Building a Cabinet Door for our new Fridge Cabinet

I left the refrigerator project on hold when we left Mesa AZ because to finish it off I needed to find a cabinet door. I looked online and found that a narrow door in the same wood type as our rig, alder, was going to quite a challenge.

I did find a site which would build a cabinet nearly to my needs but it would have to be 1/2 wider than I desired. After remeasuring everything and taking into account that the door had to open to the right meaning the hinges had to be set in a particular spot to allow for the clearance of the door opening in toward another cabinet I figured I could make it work.

I kind of gave up on the project and thought I would reinvestigate it later. Well that day finally came because here at Far Horizons RV Resort I discovered the park has a wood shop. Since there were no fees associated with using it I decided that maybe I could build my own cabinet door.

Scouring You Tube videos trying to find a solution on how to build a cabinet door with minimal tools I finally came upon one that was perfect for what I needed. A You Tube video titled Build Shaker Cabinet Doors With Table Saw | New to Woodworking.

After watching the video a few times I knew this would work for our needs. And as luck would have it the local lumber center had alder wood and the same hinges we have in our RV. I bought a couple of pieces of 1x2’s and some hinges then I was off to the wood shop.

First I used a radial arm saw to cut the pieces to size for the cabinet door frame. Then I used a table saw to cut the groove on the edge of the frame pieces that I could later insert a 1/8’ piece of plywood that I had leftover from tearing out the old Norcold fridge.

Next was a tricky part to make the stub and groove tenon joints as can be seen in the above photo. These joints make the cabinet door stable and study to allow for the abuse of constant opening and closing that cabinets endure.The video showed me how to do this using only a table saw.

Measuring was critical and I lucked out as I was able to do so by only messing up one small piece. Once all the cuts were made I cut the 1/8” plywood cabinet face to fit inside the groves of the frame pieces. I dry fitted all the pieces together and once satisfied that all the pieces fit I glued it all together using wood frame clamps to hold it tight to dry overnight.

The next day I took off the clamps and gave all the pieces a light sanding including rounding the edges. Next I used a cherry stain I had previously purchased based upon Tiffin’s recommendation as one that would match our cabinetry the best.

Sharon and I couldn’t be more pleased at how the cabinet door turned out. After we installed the hinges and a door catch we now have a new storage area that looks as if it was always there and all built for less than $35.

NOTE: We are currently in Tucson AZ until December 1st…

Repairing a broken double-paned RV window…

As the saying goes, sometimes caca occurs, or something like that. When we arrived at our site in Tucson Arizona there were a lot of tree limbs overhanging our site. We backed in figuring we would be able to trim them so they would not scratch the slideouts.

I got up on the roof and trimmed all the ones touching the roof but there were several more leaning on our slideouts. Other than noise my biggest concern was that they might tear the slideout toppers since this tree had thorns. Well, I could only reach some of the limbs and a neighbor across the way said he would contact maintenance to come by and trim them on Monday for us. Great!

We settled in and after seeing lots of hummingbirds in the area we put our hummingbird feeder out on the side window of our slide-out. Sure enough, in no time we had hummingbirds feeding at our feeder. With our site all set up and birds at the feeder we felt pretty cozy.

Monday while Sharon was fixing lunch the maintenance guys came over to trim the windows. I offered to pull in the slide so it would be easier to trim the limbs. Well, when I pulled in the slide we heard a loud boom and feared maybe something in the slide got crunched. But no… it was the hummingbird feeder on the side window which as the slide was coming in caused the outside tinted window pane to explode into a zillion little pieces. CRAP!!!  We were amazed it broke the window rather than popping off the feeder. Gee whiz. I mean if you want a hummingbird feeder that will stick to your window this is it!

No problem, we bought a window from Tiffin for the other side and after finding the receipt I not only had the part number I needed for this 26x30 window but I saw we paid $220.00 for it last time so had an idea of what it would cost. After calling Tiffin I was astounded to learn this window would now cost $723.00 plus freight and shipping for a total near $1000.00, YIKES!!!

After calling every glass shop I could find here in Tucson and Phoenix only one could repair it in time but we had to take the window out and take it Phoenix. The shop said it could maybe be fixed before the end of the month for less than $350, but no guarantees it would be done by then.

Then I found onedayglass.com  on the web and they could send me just the broken pane replacement for $125 but no guarantee I’d get it before we left due to supply chain issues. Left with little choice we decided to take the window out, disassemble it, remove the broken glass, measure the window glass for replacement and reinstall it back into the RV to be repaired later.

Let me tell you about a great YouTube video I found on taking a window out and apart. After watching it I felt confident enough to remove the window and disassemble it. Removing the broken glass was tricky but once I finished breaking all the little pieces off and disposing of them I just used a single edged razorblade to cut under the remaining broken glass for removal.

I measured all the details of the window for replacement and reinstalled the single pane of glass left in the broken window. It will need caulking if we get into a stormy situation but I will wait until then to do so since caulk is messy to remove. We decided we will likely order a replacement pane from onedayglass.com and have it delivered to our son’s house in Texas where I can fix the window properly. Never a dull moment!

NOTE: We are currently in Tucson AZ until December…