We lost another star of the 1972 music scene this week, with Eagles’ guitarist Glenn Frey’s passing. Their track Take It Easy off of their self-titled album from ’72 is ranked in the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and it was played many times during the restoration of our Shasta. We’ll share this live recording of the song from Central Park in that magical year, and won’t let the sound of our own wheels make us crazy.
We were very sad to learn of David Bowie’s passing today. His iconic album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, was released in 1972, and we spent hours listening to it while working on the Shasta.
The hits of 1972 just keep on coming! This week, we’ve got the Paul Simon classic, Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard. The sentiment “I’m on my way, don’t know where I’m going” accurately conveys the feeling of working on the Shasta most days 🙂
While we had some time at home away from the Shasta, we touched up a few accessories– the curtain valances and the refrigerator shelves both had a serious need for a fresh coat of paint.
This rusty refrigerator shelf is a little less than appetizing.
The shelves originally had a white rubberized coating, but it had shrunk and cracked over time. The metal beneath rusted, and the whole situation was a mess. It took a lot of elbow grease and scraping to get the wire shelves down to the metal, but they eventually were cleaned and ready for spray painting. The nice even white coat looked great!
This rusty valance holder could use a new look!
The valances had rusted a bit too, and we wanted them to look good with the new curtains. After a pass with steel wool, it was time to paint.
The gold spray paint wasn’t exactly the same shade as the original, but it was a huge improvement! It was great to have a task for the Shasta that only took a day to complete.
A solar powered tiki light string along the edge of the awning really looked great.
Safe travels, monarch!
Well, it’s October 1, and I think we can officially say goodbye to summer. We’re sad to have put our Shasta away for the season, but maybe now we’ll actually have some time to update this blog regularly! When we went to tow the trailer into the barn after the long Labor Day weekend, we noticed a monarch chrysalis had made her home on the back bumper. We left her there – we hope she’s flying down to Mexico by now, looking for more summer sun. Here’s to crisp fall evenings, crunchy leaves underfoot, and finally finishing up our story of trailer repair on a regular basis!
We’re taking a little break from updating while we spend some time camping in the Shasta over the long Labor Day weekend – we hope you all have a great holiday! We’ll be back with some nice photos to share. She’s looking fantastic and we are enjoying the trailer life!
Getting the roof back on was damn near impossible. The sides had been tough at times, but it always felt like we were going to succeed eventually. The roof, on the other hand, nearly defeated us.
The roof was the most difficult obstacle to overcome.
At first, it didn’t seem like it was going to be too difficult. We planned to nail down the roof along the curbside from back to front, then do the streetside. It fit on before, so logically, it would fit on again. The curbside did go on reasonably quickly, and we made sure that we had it lined up correctly because we were able to match up the original holes in the skin and the wood. Once we started working on the streetside, we saw that the roof didn’t overlap the sides in most places. We pushed down and tried to flatten it out, which helped a little, but we were well short of getting it back in its original position.
We tried stretching the roof, pulling on it from one side and pushing from the other, and managed to get a few more nails in. Still, it was far from a good fit. We hooked up two ratchet straps and tried squeezing the frame together, thinking that it had spread more than we thought when it had been disassembled, but had to stop when the boards creaked ominously with the roof no closer. It actually seemed like the strap made the very top of the frame splay out as it was compressed closer to the center of the boards.
We had set aside an entire long weekend to reattach the roof, and after spending all day Friday and Saturday working on it, we were further behind than when we started. We had to take the roof off and try getting both sides on at once, starting in the back and alternating sides. We gathered all of our available helpers together on Sunday, and pushed the frame together from the sides. We had three people on the scaffolding on each side of the trailer pressing the roof down, and one person running back and forth to nail it down. Every nail was a struggle. After hours of effort, we managed to get the last section of roof to overlap the side and secured it. It took all weekend, but we finally triumphed over the skin, and could start replacing the windows.
Last week I posted Rocketman by Elton John – a song I said I couldn’t get enough of. This song is the opposite! I know it’s a classic – it’s just that, after hearing it a hundred times working on the trailer, I could probably never hear it again. Even though this is a great live version. Who am I kidding? I love this song.
When the pieces matched up, it was magical.
No, skin replacement wasn’t a medical procedure needed as a result of a power tool mishap. We finally had all of the bad wood replaced, and the next step involved putting the aluminum skin back on the front, rear, and sides of the trailer. It felt good to be putting her back together!
We used non-galvanized stainless steel nails and staples to reattach the skin to the wood frame, working in the reverse order in which we had removed the large sheets. Remember, galvanized stainless steel doesn’t play nice with aluminum. As we matched the aluminum skin to the original locations, we saw that they must have originally cut it to fit, leaving a tiny bit of overlap between the front and sides, and virtually no overlap at the rear. The edges of the skin aligned perfectly with the edges of the wood frame, leaving no wiggle room.
So close, and yet so far. We needed this to line up exactly.
Most of the sections went on easily, but as we reached the rear on the curbside, we couldn’t get the skin to line up with the replaced frame. We had replaced both board that formed the back corner, and the frame had shifted slightly while they were off. We pushed, squeezed, and grunted, but the frame was about a half inch longer than the skin. After fighting with it all day, we eventually conceded that it needed to be taken apart and reset, and dismantled the corner. Pushing the frame together as hard we we could, we screwed the boards in position again, and this time, we were able to align the skin with the frame, more or less.
It’s starting to look less like a cabin and more like a trailer!
With the sides on, it looked a lot more like a trailer again. The roof needed to be set back in place next, and we hoped that it would be an easier fit than the sides, now that the frame was in the correct position. Spoiler alert– the roof was the worst.
Maybe it took people a few years to process men landing on the moon – whatever the reason, 1972 had a couple of space themed hits, this track and Bowie’s Starman. I don’t ever get tired of this song!
1972 Shasta 1400 