We found that the front windows we hadn’t gotten to treat were causing a small problem. Nothing drastic, but the outer edges on where the glass on the frame needed properly sealed. The problem was the seasons constant mix of rain, cold, and continuous moisture. I tried sealing it off from the inside using a little bit of left over Vycor in hopes I could heat it up enough; it failed.
It was a constant battle with the very slow leak of the front windows. Water would slowly fill the channel at the bottom, and eventually overflow into the nose of the cab. It wasn’t a ton, and since I had bed lined and sealed the cab the water wasn’t hurting it. I would stuff some paper towel in the channel and have to replace it in the next day or two. Yet, I wanted to solve this problem until we could replace the window and properly Gaco them both in in the spring.
It was back and forth, inside and out, with Lexel in attempts to seal it in. It didn’t work well with the constant moisture. Eventually it was RJ that came up with a good idea, and I was so tired of it at that point I was more than happy to try it!
Pro-seal 34. It was a sealant that could be applied underwater. It wasn’t how I wanted to permanently seal the window, but I was hoping it could at least get us through until spring. It eventually did the trick, but the learning curb applying this stuff was tough. It came out of the tube like super thick honey. You could only get one straight shot, because if you had to go back along where you had already covered and your new bead touched the one you had already laid, it would grab itself and pull it off. So, if you are ever in a pinch and need to use this stuff, this is what I learned:
- Apply it in one pass and do a large bead.
- Let it sit a little bit. Once it starts to set it will become like a soft putty.
- Press and work the “putty” into the seam, stuffing it in and smoothing out the edges to prevent water catch point, as to let water just roll right over it.
There, I hope I just saved you a lot of headaches! 😆 With the window leaked stopped the front bed area was officially was almost there. The other issue I was “running into” was that there was a low spot in the roof that would collect water just in front of the middle skylight when it rained, so when I was driving the RV and pushed my brakes it would cause a surge of water that would push towards the front of the RV. This surge would cascade down to the front skylight over the bed and heavily splash up against the skylight. No matter how much I fixed the gasketing up inside the lid of the skylight it didn’t seem to be able to stop the water from getting into the skylight and out into the middle of the screen. To solve this I decided the solution was to try and divert the water when it surged. I bought a piece of L shaped edge flashing.
The idea was for it to work like a small cricket. Never heard of cricket? A cricket is a wedge shaped piece of material, usually metal, that you install above a chimney. It breaks apart the snow above and diverts the snow and water down around the chimney. I Lexeled it down into place and it worked like a charm!
Between the two solutions we haven’t had a moisture issue in the front bed area since- and so it was finally officially dry! Now it was time to make ourselves a bed!
We had planned the bed to be 4 pieces. Serenity had a U-Shape with one piece in the center, with the ability to remove the center piece to enter the cab. Laura reminded me that building the coverings for the U-Shape in Serenity was extremely hard, so we came up with a plan to just make the arms of the U into their own separate pieces for the Ohana.
We had already cut the lift-able center piece to fit within the new plywood layer that had been built in underneath the bed. We had primed the piece with mold-resistant primer and painted it. So now it was time to begin making the cushions.
We had collected multiple memory foam mattress toppers. We were going to chop them up and glue them together like before, but went back and forth on how thick we wanted to make the mattress this time. We decided on thicker so I wouldn’t bottom out when laying on my side. In Serenity, although I was just fine, my 265 lbs would sink all the way down and my shoulder would touch bottom. We were worried it might be too tight though with 9″ of foam… but with Laura’s encouragement we decided to go for ultimate plush! We took the original camper bed that came with it and chopped it up into our desired pieces.
We repeated the process with our next two layers of memory foam…
…And then it was time to spray lock them all together!
After that was finished we headed out to the Ohana to do a test fit. We laid the microfiber on it and did some testing (by laying around on it) to make sure it was going to work. After all, if it was too thick, now was the time to make the adjustment. We decided to go with the flow and push on with the cush!
With confirmation that she would fit in alright, it was time to add our sweet, sweet, microfiber coverings. It was another round of measuring, gluing the edges over to “hem” them, and then working our way around patiently gluing the edges of the microfiber down to the vinyl on the bottom of the cushions.
On the center cushion (the one removable for cab access) we completely wrapped it- stitching it along the back side.
This gives the overhead in the cab a nice fuzzy coat too! My plan was to make a really slick slide cable for the cab access curtain. I found the basic pieces I would need at my local hardware store, 2 hooks that could be mounted into a wall and a small turnbuckle. The only place I could find a seamless way to tie the cable together though was out East End Road, at our local marine supply store The Kachemak Gear Shed. There I bought some cable and a couple of wire clips. Once I had all of my pieces the process was simple. Mount the 2 wall hooks opposite of each other into the plywood base of the center piece.
Then create the cable with a loop at each end, with one loop passing through the eye of the turnbuckle. Then it was as simple as stringing it between the two hooks and tightening up the turnbuckle as necessary!
Our bed was complete! Not only that, it was so soft to the touch! Not only that, it was literally like sleeping upon the most heavenly marshmallow clouds ever! 🤤 ☁️We couldn’t have been happier! What else could we possibly do to more happiness into this particular situation?
Well… You know what we did with the left over microfiber scraps? We gave them to our best friends in the whole world, who happen to absolutely be in love with microfiber! What did they do with it?
Oh! I suppose I should show a picture of the completed bed! 🤣 Here it is- complete with curtain cable and all! I even mounted the overhead curtain slide back up along the sealing. Now if only we had some curtains for it all…
… we should get on that! ‘Till Next Time! 😉
Geoff Murphy 4-27-2020
“Sweet”