Formica......

 8:30 am - Wednesday - January 19th - Newell House, AZ - 47° F, 72% humidity, wind 1 mph out of the northeast......clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 67° F.  

When we cleared out our stuff from our son's warehouse back in October I found our stash of Formica, which came with our Newell.  Pretty much the entirety of our interior walls are covered with this wood grain Formica, and we have used some of this stash over the years to repair damaged areas.  Out of the entire stash I saved 5 large pieces knowing I needed to install several pieces in the space where our microwave used to be.  As you know a Breville toaster/convection/air fryer now occupies that space, and its profile is considerably smaller than the microwave leaving a lot of raw wood exposed.....

A piece of our Formica stash

The old microwave cabinet

......covering that bare wood and finishing that cabinet has been at the bottom of a lot of 'To Do' lists for the past few years, but it finally rose to the top Tuesday.  Before cutting and installing the Formica I removed, of course, the Breville, and wiped down the surfaces with Acetone.  Next, using a piece of cardboard, I made a templet to fit the left wall of the cabinet.....

......then using that templet, I cut the piece of Formica to fit the space, sprayed both surfaces (the wall and back of the Formica) with Scotch Brand contact cement, then pressed the piece into place......

......the process of creating the templet, then adjusting it to fit the space took over two hours for just the one piece, but it came out well......

......next I'll cut a piece to fit the back wall, then the ceiling, and finally the right wall.  This is a slow process, so after successfully installing the Formica I deferred the other surfaces until Wednesday.

While we were at Seal Rocks RV Cove for a year I used four piers, one under each corner of the trailer, to keep it steady when I ingressed, and egressed.  Being out in the Coastal Oregon salt air for a year resulted in a lot of corrosion on the screws which adjust the height of the pier in relation to the trailer and ground.....

.....I decided that before I would deploy them this time I would clean up the screws on the wire wheel of my bench grinder.....

.....the four I used at SRRVC were very crusty (see one in background), but after a few minutes on the wire wheel (see one in foreground) they each cleaned up very nicely.....

.....and with the completion of that task I called an end to my work day just in time to catch a Newell House sunset.....

......we met in the barn for dinner, and talked for almost two hours......

Left to right:  Tom (in recliner), Darlene, Karen, Dave moi, and TLE (back to the camera)

......I have to say after getting to know Dave and Karen over the past 4 days that I still have not met Newell owners I did not come to like quite a bit.  Dave and Karen will be moving on Wednesday, and we will once again be by ourselves in the backyard.

On a side note, I received a question from one of my long time readers (Horst) about how a 'steering tag axle works....I'll use a picture of Dave's 2009 Newell to illustrate....

....these 46' Newells with a couple of slides weigh in the neighborhood of 60,000+ pounds, and have three axles....the steer axle (front), and the drive axle which is just in front of the 'tag' axle.  The 'tag' axle helps redistribute the weight at the rear of the coach, which is the heaviest portion of the coach, and take some of the enormous weight off the drive axle.  To enable these beasts to maneuver in tight spaces some are equipped with a 'steerable' tag axle.  In essence, when you turn the front tires, the tires on the tag axle steer in the opposite direction....in other words.....when you turn the front wheels to the right the tag wheels turn to the left.  I hope this brief explanation helps answer that question!

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