TinCanDreamN

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. - Oh, The Places You'll Go! This book by Dr. Seuss was a popular with my kids growing up. I love the encouragement and the authentic way that life's ups and downs are portrayed. Realistic when you actually reread the book as an adult or listen to it read to you ( Click here to listen to the book read ). This Youtube version is read by "Professor Burke" of the Farmer's Insurance Company in honor of Dr. Seuss day and it is brilliant.  I think every day should be Dr. Seuss and Mister Rogers Day and the world may be a different place.  As Fred Roger's said, when bad things are happening in the world, focus on the people doing good things, paraphrased but you know what I mean. The balance of these two shaped my childhood and those of my kids. So what does this really have to do with my Airstream restoration? I am going to take you back in time to last su...

Before my T1NCAN found me, I was dream'n and learning about vintage Airstreams. One of the places I found online early on was http://www.airforums.com/. On Air Forums I had to sign up to be able to ask questions so I came up with the handle (online persona) as "TinCanDreamN". I would get an email digest weekly of Q&A's as well as be able to search the classified section on the forum. I would periodically check out what was available to study price, condition, models and location of trailers that were for sale. I have been on Air Forums since 2007! Considering I didn't buy my trailer until October 2017 that is a lot of time seriously dreaming about getting a trailer. Add that to the childhood fascination with wanting to get my own and I am around 40yrs + of dreaming about a vintage trailer. As my interest aged and ahem, matured my love of the vintage trailers remained. I never looked at new trailers with the same interest. My family was aware of this inter...

Staying with my plan to tackle all the outside seams and fixtures that need new caulk and sealing I replaced the vent covers with snazzy, new silver vent covers. When I first showed off my '65 Tradewind to a local owner of the same year/model, he looked at my sad, black PVC vents and said "You know, you can get nice silver covers for those from Vintage Trailer Supply"! I have been thinking and dreaming about them for the past 1 year. I honestly thought that I would wait because there are a few more important things to replace on the unit. But with my shift in mindset this spring, deciding to get the roof in tip top shape, even the little things matter. So in my research online I was surprised to learn that the covers are under $9 each. So replacing the 3 that I need isn't a budget breaker. I will mention that one of my vent stacks was missing the cover completely and could allow water to come in (which may be why my shower drain always has water in the drain line, now...

Two days of sunshine in the forecast so I needed to carpe diem and get caulking! I am not even sure that "caulking" is a verb but I will use it liberally and quite the opposite of how I use caulk. Caulk can go bad in many ways when it comes to sealing all things on an Airstream. There are stories of good trailers being caulked to death by over enthusiastic caulkers. I am certainly no expert but I do pride myself on getting as smooth and small a running bead of caulk as possible. Before I tackled more of the weatherproof sealing on the outside, I needed to order more caulk because there is nothing worse than running out on a perfectly sunny day! The forums are filled with an assortment of "favorite" caulks and one AS owner even published and forwarded to me a handy-dandy cheat sheet for what caulk to use in what area of the AS. All these brands and types of caulk are new to me as I am only familiar with those used for household renovations.  So here is my stas...