Working on Julian

So another day of working on Julian, though I haven't got quite as much done today as I hoped as I'm having to wait for things to dry etc etc.

The half of the key left in the padlock

First thing this morning I was up and across to try and sort out the padlock which I had snapped the key off in. Wow that was a badly put together sentence. Sorry.

Anyway, I grabbed the WD40 and a set of needlenose pliers and set to trying to extract the broken part of the key which was still stuck inside the lock. I didn't squirt WD40 at first as I was aware this would make gripping the sliver of metal much more difficult.

Got it!

With a few wiggles and slips I got the needlenose firmly attached and managed to slide the piece out; it doesn't look like the actual lock is damaged but I will confirm this later when I use my (only) spare key to shut and lock the gate for the night. I have squirted a load of WD40 into the lock now, however, to try and free up the mechanism which was stiff and caused the breakage in the first place.

Painting the roof

From this quick win I headed inside and straight up the ladder to start painting the roof on Julian. I had two tins of white paint and hoped that would be enough for the first coat. After an hour or two of painting which included me getting right on top of the roof on the roof-rack and clambering around in many awkward contortions I ran out of paint with only a very small amount left to do. Typical, but not a big issue as I'd also forgotten to bring any overalls and so was struggling to avoid getting paint on my clothes.

I headed over to B and Q (again) but found that they had only one more tin of the paint I was using in white, and the rest black. Needs must; my second coat will be black which means I will have to mask off the edges to make it as neat as I possibly can.

Working man at work

Anyway, that is for tomorrow. I bought my overalls and put them on; they were large but I only just fit into them and in the hour or so I was using them I managed to split the crotch; I would hate to see how someone larger than I fared in it; ridiculous.

And actually doing the painting

I was back up the ladder and finishing off the edges which I had left before, using the one tin of white which they had had left; good job that was there or I would not have managed a full first coat.

I will leave this to dry and tomorrow morning will be back up there putting the second coat of Matt Black on; I haven't spotted any other obvious places where the water could have been leaking in while I have been doing this, and obviously have been over the entire roof, so I'm hopeful that I have fixed the leakage. Inside the dehumidifier had managed to completely fill itself so I emptied it and have left it running again over night.

I have no pictures of this next but while I was out I bought bacon, eggs and barms and as soon as I finished the painting I was inside Julian and frying up one of my excellent bacon and egg breakfasts. I am not sure what it is about Julian and the cooker in him but they taste so much better on there than anywhere else. Outstanding.

Toilet CD rack... yeah... weird, huh

While I have been fettling around moving things in Julian I noticed that there was a CD rack in the back next to the shower. Now I don't know about you but to me that seems like quite a strange place to put a CD rack. I also have been thinking about the journey and realised that I will probably just use CDs in Julian (as the radio in him doesn't have a 3mm jack and I don't want to replace it). These two things came together in a brain wave. Why don't I move the rack from in the shower to between the front seats.

No sooner said than done.

New home

Another issue which I have been trying to work out how to fix is whoever fitted the CD player, didn't. It is so loose and basically falling out of its slot (if you look closely at the picture above you can see on the right that it is falling out.

Wood wedging CD player still

I had another brain wave. Why not use the CD rack to wedge a bit of wood in to support the player and stop it falling out. I had the perfect length piece of waste wood (see why I hate throwing things away?) and very quickly managed to get this in place.

Wedging the other end

Next I had to work out how to hold the rack still so it wouldn't slip (and would be solid to hold the CD player in place) so I went back to my store of spare wood and found a length which just needed trimming slightly and I could wedge in at the other end and everything would be great. The piece which I trimmed off of THIS bit of wood then became useful to go across below to support and help make the whole thing rigid.

And fitted, with some CDs in. Excellent.

All in all I am very pleased with this as I can now have LOADS of CDs really easily to hand, not falling around in the footwell like they were before, and I have managed to secure the player so it is easy to load and use the radio now.

I was going to do a practice load of the trailer today however the sealant which I put on yesterday is still slightly tacky to the touch so I am going to do this tomorrow after my second coat of paint.

Really feel like I'm getting some good progress now.