Airstream Walls and Bedroom Construction

The part that is the most fun (and most time consuming) is here – interior construction! Mary and I debated for a bit about what the finish should be on the interior – should it be painted cabinetry, natural wood, etc? Ultimately, we decided that the entire interior would be clear finished maple.

This was for two reasons – first, it looks amazing and modern which fits an Airstream. But second, it’s readily available at Home Depot and Lowe’s, including maple-veneered plywood. Which makes life a lot easier. Worth noting – the plywood from Lowe’s is superior to Home Depot, and Lowe’s carries a bigger selection of maple boards.

First up, the interior walls. The only real walls in the trailer are the bathroom, and a divider wall for the bedroom. These are all 1/4″ plywood. I saved the aluminum channels from the old walls, which were already bent to the curves (and lined up with the old screw holes.) This made wall installation easier and gave me confidence I was hitting the right targets so things (like the bathtub and toilet) would like up correctly later on.

Unfortunately, the channels themselves were not useful as templates, as they flexed once removed from the wall. So I had to create a “story pole” that measured the curve at fixed steps (in my case, every 3 inches) and transferred those measurements onto the plywood. I rough cut from there and tuned the curve until it fit well.

After cutting the walls, I did several dry fits to understand how it would all come together and make sure I accommodated any other components that were necessary. Things like making sure I knew where light switches would land, reading lights would attach, etc. It also took awhile to figure out how to do the corners. Ultimately, I found that Airstream wall construction is surprisingly similar to constructing road cases for music instruments. In road case construction, they make corner channels to joint pieces of 1/4 material together, for example. I picked up lengths of 1/4 satin anodized aluminum channel and 1/4 edge molding.

Once I was satisfied with the dry fit and felt I had everything planned out, I attached the walls and got all of the details installed. That includes committing to installing the bathtub – I got it fully riveted in and, where the rivets would be exposed on the outside wall, used binding screw posts, which have a flat aluminum head and are reasonably flat on both sides. Just to help add some sound deadening, I did put mineral wool in the walls on either side of the bathroom, as these were double walls with a cavity to hide the plumbing vent stacks.

During the time we’ve also been working on looking ahead to pick some of the soft goods finishes. I reupholstered the wooden cornices over the front windows and got them reinstalled as well – and we decided on the fabric to use for curtains (now I will have to refresh on sewing…but I do have my grandmother’s sewing machine here.)

Next up is constructing the frames for the beds. This unit is a “rear twin” – so there are two twin beds in the back (the dinette up front will convert into a queen, so the trailer sleeps 4.) The face frames for this are maple, while all the interior wood is select pine. Most was built using 1×2 boards to save on weight, and they’re put together with pocket screws and glued butt joints. Each bed has three drawers underneath on the portion facing the interior, and then an exterior-accessible storage compartment in the other half. I had to build a divider which served three purposes – structural support for the mattress, divider of spaces, and mounting point for the drawer slides.

One of the things I have for the Airstream is papers showing drawn plans. Whenever I need to build with wood, I find it easier to sketch it out and document what I need. You can see my plan for the bed cabinets below.

I will be building drawers for these – the fronts will be shaker style, with simple boxes backing them.

All of the maple – walls and cabinetry – is finished the same way. First it is given two coats of Zinsser “SealCoat” – which really is just clear, dewaxed shellac. The shellac brings out the detail in the maple. Between each coat it is lightly sanded. Then it is topped with three coats of General Finishes Gel Topcoat Satin. In between each coat of the satin, it is rubbed with fine steel wool. The final coat is rubbed with steel wool using soapy water, which makes the surface silky smooth. It looks and feels great.

Shortly after finishing the beds though….snowmageddon happened.

On December 17th (also my birthday), we woke up for what was supposed to be 12-18 inches of snow, only to find out that overnight we had actually received 35. When we went to bed, there was only 4-5 inches on the ground – our area just got under a very snowy part of the storm. If you drove 20 miles north or south, they got 10-12 inches. Our area (Greater Binghamton) was all over the news for how much snow we got. So, I spent the better part of the next week digging everything out before I could really get back to work.

One thought on “Airstream Walls and Bedroom Construction

Leave a Reply