Off With his Head!
Or at least getting started on it...
First thing was to tidy up my broke-d#$% shade structure again, 4th time is the charm?
Loose fit, porous fabric, maybe this will last a bit better
Topper back from the 'other' painter, not as good a job as the van, but the topper is way up there, away from close view, and I'm mostly just glad to have it back with paint that actually cured. Covered to protect the window openings from the rain, but it is under there.
Since I dont have a waterproof structure to work under, and we are in a rainy season, I'm trying to fit in all the supplementary structure into the ceiling, with the top skin intact, before I cut the hole out. In the picture below, the piece that runs the length of the picture is the cut line for the opening. I cut a 2" wide notch into the roof 'rafters', and slid the new structure up tight to the roof skin. Left of the new support will get removed, topper flange attaches to the new piece, existing structure to the right remains. This make sense?
My plan for tying the old to the new was to just run a fillet weld up where the existing structure 'T's into the new structure. Two problems though - I did some practice welds on the bench, and I cant get the existing aluminum clean enough to take a weld, even when it sitting on the table - Overhead, out of position, with the skin of that foam insulation not wanting to come off, it wasn't going to be easy. The other issue was dealing with the splatter and lava balls from trying to weld that dirty aluminum, falling into the nooks and crannies, and maybe burning the truck down. Hmmm, lets explore a mechanical fastening solution.
Made a couple of inside corner brackets from 1/4x2x2 aluminum angle, and #14 self tappers, seems like a workable solution - If I think I need it, I can also weld a fillet from the existing structure to the fresh aluminum at the bottom/cut edge of the bracket, it is in a more accessable position, and the existing is more easily cleaned
Set up the ghetto aluminum machining station
Mind the feed rate on the chop saw...
Feeling clever at this point
Until I went to install the other screws and found the driver doesn't fit in the space.
Picked up a right angle head from Harbor Freight, hopefully that will be able to get into the space. Just nibbling at it this week, looking forward to a good run this weekend
