Airstream Cruisette Diary 12

 When our Cruisette was built its serial number plate was attched to the shell with steel panhead screws aft of the door. 

Over 5 + decades of the great outdoors made them brown with rust which also stained the plate.  My handy-dandy jar of misfit screws contained a couple of exact duplicates.  Same size, same shape.   Booyah!!

I took off the old ones, cleaned and polished the plate and re-installed it with the "new" aluminum ones. 

I'll concede its gotten a little dirty again, but no rust! An added bonus was that when I removed the rusty screws a trace of the blue paint that once graced the plate was hidden under the one on the right:

A tiny little clue to take to the paint shop.

Fleabay Redux

The planet-wide junk shop that never closes has yet again dropped a really boss restoration detail right into my lap:

The Korean War prompted Ohio not to issue metal plates in '52, the year our Cruisette was originally titled.  I've looked at a fair amount of plates and never seen another one with the 1952 registration decal intact.  In an uncharacteristic instance of openmindedness the Ohio BMV will allow owners of historical vehicles to run, what they call, model year plates.  Come registration time this will be our new old plate.

Ceramic Coolness

A short time back I grabbed these for the Cruisette at an antique joint in Marietta, O.  The crap-weasel owner offered a discount while I was browsing, but stiffed me at checkout time. My chump-ass still laid down 12 bucks in a fog of  ceramic lust.  I'da given him $15.   HA!

Definitely in the Fiestaware neighborhood, but not marked with anything but some spiffy speedlines.  Now which one for salt, which one for pepper?

Found on Fleabay

OK, I'll cop to it up front.  This is sort of a filler post to get my Christmas post off the front of this blog just in case anyone but me has an RSS feed.  Anyway I recently scored an awesome vintage "pinch catch"  in an Ebay auction:

When it hit my mailbox I found out that I bought it from the one and the only R.J Dial of Vintage Airstream, the bad-assest vintage site on this planet!  That'd be like buying a set of spark plugs and finding out they're from "Big Daddy" Don Garlits.   I'm not worthy. 
This one is on deck to be used on the reconstructed under-bed cabinet in the Cruisette.  I bet it'll even pinch better than the others!

Airstream Cruisette Christmas

Merry Christmas from Airstream Moderne!

Its the Most Wonderful Time of the Year !

You didn't think I was talking about Christmas?  If I were King of the Universe it would be Autumn all the year 'round.  Warm days, cool nights and achingly beautiful color everywhere you look.  Here's our Cruisette just hanging out, digging the leaves:





Olivia took this one!

 

Road Trip

This past weekend I was able to take our Cruisette out for a brief overnight trip.  I conducted a workshop for the Brigade of the American Revolution Northwest Department on how to construct 18th-century wigwams at the "Fallfest" held at Brecksville Metropark outside of Cleveland.

In order to prep for the trip I got the tires "serviced"--dismounted, bands and new inner tubes added, remounted and balanced--to remedy the problems outlined in Cruisette Diary 10. 
After the workshop was over I drove the trailer to the town of Boston Mills located in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.  I was keen on checking out the M.D. Garage, a restored 1940's gas station.  The Park Service uses it to host local art exhibitions.  It is quite well restored, and while the gas pumps are locked the air pump is still functional.  This is likely for the convenience of the bicyclists using the nearby Cuyahoga Valley Trail.