the dog house gets another mod

[mossemi 1]

 

 

Like many OTTO’s, I have had misgivings about drilling holes in our Ollie but I have slowly gotten over it.  I have changed out my curb side porch lights and they required new mounting holes.  Then I moved my television to the center position and as DavidS mentioned, that job was a big step in getting over the trepidation of drilling holes in fiberglass.

 

So during our trip to the rally and Mississippi and Arkansas we camped without disconnecting the TV several times and since I had less to do setting up, I was often the first into the Ollie and I noticed paper towels unraveled and in the sink or on the floor.  When I whined about it, Krunch said suck it up, it happens all the time.  Little did I know living in the dark as I do.

 

So the suction cup mounted paper towel holder had to go and I remembered Overland’s posting about the countertop extension and the subsequent postings about paper towel holders.  Overland used this one and DavidS used this. I chose the Kamenstein because of DavidS's endorsement. It has a bottom that is pretty flat and it might work with VHB tape, but I was going to screw mount mine.

 

There is a lot of good information in the forum about drilling fiberglass and using fasteners like this post. I have followed the advice of other OTTO's and I am using masking tape to mark my hole location and to minimize gelcoat damage. I mounted my new paper towel holder above the sink where the old suction cup mounted one was located.

I started with an 1/8” pilot hole then used a countersink bit. Then used a 3/16” bit and the countersink bit again. And I finished with a 1/4” bit and the countersink bit again. Then I was off to the neighborhood Ace hardware store where I picked up 2- 2 1/2” #10 pan head bolts, 2-#10 fender washers and 2-#10 nylok nuts, all in stainless. And then I found the holy grail, stainless t-nuts. If those would work I wouldn’t need the nylok nuts, but I would need shorter bolts, so I picked up 2- 2" bolts.

I was planning to use the pan head bolts inside the upper cabinets and the nylok nuts underneath the paper towel holder to reduce the rubber mat distortion inside the cabinet. With the t-nuts inside the cabinets there is barely a ripple. I did use the fender washers between the bolt head and the paper towel holder base to minimize the bolt penetration and thread lock on the bolts.

Hope someone finds this useful.

 

Mike

[Trainman 0]

Your install look great, I've given much thought to installing a paper towel holder and I think I going to look for a paper towel holder that has a little larger mounting base, I think I will use double sticky tape, I have found that using this tape and sticking to fiberglass is almost impossible to remove easily. Plus if I was to permanently mount it the wife would want it somewhere else next week.

 

 

 

trainman

[mossemi 1]

Well that is the consequence of being happily married.  There are lots of options available and I hope you have better luck with tape than I have.  My failures are probably a result of my poor installations or overloading.  I have had very good success with different suction cups.

 

Mike

[mossemi 1]

There have been quite a few postings about galley drawers opening during travel.  I am constantly amazed at the ingenuity and craftsmanship of my fellow forum members.  My first drawer management version consisted of small Harbor Freight suction cups and 1/2” PVC pipe.  It was a simple fix and worked well, but then I followed topgun2's recommendation to clean the inside of the dog house with the Norton's Duragloss recipe.  The inside was clean, shiny and so slick, I couldn’t get the suction cups to stay in place any longer.  So we once again had the unexpected open drawer experience during our rally trip this year and the hunt was on for a new solution.

 

This was the product I chose and we will test it on our next trip with fingers crossed.  And this is how I mounted them to the cabinet supports and drawers.

 

 

Mike