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Hope asks how she can help with the Airstream every time I head out to work on it and the day finally came when she could help paint! She loves painting and she loved being able to paint with the big roller. Eventually I let her take over with the brush work and she had a great time. Jonathan, William, Emma, and Faith all took turns applying one or more of the three coats it took to cover the strong brown color of the hardboard and pegboards.
 Later that afternoon, I came back out with a paintbrush and added white to the wrap around stripe across the back of the Airstream. It's just a little extra color but it really makes the Thunderbird blue pop! 
We started the day with Jonathan's last soccer game for the season and his soccer team celebration and then it was back to the Airstream to finish some wall patches and get the Route 104 Science airstream ready to come home for painting. With rain on the forecast for the next three to four days, we wanted to make the most of our last hot sunny day to paint the exterior.
After pressure washing and scrubbing the outside, we let the 105 degree air temperature dry the Airstream off for us. Then Faith and I worked out a deal where I would tape and she would roll the paint on. Although its not exactly Thunderbird Blue, Behr's Azure Lake looks close enough to my mom's Thunderbird blue to work as a memorial.
We worked all week installing one sheet after another, cutting holes for electric outlets and windows. Slowly but surely, we found a home for all 11 sheets of pegboard and 9 sheets of hardboard along the interior walls of the Route 104 Science airstream.
William came out and helped install some pegboards and replace the weather seal on two windows. Jonathan got a chance to work with a new tool, the oscillating multi-tool, to trim up the edges of pegboard along the windows.    Our next steps are to finish installing outlets, install the interior lights, and paint the outside and inside.
The Route 104 Science airstream is starting to look more like a space station as we worked to finish installing the insulation in both end caps. Our next step was to install the interior walls. We decided to go with peg board for the main side walls for its flexibility, cost, and functionality. We envision making great use of the peg holes to change what and how we hang tools, signs, or other materials on the side walls. For example, if we are using screwdrivers, and hammers for a program or event, we can use specialty hooks to hold these in an accessible place while we use different hooks on a different part of the wall to hold signs with important information about safety or about the science behind different types of fasteners. 
We used clecos (small "place holders" for rivets) to hold the peg boards in place until we knew they were completely against the interior ribs and that the peg boards were ready to be installed in their final position.
We clamped some hardboard in place to compare how it could be used as interior walls. At this juncture, we are looking at the hardboard for the endcaps and the peg board for the main side walls.
 I hope it is as exciting for you as it is for us to see the Route 104 Science airstream's final form taking shape. Our goal is to finish installing the interior walls by early next week. Our next post should also include a sneak peak of the exterior accent paint color!
It's the end of the week and we finished installing the foamboard insulation along both of the main walls. We still have the center of the roof and the two curved endcaps but we will definitely start installing walls this next week! Thank you again to all those who have supported us on this Airstream renovation with their encouraging words, time, and financial gifts. If you would like to join our group of supporters, sign up for our newsletter and consider purchased some of our custom Route 104 Science t-shirts ($18).  |
authorKenneth Fleming Archives
August 2022
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