28. Visitor from Hollywood

We had a distinguished guest in the shop today. Sheri Galloway stopped by to measure our progress. Sheri is a big-shot movie mogul in L.A., currently working as an editor on the upcoming animated movie "Curious George". She was in town for the Thanksgiving weekend, and we showed her the cultural high points of the Texas Panhandle which include these trailers, and the black velvet bullfighter painting on the shop wall.

We asked her to use her contacts to arrange for us to get our own teardrop-trailer-building cable TV show. She said she'd take it under advisement, but for us not to call her, she'll call us.

27. Alpha hatch fitup

Joe continues to set the pace with the Alpha Model. Last night we test fitted the hatch onto the body. It looks terrific.

Ron experiments with buffing out the aluminum skin, while I finished up the interior insulation on the Charlie Model.

26. Portlights

This is a pair of brand new portlights that I bought on eBay. They came in yesterday. They have tinted glass with screens and they open and close. They come with the trim rings. They are overall 20" x 9 3/4" and the hole size required is 17 7/8" x 7 3/4". They have never been installed. I gave $119 for the pair. These are very similar to the Bomer portlight like Ron used on his trailer. They are Italian made by Stampaggio E Costruzioni Meccaniche and appear to be pretty high quality.

Ron used one portlight in the back wall of his trailer. I'm going to put these on the doors of mine instead of the sliding RV style windows.

25a. Alpha

Joe has the roof pinned on the Alpha Model. The interior walls and ceiling are done and his galley and hatch are almost finished.

25b. Bravo

Ron has almost finished his galley. He used birch plywood on the walls and hardwood floors. The table is "Aqua Boomerang Formica", and looks pretty classy with the chrome and stainless stuff that he's using throughout the trailer. The oval portlight is from a marine supplier and looks really nautical and swings open and has "dog" closures like on a ship. We finished laying up the hull liner on the roof and back wall inside. We're all using this hull liner for the interior. It's like a lightweight carpet material, and it's just like the stuff found in boat and yacht interiors.

We are thinking about starting a new age bluegrass band called "Aqua Boomerang Formica".

25c. Charlie

Today I got the interior frame strips installed, and Ron helped me put the fender bolts and blind nuts in. I'm still way behind Alpha and Bravo.

24. Nice jugs

Somebody sent me some pictures of this trailer from the internet. I think this was on eBay. We don't have anything to do with this trailer. I don't know anything about it, and I'm not really an OU fan or anything, but it appeals to me somehow so I thought I'd go ahead and post these pictures here.

Oh yeah, also here is a picture of two really cool vintage thermos jugs that Ron got on eBay. Pretty nice, huh?

23. Fall cleaning

The shop was getting very dusty, so this morning Ron and Joe pulled the teardrops out and used a leaf blower to clean out the shop. They cleared out all the construction materials and found time to play a little pinball.

22. Roof vent

I'm at the point where I have to decide whether to install the roof vent fan or not. I may leave it off of the Charlie Model if I can get opening door windows because I like the clean look without the vent fan assembly. Also, it would be one less thing to leak. On the other hand, more ventilation might be a good thing after an evening of dutch oven chili, beans and beer. What do you think?