The Coolest LEDs

The week between Christmas and New Years can either be flat out with client issues or dull as toast..... this year we have toast. To fill in the time, I've been sketching the interior of the caravanner, cleaning my office, and catching up on paperwork. One of the ares that I've been sketching is the shelf over the sink. I had started the process of building reproductions of the upper cabinets, but when I thought about the total amount of storage each of these overheads had, it became clear this would be a labor of love to keep them. I'm not sure if it will be an improvement, but I've decided to build someting a little more modern, which I'll post more of later. How does this fits into LEDs? I plan on building them into the shelf to illuminate the sink area.

I'll be using a product from Suncor stainless called Microstar. I bought a bunch of these a couple months back from a place in Needham and have been thrilled with them. Low power consumption and bright as heck. I'm looking into if I can find a dimmer for them....

Anyways, here's a link to the site which has the best prices on these so far.

http://www.atafa.com/sports/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=microstar&osCsid=6a9d41860ed104c27a88dd018e5065a3&x=0&y=0

Provenance - Part IV - Need More Info

Lin got back to me that he couldn't find any more info. I think it's because he doesn't have directories that far back. I'll have to poke around through my WBCCI head office contacts to see if they could look up the person for me.

Two more updates on the Caravanner. We settled on the fabric for the front chairs and the rear bed and we have ordered sample LED lights for the interior. It's amazing what is available on the LED market these days.

Speaking of LEDs, maybe someone could email me with the voltage of marker lights and so on. If these LEDs work out I might just convert my lights using them, assuming they're 12v.

Happy Holidays,

Doug

Provenance - Part III - The Third Owner

I reached out to John B, the son of the person I bought the caravanner from and he confirmed that his family had bought it from the Amblers originally. From this information I am making the assumption that I am the third owner of this trailer. I have yet to find any information that lists the Amblers as the original purchaser. Maybe Lin will have some luck finding the Amblers in earlier directories.

Doug

Provenance - Part II

A friend of ours through the WBCCI , Lin Lowell, has amassed a fair number of directories over the years. When I first joined the club he was able to look back through his directories and find my grand fathers WBCCI number. It was not available at the time, so I put a 1 in front of it.

I recently asked Lin another favor, to look up the number that is on my 1956 caravanner. He replied today that the number belonged to a Reverend John Ambler and wife Lois from Worcester MA. He's going to look back in older directories to see if Mr. Ambler might have been the original owner.

There are a couple Ambler listing in Massachusetts and one good hit on google that mentiones a Reverend John Ambler of worcester participating in a civil rights march in the 1960s.

Provenance

For those fans of Antiques Road Show, you always hear the hosts discussing Provenance, establishign the place of orgin. For us vintage owners, this is ideally finding records or documents authenticating the history of the trailers ownership. It's also a bit of fun aluminum geneology. My compatriot, Steve H, is working hard to establish the provenance of his 56' caravanner. So in the spirit of provence, I have included a type written note that I found wedged between the water tank and the floor. I found it when I pulled the interior apart.

From this letter I can surmise that the trailer has been in New England since at least 1966 and seems to have stuck around in the Berkshires and the Pioneer valley. Further the writer appears to be a preacher and maybe used the trailer to travel and preach at the same time. That would assume that the writer never sent this letter to the owners of the Airstream, but if the letter was sent it's harder to know where it was, except there was a grandchild named Emily.

In the letter the writer describes traveling to Pittsfield, MA from Goshen. From Pittsfield to Goshen is about 28 miles each way according to google and that would line up with his estimate of 58 miles round trip. I know that there is a 4-H (camp howe) in Goshen and I recall that there was also a Baptist camp on the same lake. I wonder if the trailer spent any time there???

A little more background on my trailer, the owner before me bought it from a person in Agawam, MA as part of a purchase of a camp site and then the trailer was transported to Holliston where it had sat for the last couple years. With the passing of his wife, the PO indicated to me that he did not have the energy or the drive to work on it any longer. He wanted to see the trailer go to someone who would restore it.

Here it is now (well actually at GSM) and now I have to figure out if I'm going to make it something that the prior owners would recognize or something new. Decisions...

I wonder if I could track down who Emily is. I recall her name scribbled on the underpart of the bed with the surname Ambler. Emily Ambler and her grandmother or mother was named Pearl. hmmmmm
Doug