 975 pounds and checked to see that this is well within the towing limits for the Subie.

We drove to Gladwin Saturday morning and got all hooked up.  The lights worked!  Woo hoo! 

For vintage campers (probably cars, too), if there is no title, you have to provide a bill of sale and trailer weight in order to get it registered with the state.  So, we went off down the road to Krompetz Feed Store.  I pulled the Subie and the trailer around the building and pulled onto the scale.  Once the car’s rear wheels were off the edge of the scale, I stopped.  Remember how the dry weight is (supposed to be) 975 pounds?  The trailer weighed in at 1,240 pounds!  What the hell?  Fortunately, the Subie can still pull that much and off we went.  We mulled over why this trailer was so much heavier than it was supposed to be and thought it could be the table support plus wood that was used for repairs. 

On her way home!

My parents are generously allowing us to park the trailer in their yard while we work on it.  We arrived at their house at about 2:00, barely scraping the towing tongue on the driveway.  I wasn’t in the mood to try to turn around and back the trailer across the lawn, so I drove all the way around the house to the side yard and parked the trailer. 

We didn’t have any major plans to do much work after we got the trailer set up (except we had brought tools, an extension cord, work gloves, work clothes, dust and mold masks…).  But then we opened up the door, stepped inside, and decided that we needed to get part of the interior ripped out to help with the mold smell.  We knew the trailer was damp and figured we’d help the drying process along. Gail started in the back, I started in the front.  

 Front interior

 The "kitchen"

The back couch/bed area (won't be sleeping here)

Gail pulled off the wood interior, and then pulled off some Styrofoam insulation.  The pieces were waterlogged.  I took out the dinette table and the left side bench seat.  I accidentally poked my screwdriver into the wood at the base of the front where it meets the floor and water spurted out!  Gail pulled out the linoleum which was on top of the original floor and there was a huge puddle underneath. 

So, we have figured out that the dry weight is, indeed, 975 pounds.  We not only hauled the trailer but also an additional 265 pounds in water from Gladwin to Grand Blanc.  When you convert the water from weight to volume, 265 pounds = 33 1/8 gallons.  

We have named her Flora the Explorer.  Gail and I will be blogging about our adventures in restoring her to her rightful glory.

Until our next posting - Rachel & Gail