In the delightful hit animated movie "Cars",
Tow Mater, according to Wikipedia, is inspired by a 1951 International Harvester tow truck, and claims to be the world's best backwards driver!
This is good news. As a bumper pull trailer, especially one of short wheel base, it's always good, to be good, at backing up good. Avoiding trees and rocks and posts and stuff, in a back-in camping spot for instance.
And he's rust orange. That makes things easier too. And what's in a name? I say Tow-Mater, you saw Tow-Motto, he say Tow-Matter, she say Tow-Mado. It's semantics. But it's important!
So since "Tow Mater" is taken, I'm leaning toward "Tow-Mater", with a hyphen. But there's also "Tow' Mater" or "Tow 'Mater" with apostrophes, like I do with Lil' Queeny or Lil' Willy (although neither one of those makes any sense).
In grade school, I had to write David P. on my papers, because there was a David V. Nobody ever told me I could use Dave. I had to find out that on my own! It's important stuff, I tell you, important stuff!
My Dad used to say, "you can call me whatever you want, just don't call me late for supper".
Whatever else you can say, Tow-Mater is old - well older. And as any of us over age 30 knows, as you age, maintenance and repairs become more important. RVs are people too! (Hey, if corporations can be people, then RVs can be people.) They can come out of the factory all shiny and fresh and smelling good, until they start eating solids that is. Then you have to use fresheners and other creams.
But eventually, if RVs have questionable genetics, or too much sugar and processed food in their diet and not enough vegetables and fruits, they fall apart, just like people (and then expect extended warranty coverage - ha!).
And when an old person has need for a new hip for instance, or a knee, you don't just go in and strip out all their bones, you just go in and fix the knee! Yes, you have to go inside. I postulate that someday we'll have technology that allows us to get into various parts of our RVs and fix them with tiny cameras and lasers. Until then, we'll just have to continue using duct tape, bailing wire - and a bigger hammer.
I pulled down the press to see how it worked. Note the bit of glue smear on the wax paper - left side.
Here's a close up of the smear on the wood, after a bit-o-sanding.
Zoom out a bit, barely noticeable. But I did sand it all out. Wood glue doesn't take stain well. Filler is almost as bad! I have come to start my wood filler sanding with a damp sponge first and sanding later. Makes it much easier.
But the repair bond was excellent, and I began into the interior sanding and panel prep for finish, before adding in the filler pieces, so as to save the finish on the fillers.
Hey I had to work inside - the wind came up. It wasn't supposed to be windy today, but we had the wind advisory anyway, and I didn't want to work on the framing while the siding flapped around tearing itself more - and my flesh, so I kept it all secured with the scaffolding.
So I took the entire wall as a work area, between the back wall of the camper, and the new galley wall. This is a four foot (or so) panel with a seam and additional length at the rear in the form of piecing, a portion of which I was replacing. From the ceiling, to the floor (or the bench work), I started out all the really rough spots with the large wire brush.
After a good scrubbing with wire (just like people bathing), I got the smaller steel and brass wire brushes and did some more (just like people brushing teeth), to finish up clearing some of those hard to reach places, you know?
Thereafter it was 60 grit paper, tri-folds and by hand, just like a wash cloth in the shower. Then down to 100 grit, and finally a nice smoothing of 220 grit, with a comparison to rinsing off the soap!
Then I wet the wood - for two reasons. First I wanted to prevent the filler from drying too fast by having the dry wood absorb the filler's moisture content too quickly. And second, there were lifted veneer areas I was hoping to wet so I could press wood glue into the surface grain and roll it down flat like I did with the wall cabinet repair.
That didn't work as well as I had hoped, so we'll live with the bumps and call it patina, or give it some more attention when I pull the window.
Oh you need the visual?
I set to work on installing the filler pieces.
Here's the spot, and as I look, I can't tell if the bottom sliver has been removed yet or not (bifocals), so we'll just have to do it by feel.
Now with the repair pieces fastened. Note I scrounged decorative twist nails for the visual edge and staples where the seam trim will cover.
Now what about that other side? By the galley. We have the Tow-Mater Soup Red colored bead-board ready to put up, and the two smaller pieces, remember those? The two smaller pieces? Now is the time to cut out the existing paneling to place those.
Break out the
Multi-Max (I got that a few years ago when I started Lil' Queeny and it's been such a handy tool).
After making my marks (measure twice, cut once), we started into this.
The idea here is to continue the "directly behind the galley counter, and above the back-splash" bead-board treatment, up to, but not including, the bunk area. Because the bunk area is for sleeping, not food-prep - so it needs to take on the appearance of a sleeping area, not a food prep area.
And here, above the bunk area, is the "behind the wall cabinet area", you know, kitchen stuff: food prep, galley, continuation of the right-side back-wall of the kitchen cupboards.
Added note: While here, and with portions of the wall open, I took advantage of pulling out the old 14 gauge wiring (from the electrical inlet, to the upper wall cabinet, where the fuse box was originally fastened). I replaced it with new 12/2WG (12 gauge two conductor with ground) for a small electrical upgrade. We'll discuss that upgrade later, after we talk to Tow-Mater's Heart Specialist.
So here's the lower spot. I took note of the framing locations for staple placement.
And the upper.
Which puts us here.
And gives us this.
And with the exception of pulling the window for best access, that wall is ready for stain. Just like that after-shower lotion rub-down. You do that right? Oh - you don't know what you're missing!
One last thing. While working this area, I knelt hard on one spot of the slide-out sofa bed foundation and cracked this support board. Made a new one and got that replaced quick before anybody saw. I felt better it was a knot, and not so likely about my weight.
