So work on the galley continues with more changes to the refrigerator cabinet. One of the things we notice after seeing how the interior bathroom wall was part of the roof and rounded sidewall support is that the interior wall of the refrigerator cabinet is ALSO a supporting wall of the rounded roof/sidewall - on the left side of the camper.
Part of the cabinet is made up up the camper's front wall of the truck box, and another overlapped piece for the back wall of the cab-over bed area. And we'll get to that, replacing just part of that plywood.
But here today I'll be talking about the left wall of the fridge cabinet while facing the fridge. Looking down low, where that wall meets the wing, there was enough damage (in two pieces of plywood spliced together) that I needed to replace wood there. Here's a picture of what came out of there, and keep in mind this wall makes up the right side of the original propane door access rough opening. The notch was down and outboard. The angle was cut to make the replacement easier. The two pieces were fastened too each other with corrugated steel fasteners. Notice the splits and rot.
These next pictures show just the lower board out, before the angle cut and removing the top piece.
And here is with the upper angled piece removed (cut out).
These next two show the new replacement board in place but unfastened.
Early on I marked for, and debated cutting, holes into this board for utility lines and then decided that wasn't smart. This area behind and under the fridge is open to the outside via the access door for the lower vent. Why would I want holes between there and the under galley cabinet, even behind the range? So I just notched the spot for the 2x2 and left utilities holes for later when I determine exactly what and where.
Here's a shot of test boards spacing out the wall for the left side of the fridge (fairly tight space needed for proper venting across the back side of the fridge). The spacing out is the 3/4" boards, then will be a 1/2" plywood wall, and inside the cavity made by the 3/4" (in essence 1x2s made of plywood) is the propane light run and closer to the exterior wall will be a channel for electrical wiring, etc. up to the left side overhead cabinet. The horizontal board you see is the fridge shelf (which is also the roof of the lowest extra cabinet spot).
If you look close you'll notice in the above photo, the lower angle cut wall board is wider than the board above it. The camper has used 5/8" plywood covered by 1/8" finish paneling throughout. I'm replacing most of such thicknesses with 3/4" ply. This wall was no exception, except that here to the side of the original icebox, they ran out of paneling and didn't complete the panel on this hidden, inside sheet of 5/8". Well, except up toward the top had it. So I simply used 1/8" shims behind my "studs" for that wall in fastening the lower replacement board to the upper wall. Let's see if I can find some pictures.
Yeah here's some. This will be a bunch of pictures showing the process of not only building out that wall, but building the upper and lower shelves. I found I had to build the upper shelf, then measure down from there and set up the fridge shelf, then just keep at it, however felt right. And keep in mind I had to build the utilities channel, and accommodate design as much as possible for a future wider and taller fridge, and leave the right cabinet wall mostly alone so I could access and replace the front camper wall later. All in all it was quite a challenge.
That was a lot of pictures. I hope they tell the thousand words I didn't provide. Note that on the back of they fridge shelf I'll be placing a back wall board for the storage area under the fridge (doubling as a utility channel wall below the fridge). If I go to the larger replacement fridge I'll have to remove that storage area and I'll end up with ONLY 3/4" space above the wing surface; no where near enough for drain or water fill lines. Therefore I'll be getting creative with those water runs right from the get go. But we'll talk about those at a later date.
For now, that's the fridge cabinet. It has been built enough for me to realize where things are and how to build more of the basic camper structure, how to run utilities, etc. Now I'll move on to the camper exterior left wall build and the galley cabinet build and see where things take us. :)
