Creating an RV hot water heater rv bench

Last updated on June 3rd, 2019 at 09:39 pm

April 22, 2018 by Marlan at Rv52 Leave a Comment

Sheri and I tried the built-in bench in the Tiny Texas Tumbleweed.

Yuk.

Not comfortable. Not usable. Couldn’t seat two people sensibly and watch TV or even talk. Felt like you were being pushed right into their face. No place for a table (the TTT is tiny for sure). Couldn’t lay down. Simply unusable.

The benches looked nice. See the first two pictures in the gallery on this post.

So we did what anyone with bad planning skills would do: We tore out the bench with absolutely no plan on what to do next.

Then we ran into a little bugaboo. The hot water heater was under the seat. That hot water heater was going to be the “driver” for the overall design.

So we thought a little bench would be a great idea.

First things first, we have bought several self powered staple guns. They are all pretty bad. Except the Stanley T150. It is good. It will bury a staple. I liked it so much, I put a link here.

We took the materials from the original bench, and cut them down and formed a little box around the hot water heater.

Next, we found a really nice piece of plywood, 3/4″ thick from Home Depot. Then we bought a piece of foam rubber at a local hobby store – Hobby Lobby I think. It was cheap.

Then we had a somewhat worn out memory foam mattress topper – we cut out a piece to match our seat size.

You can see how we stacked the material. We wanted a good match of memory foam and regular foam. Together they make a better combination of firm, flexible, and comfy than each by itself.

Finally Sheri went out and bought some ULTRA TOUGH upholstery material – a good 20-30 inches bigger in each direction. IMPORTANT NOTE: Sheri and I know absolutely nothing about upholstery, so I’m hoping you cut us a break!

When we had all that, we simply put the stack together, pulled it tight, and stapled it together. The pictures chronicle the little baby project.

Sheri and I love our little bench!

BTW we’ve done a couple little projects up to this point:

Putting a cool RV Decal on your RV – Good, Bad, and the Ugly

September 9, 2017 by Marlan at Rv52 Leave a Comment

RV52.com needs an RV decal!

As the purveyors of one of the leading RV web sites (RV52.com) it is only fitting that our RV is adorned with our corporate logos!

So Sheri and I got this bright idea to order a rv decal from Signs.com and we were able to try them out. The one thing we WON’T be able to do while I’m writing this is to discuss how LONG the decal lasts, but I can at least provide insight for other aspects.

After a little bit (about 10 minutes) research we decided to get a decal from signs.com. They had several types of decals but we decided on an opaque decal that was in their automotive section.

We decided to get a 3 foot x 2 foot (36 inch x 24 inch) decal and we decided to get three of them. One for the rear and one for each side.

They weren’t cheap, but not horribly expensive either. I think we spent around 45-50$ each.

Once you decide you have to create the decal. Since we wanted 3×2, I had to create a graphic using RV52.com logos (I made my logo by using 99designs which I recommend VERY strongly).

To create a graphic with the correct aspect ratio, I used Keynote on my Mac. I’ll list the steps here without much detail:

Create a new widescreen Keynote file. I use a white background. It won’t matter.
Pick a page format with NOTHING on it.
Draw as big of a rectangle as you can on the slide. Keep the rectangle 3×2 aspect ratio. This you can ensure w/ Keynote.
Make this rectangle’s color the same color you would like the decal background to be. We picked light light gray.
Now draw whatever you want INSIDE THAT RECTANGLE.
When you are done, select everything inside the rectangle.
CTRL-C or Apple-C (copy)
Start up Preview app.
Go to the menu and select “New from Clipboard”
Save as a PNG – I believe PNG will scale better with less jaggies.

Using this graphic you can upload to signs.com easily.

In our case, signs.com warned us that we might get jaggies. But we took risk as we do not own the graphics SW to go really big.

We then ordered and waited our 2 weeks.

We received a tube in the mail which contained our three graphics.

Eventually, we got off our duffs and put on the decals.

The pictures describe this process better than writing.

A few notes I’ll put here so you get an idea of our limited learning of best practices:

Make sure you have ample time and a patient mind to do this.
It can be a 2 person job – but CRITICALLY – only ONE BOSS. Trust me on this one.
Be very mindful of the idea that it needs to be perfectly even. Straight lines is a good idea.
unroll a tiny bit of the adhesive backing at a time.
Go slow, smoothing as you go.

Anyway, soon you’ll see the TTT (Tiny Texas Tumbleweed) rolling around central Texas with our fancy decals.

Check ’em out

START YOUR DECAL HERE

Cleaning your RV – RV52.com personal experience

Last updated on August 21st, 2017 at 08:32 pm

August 15, 2017 by Marlan at Rv52 Leave a Comment

Travel Trailer RV Showing Typical Dirt and Grime on Side of RV

The Tiny Texas Tumbleweed (TTT) is the RV52 world headquarters current RV. You can read all the particulars in the linked article.

But SHE was dirty. Real dirty. If you look at the picture above it had a nasty, dirty, greasy looking grime all over the sides of the darned thing. And yes, it WAS worse where the air conditioner was dripping.

So we did what everyone does and we did a search on the internet to see how other people are doing it.

We also got REAL CLOSE up and put a little spit on our fingers and rubbed it. Oddly, it didn’t seem topical – which was a bad sign in my humble opinion.

So we thought… how hard can this be?

So we promptly went to Walmart and bought 3 different kinds of cleaners all saying that they remove mildew, black streaks and road grime.

The first stuff we tried was Camco’s Blue Bottle titled “Black Streak Remover”. I’m not even going to give you the link because I’m not a believer. It didn’t even make a dent in the streaks. The dirt laughed at us.

The next stuff we tried was Armor-All Gray Bottle titled “Tire and Wheel Cleaner”. Wheels seem like dirty things. Again, didn’t make a dent in the dirt at all. Nothing. Didn’t budge the dirt.

Next we tried the Armor-All Orange Bottle titled “Wheel Cleaner”. Now this stuff worked pretty good. It went on VERY similar to the way the foaming friendly bubbles called Scrubbing Bubbles goes on. This stuff DID make a dent. But still it was very hard going and it still left behind a little bit of the gray dirt. Even worse, it seemed to harm some of the decals.

We did try the Scrubbing Bubbles but that was not as good as the Armor-All Orange Bottle.

But this was slow going and hard slogging. After about 2 hours all we had done was in the picture below on a single side. You can see how far we got and you can see how hard Sheri was working with a course brush.

You see we also found out whether you use a brush, a rag, or a sponge made a difference too.

That first night, Sheri’s son says “just buy some of that cleaner called Purple Power and use my power washer on “remove flesh” setting”.

We bought, we applied, and we put the power washer on “argon laser mode”.

Nothing.

The power washer did NOTHING. NOTHING at all.

Then we started to cry.

What started out like fun work with water in the Texas sun was turning out to be nearly impossible work with way too much elbow grease required.

I’ll tell you what we did.

REMEMBER – Sheri and I are not paint & body people. So please don’t do this for yourself without expert paint & body oversight and advice. This is just what we did… you are on your own.

In a fit of frustration, Sheri went and tried our Bar Keepers Friend.

Praise the Good Lord. That Bar Keeper’s Friend took the grime off with the most predictability, least effort, and seemed to not hurt the paint finish.

I’m not going to butter you up. It was still a bunch of work. But we were able to shine up the TTT and feel pretty good about the old girl being seen in public.

Then we found a finish that even helped rid the grime just one step more and that was the icing on the cake: Nu Finish.

Love to hear about your cleaning stories. I sure hope it went better for you than for RV52!

Travel Trailer RV Showing Clean Dirty Line After scrubbing unit

Maiden Voyage of the Tiny Texas Tumbleweed

Last updated on August 30th, 2017 at 11:19 pm

August 6, 2017 by Marlan at Rv52 1 Comment

Tiny Tumbleweed Prepped for Maiden Voyage at RV52.com World Headquarters — Tiny Texas Tumbleweed Prepped for Maiden Voyage at RV52.com World Headquarters

I wished I could tell you that I am one of those guys who just does it all right.

I’m not.

Sometimes I have to make myself.

We washed the Tiny Texas Tumbleweed (TTT) inside and out. We put in a DVD player with WiFi capability. We charged the T-Mobile portable LTE WiFi. Sheri put in decorations, towels, and more. I checked the battery, replaced a fuse in the converter, we made the all systems (kind-of) were working.

But THINKING you are ready versus really using it… those are not the same.

But that isn’t the same (at least analogous) as going on the maiden voyage and wringing it out. Lets face it, $25B on an aircraft carrier and they still gotta wring out the “bugs” (see the vid below, just for fun, ok?):

So we took TTT (Tiny Texas Tumbleweed) down to the Bunk Haus RV Park and Cabins on Canyon Lake. This park was reasonable, not very fancy and a little aged, but no problem for us as Sheri and I are easy going.

What did we learn that honestly we should have known BEFORE we took her out on the maiden voyage?

What advice from my own prior experiences and writing on RV52.com did I ignore?

I sure would like towing mirrors. My GMC mirror just couldn’t see around the trailer. An extra 6 inches would have been very nice (Please limit the untowards jokes in the comments please).
Our key for our outside storage didn’t work. I’ll order a new lock and key. I have to choose between a 5/8″ and 7/8″ hole size hence the next bullet. I’ll buy one of these two lock sizes on Amazon.
Tape measure.
For that matter. Tool box. At least throw it in the truck.
HDMI cable for the DVD player. No HDMI, no box.
The shower on the QB816 Dutchmen is terrible. Not RV terrible, but terrible for an RV. See the difference? It has no lip. There was little to no caulk. It was unusable. We’ll fix it when we get home and shower at the park (yuk – you know what I mean).
We work on our computers – we love computer hobbying – which is why you have RV52. So we need little desk/tables.
A storage ottoman would be really, really nice. Otherwise it is hard to sit and/or work in the TT.
Over the door hooks to put our towels on.
Jacks for the front to stabilize.
Coffee machine – likely a Keurig good deal from Walmart) – which we are well versed with.
Window shades (from Camping World). Super important. We have found the pleated to be the most useful/easy to use shades.
Toaster oven. These would be an amazing addition. Like most other things in America, you can spend as much as you want. I picked a really high rated inexpensive one from Walmart.
The inside the RV 4 way level. I brought my big construction level, but I have the right level for the job. I should have brought that.

Most of the links above are affiliate links. That doesn’t cost you anything if you click on them and I wasn’t forced to recommend anything – it came from me.

I had a friend buy a brand new (not used, but new) Tiffin. He took it on 3-4 local-to-Austin wring-out trips and found lots of things. After about 6 months to a year he felt he could venture anywhere.

When we bought our Open Range so many years ago, we stayed in it for a couple of days and accumulated things to fix for the dealer we bought it from.

Used or new, go ahead and give it a wring out trip or two close to home. Trust me, you’ll find a list of things you forgot to test, bring, fix, or worse.

PLEASE –> Love to hear your “maiden voyage” stories. Just put it in the comments below. I’ll approve them as fast as I can!