Don't go camping without them!

​A 1971 Airstream
www.Heffrons.com recently received a testimonial from a customer named Eric who has always enjoyed a good project and fixing up old things. His family had a 1964 Alaskan Camper when he was in high school. Fast forward to today, and after 2 years of searching, he bought a 1971 Airstream.
 
Eric was happy to share with us his adventure and transformation which you can read below.
 
Early Struggles
I wanted a something that I could gut all the way down and start over with my floor plans. I’ve been a cabinet maker all my life and I love designing small spaces so it seemed to be a great fit.  From the early goings of the project I had a lot of not so pleasant discoveries. For example, there was a rat’s nest that went 10 feet into the trailer. I also discovered that this era camper didn’t have gray water tanks. Finally, many of the parts were missing from the camper, even though I was tearing it down because they had been sold off. ​

​Sticking With The Plan
I drew up the plan in CAD and I’m happy to say that I was able to pretty much stay with the original design that I had come up with. I have remodeled and built many homes but this was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Planning for gas electric and 12 V throughout the trailer was a bit of a task. In my experience the RV world appliances are not user-friendly to obtain information on and install. I thought when I got to the woodwork it would be a piece a cake. I love working with angles and I have worked on many boats and difficult projects. Airstream trailers are in a different class. I spent two days just putting the wood up in the front. There wasn’t a single piece of wood that didn’t go in and out at least 3-4 times.