The belly of the beast exposed!

Well today was the day!   Time to find out how bad the frame is.... and banish the bellypan.

If you have read my previous posts you know that I'm "not fond" of pink insulation.  I look at the stuff, I itch.... to touch it .... shudder...... I'd rather babysit Sarah Palins children than touch insulation.  Seriously,  I don't know if its the formaldehyde in it or what, but I can't be around it.

My husband of course thinks this is just an excuse to get out of  detaching the bellypan!   Good thing he married me for better or worse cause this counts for the latter.   When we got this Overlander the one thing he said is "I don't mind paying the bills for paying someone to do something you can't... but I REALLY don't want to spend my weekends working on the trailer"

 Guess what he did this weekend?  
 

And he has never looked sexier to me, Yep, love a man who can get his hands dirty ! 

It actually went surprisingly well (for me anyway!) Probably five hours from beginning to end, including cleaning up and a lunch break. 

We used one of these bad boys - an 18 gauge electric sheet metal shears from Harbor Freight Tools.   Getting them at the right angle to cut smoothly took some adjusting... but when they worked, they worked like "Butta"  I'm channeling Paula Dean here, LOL

We had to cut a little lower on the belly pan because otherwise we kept running into the outriggers that were too tight to the belly pan to get the shears to fit.  So after we were done,  we went back and trimmed a little higher. 

Wow,  I keep saying "we" which is totally inaccurate, my DH did it all!  And much of it flat on his back with the shears inches away from his face!  Did I mention how sexy he looked???  Tyvek suit, goggles and gloves,  it's a classic look!   The electric shears were soooo worth it, I think I picked them up on a 40 percent off the $40 price.   My sister and her husband did their Tradewind with hand shears and while it can be done, I'm sure it wasn't a rockin' good time!  I sure love learning from their experiences (sorry sis!).

Now everyone says how disgusting the belly pan debris is but ....well.... I'll let you judge

 Personally I've seen worse in my kids laundry baskets!!!!  Just kidding, but there were no unidentifiable bodies,   no skeletons,  no smell,  no more shotgun shells (exactly how does one dispose of live ammo anyway? It's not as if I can toss it in the trash...?).

There was no real treasure either but hey does a frame that's in pretty good shape count??? You BET!  I'll wait for Colin's final assessment but I thought it looked pretty good?

 

 

Tomorrow we will be removing the tub and the Airstream logos on the trailer for restoration!  Also a plethora of nasty decals from gun and ammo shops. I'm gonna erase every inch of the old hunting cabin!  

Its going to be a busy day as we will also be priming my sister and BIL's Tradewind .  See their blog here:  http://1960airstreamtradewind.blogspot.com

Stay tuned!    

And just for the cuteness factor, my mom's new Jack Russell named Watson.  He's a rescue and a PISTOL! 

I brought him a stuffed rabbit toy and he had all five squeakers out in like 4.5 milliseconds.   He reminds me of Tigger (of the Winnie the Pooh fame)....  Their bottoms are made out of springs. They're bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy fun, fun, fun fun, FUN!