Neverending Painting

We've been working on painting since getting the RV back to the farm several weeks ago.  I was waiting to post until we were finished...but that's looking to be a while so I figured I'd go ahead and post some interim progress.

When we purchased the RV, several of the black-painted areas had severely degraded clear coat.  Back in the fall when Aaron was doing our original repairs, we had hoped to address all of these areas, but after the mechanical/structural fixes were complete, it was simply too cold and too windy to do much and we ran out of time before our plans to head south.  The one spot he was able to fix was the top cap above the windshield.

Front of the RV before painting

'Top cap' before painting

'Top cap' after painting last fall

This helped a bit - it was the most impactful to our appearance and the area in greatest need of UV protection - but almost a year later the paint was showing wear again, and we decided that black was NOT the way to go - it just attracted too much sun and heat.  So we repainted it a silvery gray to match the lighter colors on the rest of the RV.

Nice and light!

Next we focused on the other damaged clear coat around the sides of the RV.  I don't have pictures of all of it, but here are some examples.

This area is was on our bedroom slide.

One of the basement doors - many looked like this

Aaron sanded away the bad clear coat and repainted with a layer of black and new clear coat.  We're using a combination of Rustoleum American Accents 2X Clear Gloss and Rustoleum Gloss Clear Enamel.  We use the first for UV protection and theoretically the second will provide a hard coat to resist kicked up rocks and whatnot (we have a LOT of chips in the paint).

After painting these look a lot better!

Basement door after painting

Then we started getting ambitious...and our painting started to be neverending.  One of the basement doors appeared to be a replacement, and when they repainted it they painted black and dark gray but neglected to paint the silver stripe that was in between the black and gray everywhere else.  So we figured we could fix that!

Taped off - pre stripe - note how there is a stripe on 
both sides of this panel, so it looks very strange

Stripe complete!

While working on touch-ups for chips on this same door, we discovered that we could get a remarkable color match with DupliColor Ford Magnetic Metallic - conveniently the same color our car uses, which is why we chose it over the other dark grays at O'Reilly's.  The match is uncanny given that there really shouldn't be any match at all.  With the remarkable match, we decided to move beyond just little pen touch ups and get a spray can (or 3...) to repaint entire areas - several replaced basement doors and our back bumper.  Unfortunately we wasted our money earlier on what was supposed to be a perfect color match for our specific color ("Nimbus Gray Metallic/CV43597R") from a specialty company - very expensive paint for an only so-so match. 

Our 'perfect' color match from earlier in the season
- those light areas aren't reflected sunlight, they're 
actually the poorly matched lighter color paint

 

An actual near-perfect color match!

We re-clear coated most of the black paint on the RV - this involved just light sanding to prepare the surface for a new coat as opposed to the heavy sanding where it had completely peeled off.  HOWEVER, we encountered one area next to the front door where the old clear coat we had taped plastic to just kept peeling off.  After this happened twice (once on our original light painting and then again when I cleared a larger area), Aaron had a brilliant idea to go over the surface with extra-sticky duct tape (T-REX) to remove loose clear coat and just keep on clearing it out until it stopped coming off with the tape.

Using duct tape to peel off loose clear coat

That significantly increased the area we had to repaint, but in the final painting nothing came off when we removed the painter's tape, so hopefully it was worth it!

The final area (roughed up) after duct
taping as far as paint still peeled.  The 
original area we thought we needed
to correct was only a couple inches
in diameter.

Looking much better as Aaron 
applies the new clear coat!

The last thing to share is the fiberglass work Aaron did on the rear of the RV.  A basement door and the back bumper had some serious dents/gouges and Aaron applied fiberglass to rebuild the surfaces.

Pre-fiberglass

Post-fiberglass

Sanded and repainted

While we were doing this on the back bumper, the panel that hides the engine popped off its glue holding it to its bracket.  So that sparked another repair where we decided to just replace the glue with bolts.  We originally decided this because the bracket had holes and there were old holes in the fiberglass and we assumed they would line up...nope!  No idea what those holes were for.

You'd think those 5 holes would correspond to the
holes on the bracket behind them...right?  Nope!

So in the end, Aaron drilled new holes, fiberglassed over the old holes, and sanded and painted the whole shebang.

Drilling new holes

Hastening the fiberglass curing

You can see the final surface in the 'matching paint' picture of the back bumper earlier.  It looks great!

With all this work, we're STILL not done with the surface of the RV.  Aaron is unhappy with the painting he did on the front bumper in the fall - it is chipping too easily - so he is planning to redo that and redo the paint on the roof.  Once all that is done, we will have to go back and polish all the freshly painted surfaces...that will be a BIG job!  Hopefully once we're done though the RV will look significantly better!

Camping in West Virginia

We just spent about a week on the road camping in West Virginia.  This let us get back out exploring a bit without straying too far in case pandemic things went haywire.

Our first stop was Battle Run Campground, a Corps of Engineers campground on Summersville Lake.  This was a beautiful campground, and would be especially good for boaters (they had anchor points for boats right next to many of the campsites).  Unfortunately I booked this so late that I think we got the absolute worst spot on the campground (site 109, right behind the check in building), but even so we could still see the lake.  

See?  Lake is visible in the background :-)

There were several things to see in the immediate area - first we went to Carnifex Ferry Battlefield State Park, a Civil War battleground just around the corner.  It has one of the most beautiful overlooks we've seen in a while - visible without even having to hike!

Overlook at the picnic area parking lot

We took the Patterson Trail along the edge of the park and learned about the battle (which, honestly, seemed mostly unremarkable).  We saw a couple more beautiful overlooks and witnessed a 'stampede' of some very noisy cattle.  

After the state park, we drove down to the Summerville Lake dam.  This dam was put in place for flood control and provides additional benefits of low flow supplementation for the river downstream and hydropower at a small facility.  

This is one of the original turbines that failed

Sitting atop the dam looking down at the hydropower plant

We hiked the Long Point trail to see another view of the lake from some rocks Aaron enjoyed risking his life on.

Contemplating how much farther he could go

Panorama from the overlook we eventually reached

After a couple days in the Summersville Lake area, we headed south just a little bit to camp at Little Beaver State Park.  This was a nice, mostly wooded campground near a small lake with a dam with a pretty outfall.

While we were here, we went to several sights in the New River Gorge National River park.  We went up to the main overlook for the New River Gorge Bridge, the longest steel span in the Western hemisphere.  Although most of the visitor centers are closed due to COVID-19, they did have a ranger stationed outside the main overlook to answer questions, hand out park maps, and (most importantly!) provide stamps for your National Park Passports.

At the main overlook

We decided to take the 45 minute drive to the bottom of the gorge and back out, which was WELL worth the trip.  This route traced the original route all travelers had to take before the famous bridge was built.  The bridge, according to the signs, reduced a 45 minute trip to 45 seconds.

View from the bottom - we were standing on the replica of
the original bridge looking up at the new bridge

Later we visited the Sandstone Falls, still in the very large New River Gorge National River's park.  The overlook for the falls is easily accessible just off of I-64, and the falls look rather unimpressive from that height, so we almost decided not to take the 40 minute drive down the gorge and across the river to see them up close.  Thank goodness we did go though!  They were much more impressive up close.  The observation boardwalk is nice, but of course Aaron had to go 'off-roading' a bit to get the full up close view.

Midway through our exploration for the path to the best view
of the falls

Panorama of the falls from our ultimate vantage point

The photos really don't do the falls justice, they were beautiful and quite impressive stretched across the entire width of the New River.

Our final stop in the New River Gorge National River was the Grandview overlook.  We first tried early in the morning after an intense rain and had NO luck, but came back later in the day to a beautiful view.

Nothing to see here!

A beautiful view later in the day

Back at our campsite, Aaron came up with an innovative bellows to help our campfire grow...I just had to share.

My hair dryer is only slightly worse for the wear.  Of course while you're RVing the maintenance is ever-present, and while we were out Aaron installed a backflow preventer on our shower after seeing it recommended on Fate Unbound's YouTube channel.  We have a cutoff on our shower head to quickly turn the water off while we're sudsing up while we're not on sewer, but because the higher pressure cold water seeps back into the hot water line while the water is off, cutting the water back on always causes a burst of cold water before the temperature returns to normal.  Installing the backflow preventer (aka check valve) on the hot water feed to the shower stopped this!

Installing the valve via the handy panel
in our bedroom.

Aaron also finally fixed the slow leak in our propane tank before we filled up at U-Save Propane near Summersville Lake.  This is the first time we filled our propane tank, and we were amazed at how quick and easy it was!  We left with a full tank of propane not even 30 minutes after driving on the property.

It was so nice and refreshing to get back on the road!  We returned the RV to the family farm after our adventure, with a renewed commitment to get back on the road permanently as soon as we can.

New Parking Site Complete!

 Big news!  My parents hired contractors to complete our new parking space at the farm and it looks GREAT!

Freshly poured concrete

With this in place, we will finally be able to come and go from the farm regardless of any recent rain saturating the ground!  Thanks Mom & Dad!!

Knowing we had solid ground to come back to, we finally took the RV in for its annual preventative maintenance and to get the air system examined.  Conveniently there was a Freightliner service shop just up the road in Beckley - Matheny Motors.  These guys were great!  They were happy to talk to Aaron at length on the phone and in person about his concerns and to explain their findings.  The preventative maintenance was straightforward of course.  They were also able to fix the air ride system.  We had noticed quite some time ago that when the air bags in the air ride system were inflated, the RV would lean toward the passenger side (when the air bags were not inflated, the RV sat flat).  After investigation, the mechanics determined that two suspension valve connectors were broken, which was preventing the air system from automatically compensating for changes in loading and terrain.  They replaced these connectors and now the RV rides level!  It also responds much better going around curves - Aaron used to worry we would roll with the lean when we turned. 

We also asked them to look at the air dump, which hasn't ever worked.  The mechanics concluded on this that the wrong valves were installed for the air dump, and also that the switch from the air dump button to the solenoid for the air valves wasn't hooked up.  Because all of the valves were wrong and looked OLD, the mechanic's professional opinion was that they never hooked up the air dump at the factory!  This is crazy to us - why have an air dump button on the driver's console if it doesn't work?? - but we have no reason to doubt his opinion.  It would be pretty expensive to replace the valves with the correct ones, AND the mechanic advised that Aaron could actually do that repair himself, so we decided not to complete that at the service center.  This also really impressed us - not only did they tell us we could do the work ourselves, but when we picked the RV up they actually walked Aaron through the process before we drove away.

Learning about valves at Matheny Motors (that's Aaron in the
Hokie Maroon and the head mechanic in the dark blue).

When we came back to the farm, we got to use the new parking spot for the first time - beautiful!

Perfect fit!

Now we're ready to come and go on some short trips!  Stay tuned!

New Parking Site: Electricity Complete!

Aaron and my dad have made great strides the past week with the new parking area!  Over a few days' work they were able to complete the rewiring needed to provide 50 amp power to the new parking area.

We are very fortunate that for whatever unknown reason my grandfather had run a very thick 200+ foot wire from the chicken coop to the tractor shed where we're setting up the new parking spot.  This wire far exceeds the specifications needed to transfer the power we required.  Thus the electrical project had two basic steps: first, upgrade and replace the breaker panels and under-rated wire between the garage and the chicken coop, and second, upgrade the breaker panel at the garage and run a new wire to the new parking location.  

We wanted all the new wire run between buildings to run underground, so the first step was to cut a trench from the garage to the chicken coop, which my dad accomplished in pretty short order with a spade and post-hole digger.

The trench from the chicken coop 
(foreground) to the garage (background).

Aaron hooked up the new circuit breaker inside the garage and ran wire through a hole in the back of the garage, down the new trench, and up the side of the chicken coop to a new breaker box there.  

Hooking up the new circuit breaker
panel in the garage

Routing the wire through the new box
on the outside of the garage - it was 
HARD work getting that thick wire to
turn the corner!!

Wire routed!

Additionally, they took the existing wire that used to run up to a connection point atop a pole and ran it through another trench to connect at the new breaker on the chicken coop.

Working on taking the existing wire
off the old rotting pole

Running the wire through the trench from the pole
to the chicken coop and hooking it to the new 
circuit breaker panel

They finished this work in just two days.

Next it was time to upgrade things at the tractor shed.  My dad again went out and dug the trench with a spade and post hole digger.

Trench from our parking spot 
(foreground) to the tractor shed
(background)

Aaron upgraded the fuse box inside the shed to a breaker panel and then they ran a wire out to a post my dad set in the ground.  Aaron affixed a new RV receptacle to the post, with switches for each of the new outlets: 50A, 30A, and 20A.

Working on wiring inside the tractor 
shed

Finishing up the wiring for the RV
receptacles

It's our own personal little campsite!  At this point we could actually go ahead and move the RV near this new panel for better ease of getting on and off the farm, even without the concrete pad in place.  We haven't moved the RV yet, but if we decide to take a quick camping trip somewhere we'll go ahead and park it near the new location.  

We're waiting now for quotes from some folks to put in the concrete pad at the new location.  The quotes will determine how much of that work my dad and Aaron will do themselves and how much will get hired out...stay tuned!