Preparing To Cut Out The Service Opening
While cleaning up the trailer’s rear frame last week, the process of chipping away the old paint on the metal framing to become a fresh canvas was extremely satisfying. Now that I know what the frame has the potential to look like, I am going overboard and wanting to do this on the whole of the interior.
BREAKING NEWS: I have arranged for The Traveling Pheasant’s service window to be cut out next week! This is the huge step for the mobile coffee bar I have been waiting for, and I can’t wait!
In preparation for the service window, I want to touch up and prepare that side of the trailer for its extreme makeover. In my mind, I wanted to have the side as complete as possible so that the only thing left to do was to make the cut.
Oh, the best laid plans….
I began on the upper most horizontal bar, working my way down with attempting to scrape way the decades old paint. Like all things, I hit a roadblock again with some strange sticky areas, the way I had with the exterior ramp door.
The frame before beginning work today:
When the paint scrapper was no longer cutting it, I tried the paint stripper again – when will I learn!? It had only a marginal effect on loosening the goo and ended up being more work just like before. I had to wash it off and dry the metal, making a clean enough surface to sand down the rest.
It was a tedious process attempting to get into the nooks and crannies and working with the curved ceiling. I was grateful that I had the small detail attachment for the mouse hand sander! The renovation would not be complete like I hoped, but I will come back to this again when we finish the opening and install the awning.
After paint stripper, scraping and sanding:
During one of the breaks, I stood back and looked at my hard-won progress and thought whether or not I should even be putting in the effort to clean up most of this area when, in the end, it will be finished with plywood.
I’m going with yes (to make myself feel better) for two reasons. First, I still not entirely sure where the covering will begin and end and there is the possibility that some of the metal is still exposed. In that case, I didn’t want to have to go back and polish off areas when I had moved on to the next phase of the project. This way, everything would be in its finished state as needed.
Secondly, I find comfort in knowing that behind the wall, the bones of this new venture are clean, preserved and sealed to lengthen its lifespan even further. Call it my flaw in being overly detail oriented but the thought of just covering up a problem that continues to rot out of sight is just too unsettling.
Up next, was to build out the framing for the service opening. This would also serve as our template for cutting and guidance for the saw blade. I enlisted the help of my stepdad again to bust out the saw.
With the frame cut and laid out, the vision was becoming more real and that soon, a gaping hole would soon be missing from the side of the trailer!
However, before we launch Operation Window, I am determined to finish the barn doors before demo day. Stay tuned for my next post on Thursday to see how I get on.
Your meticulous coffee servant,
Heather
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