The Bathtub Back!

Well, it's been a quiet few days with the trailer. After my csr breakdown, I ended up spending much of the weekend at a reenactment, though I did fit in time to do one more window. Generally, it was nice to take a break, to catch up with friends (who think I am a bit obsessive in my push to finish this) and to review work plans.

Yesterday, Rick picked up the bathtub from the restorer. As it turned out, when we started really looking at the tub carefully, the little gash I had restored on the tub surface was actually a big crack in the back. It was caused by the tub being installed with blocks of wood at one side to slant the tub so the lowest point was the drain hole. The problem with this set up was that there was no bottom support for the fiberglass in between the blocks and the low point--so it cracked, probably multiple times. It ended up being hard to find a fiberglass shop that would handle that repair. The shop did a good job with the crack repair, shot a very nice epoxy paint layer, but I am disapointed that they didn't sand beyond the repair area (I suppose all my sanding efforts were not in vain, it looks pretty good). Honestly, I still think I could have done a better job, had I owned the spray equipment and a dedicated painting space. Still, the tub looks much better than the average tub in a vintage unit. It looks especially lovely sitting in the middle of our living room!

We're in a spell of wet weather right now, which is causing holdups for most of the jobs I want to do now. My largest priority is to remove the rest of the windows to restore them in a bulk fashion. I finally figured out how to remove the glass relatively safely from the windows, but its a slow process, so I want to do a bunch at the same time to move things along. I also want to get out to the window repair shop, but that's something I'm going to have to work out with my boss.

Meanwhile, I am still trying to figure out what is causing the leak on the side of the trailer (over where the old fiberglass repair was). I replaced the window, it's nice and tight, but the bellypan slowly got wet again from the rain. The other thing that might be a leak at the fiberglass skylight filter near there. That may have problems, but I won't know until I get up on the roof, hopefully this weekend.

By the way, I have to add a disclaimer on an earlier posting, since members of my family are now giving my mother a tough time about washing my mouth out with soap. My grandmother Gigi did it! Mom was great--she sympathized with my sad plight, then asked me if the experience left me with any future flavor preferences for soap!