Today - Remove damaged ceiling paneling - both sides at curved roof line. Add six additional roof support stringers.
If you look close in that last photo, you'll see a cut line in the ceiling panel, in what appears to be kind of far, back inboard. And in the two pics prior to that, pencil lines on the ceiling from the inside. That's where we're taking out ceiling panel. That much? Yup. Here's the vision.
Especially on the galley, street side, but also at the low curve on the curbside, right above the entry door, there is significant ceiling damage in the paneling. Originally, we had planned on first stabilizing it (glue treatment and sanding smooth), then after Gunstock color stain, using a dark Bombay Mahogany tinted poly over the entire ceiling, to hide the black (which may - or may not - have been able to come out using bleach or acid) at those places, and in a few minor other places along the ceiling edge.
But all along, I wasn't sure I wanted to go that dark, especially on the ceiling. I'm thinking, without the cream trim as found in Lil' Queeny, the overall effects might be too dark.
Above the galley wall cabinet, we had to do something with a shelf above the cabinet - forward of the lower curve - anyway, why not continue it on further to the ceiling panel seam and make it an extended shelf? Then duplicate it somewhat on the curbside, for storage space, visual balance, and of course, repair and reinforcement.
So I planned, marked and cut.
Here at street side, note the small square of wall paneling, just forward of the bead-board, also came out - that will hold another orange board for a visual continuation of the new shelf back wall.
On curbside, I haven't yet decided on the same orange bead-board, but maybe. I think leaving the orange in the galley might be best, and another color choice over here above the door, but we'll see.
The ceiling panels must be flexible, more so - I found, than the 1/8" wood fiber panels I test-bent, especially bead-board, which wants to crack at the lines. In our dry area (low humidity), it didn't seem like it would bend well enough - I wanted good structure, but great flexibility, and we'll get into that tomorrow.
More importantly right now, the framework.
I was really surprised by the lack of framing in this curved area. I would venture a guess that Roadrunner had only gone to the cab-over style in this year (1964) or very recently, and had not yet worked out the bugs of the change of structure from a simple canned ham round with no top-plate transition. Later years either dropped the new style all together, or probably came up with more stringers for support. My solution is more stringers too.
Here are the three new 1 by's I selected from the standard grade - $1.89 each.
From which I made six 1x2s. These aren't 1x2 in the 1.5" width sense; these copied the original boards on this camper in that I made them just under 1.75" wide.
My layout is like this. One more at top, two in the slope, and three side-by-side at the lower curve for a full rounded support about five full inches in width through the curve.
Left side.
And right side.
So, let's talk details.
On left side, the new top plate transition had a height allowing perfect fit of an 1/8" panel thickness, the 3/4" stringer height, and then roof. Note the small spacing tool made of paneling.
On the right side, a little greater gap.
Liquid nails?
Back at left side.
Here too, the top surface of new - and old - left side stringers got a groove for the new ceiling wire.
Stepping back.
In some of the pictures, the new ceiling cut-out appears very long. These pictures show it's much shorter distance than you would think.
Here's the effect top-side.
To fasten the three stringers together in a curve, I wanted to attach them to each other on their top surface, but allow the bottom to stretch, like my jeans. Since I had used up the last of my aluminum flashing, I grabbed another object from my stash - I do stuff with old dryer vent.
On this left side, I placed it over the wire channel.
Now, let's make the puzzle piece for this spot.
With stringers removed, here's where we're working.
First I cut my thickness.
Then the length of the piece.
That's one part of this piece.
Here's the second part.
Glued and held to dry with staples, and in place as shown above.
And from below.
That center stringer knot? Surface only. Looks way worse than it is. I placed it such, to take advantage of crown, for a small bow upward roof-side.
On the right side, the filler will be original style, as the top plate lap joint is acceptable.
But on the higher and forward segment...
this lap joint is coming out and the filler board will be built in one length, like the cedar board fix a few days ago. It will be one board with several fillers and the replaced lap joint edge. We'll see that soon.
