There and back again... a camping adventure

I shared the news of a Marklin camper acquisition here not long ago, hoping to see if anyone knew a source for a replacement canopy. My camper, which I got at a great price, was missing it:

This is what I needed:

While no one was able to point me to one, John Quilter was quick to offer to make one. He clearly likes the challenge, as we've seen with other examples of his handiwork. When there's a model he wants that doesn't exist, he just custom builds his own!

So this canopy shouldn't be too much of a challenge. I took a couple measurements and sent them to him:

In less than 24 hours, he'd sent me some pics of a mockup in cardboard and a first draft in metal:

Then, it was painted. First a red that was more orange and then a redder red:

Once the paint dried, John was off to the Eugene, OR post office in his 72 year old MG:

Not long after that, a small box arrived with the newly created canopy. But oops! I thought I was being clever by "starting clean" with the ruler at the 1" mark (see above). Well, it arrived an inch too long and the pins were too big.

What to do? John and quickly agreed the best approach was to send the whole camper to Eugene for a custom fit. So I carefully packed it up and sent it cross country.

Well, today it rolled back into Fort Wayne, IN and, I dare say, this custom metal canopy looks better than any plastic original!

A huge thank you to John Quilter for making the custom canopy (all he'd let me pay him for was the shipping). This model will soon be on permanent display at the RV museum in Elkhart and will truly be one-of-a-kind.