Jason is back from his training finally and can get back to work helping me build this stupid camper! 🙂 yay!

Here’s what it looks like right now.

So, we’re trying to decide whether to paint the roof white or color match it gray.

I also did the final paint on the inside of the roof. I had to put on my sunglasses because it was blindingly white in the sun! 😮

Like a beacon…

The thing that Jason really wanted to do today was to work on the lift mechanism that he designed for the roof.  I mentioned in a previous post that we bought boat bimini cover hardware and copper tubing.  I was hesitant because this was not the cheap option, but Jason was right; it looks amazing!!!

Nice!
I will be polishing those copper pipes!
One of the aft attachment points
Here’s one end popped up!

We also went to the metal supply place (Pacific Welding, for those of you in Bremerton! They’re so nice there!) and got some aluminum angle for the gasket sealing surfaces, canvas attachment, and to hide some of the sharp edges of fiberglass that we just can’t seem to get rid of!

It’ll go here!

I ended up not wanting to tackle anything major on my list today and instead wanted to stain the countertop and matching table.  The other day I took a chunk of steel wool and vinegar and tossed it into a jar to make my own DIY wood stain.  (Thanks again, Pinterest!) It was supposed to “weather” the wood and make it grayed out like old barnwood.

That’s pretty gross looking.

The other day I hit the table with my torch to do a Shuo Sugi Ban finish.  It was cool looking, but not what I had in mind. It looks like really interesting butcher block… but I didn’t want butcher block.

boring

The stain goes on just like dirty water and I didn’t think it was going to do anything (most of my experiments fail anyway, so that wouldn’t have been a surprise…) but I turned my back for 5 minutes and the wood turned into this!

That was QUICK!!!!
That looks gorgeous with the copper!!

The color is kind of a cool hued purple.  Not at all what I expected but I kind of like it! I did a test panel on the back of the countertop with no burning applied and it just wasn’t as interesting… so the countertop gets torched also!

half and half is kinda cool too… but we’re not done!
After the first coat of stain. Looks like normal dark stained wood.
I’m currently really liking that! It will get a gloss finish once it’s trimmed up and ready to install!

In quite a drastic turn of events, the sun is gone and it’s actually pretty chilly outside right now! We could have gotten a little more done, but it’s cold!

The paint really brightens the interior up a lot! I can’t wait to see it with the rest of everything painted!

We may have to take a little break from the camper this weekend to work on building the structure that’s going to lift it on and off the truck, and to level out a spot to park it so we don’t fiberglass the interior in crooked!