Advances all around

The first thing I did was to try to replace the film on the back window. Clearly I didn't take enough care because the film suddenly started folkding in on itself and sticking to itself. After trying vainly to untangle it in a very hot bus while it became ever more stuck and entangled, I gave in to the inevitable and threw that piece away. The next piece went on brilliantly. I suspect the problem was that rather than preparing it next to the window, I'd prepared it further away and the motion of moving it halfway down the bus had set it swinging into catastrophe. It was amplified by the fact that piece was rather large and hence more prone to problems. My fault and not the fault of the film nor the supplier.

The end result looks excellent as I'm sure you'll agree. I have a feeling though that the water could do with a little more soap. I'll have to attend to that when I do my next windows. The first set of side windows have bubbles. I'm not really sure whether it's worth doing but out of duty, I might. I like to keep my best foot forward.

After the window and a break, I took the cupboard door I made and trimmed off the excess hardboard then sanded the edges. I did think about hinges but today's task was drawers.

The new 16 inch drawer runner was installed fairly quickly then the base of the drawer. I did have an idea of retarding one of the drawers because it protrudes too far but I never got to that.

The two bottom drawers sides and backs were large and could not be built using 1x4 which was rather a good thing seeing as how my remaining piece of 2x4 is about 8 inches long! Thus they had to be cut from plywood. I'm slowly working my way through my plywood supply. The question now is whether I use the large piece of plywood as a bedroom table and use scraps for the drawer fronts or build drawer fronts and find something else for the bedroom table.

Building the drawer backs and sides was not easy as I don't have a jig. My solution was to pre cut all the pieces then to pre drill some holes then glue everything and while the tackiness of the glue held everything together, completed drilling the holes, inserting screws as I went. It all seemed to work quite well.

I'll be the first to say I'm not a carpenter and that my carpentry displays this but even the most cynical skeptic has to admit that I've taken on a massive project and that I'm achieving my goals.

Tomorrow will be all about mounting cabinet doors, making drawer fronts and attaching them. Indeed, this might evev take a few days!

Thrashed by the heat

The day started with my having little inclination for carpentry so I set to and installed film over two window panes. This went well as I seem to have mastered the art of doing it. I kept the offcuts thinking that I might try putting two pieces together on one of the shower windows.

The next thing was to rework two of the three drawers I did yesterday. They didn't slide easily. Now they do. I did intend to install 4 drawers on the other side but I was short of a 16 inch drawer slide. Still, 3 drawers were installed. They all need sides backs, fronts, handles and latches (it IS a motorhome). One doesn't slide easily yet but with a little work tomorrow, it should.

I did notice that some of my drawers done today aren't quite level. I'll have to see if they're off enough to merit working on them. I suspect they're passable though I do like to try to get things right whenever possible.

Not feeling like working more on the drawers having noticed an error, I looked at where I need to put the final cupboard door. I have a policy of doing something different if I make an error. Working on correcting errors when tired makes them worse.

It was 97 in the bus today and if been out for too long. Looking at where the cupboard door needs to go, I needed an extra vertical beam to mount the hinges. Well, I cut the beam and slipped it into place. Then I realised that to mount the hinges I should have drilled holes and inserted the hinges first. Struggling against the tight fit, I realised I was getting a headache and finding it hard to breathe. I'd been out too long and the heat was thrashing me again.

I headed inside to the cool oif air conditioning and gulped down large quantities of water. This South Carolina heat really slows down progress. If I'd been working on this in Britain, I'd have been done months ago. That's how bad the heat is!