Month: January 2016

I spent some time yesterday working on the interior rear panel, with no success.  I found some really nice baltic birch plywood with exterior glue line.  It has five plys in a quarter inch, although more bow ties than I would like. The problem is that it’s too good- very stiff, and I can’t force it to the curve I need.  I’ve removed it and I need to slice halfway through on the back side.

I did get the ID lights on top and the top panel reattached. Here’s the wiring:

Marine grade heat-shrink adhesive crimps with connectors on the end. That way if someone has to remove that panels they don’t have to cut wires. Since that’s the first panel I’ve reattached that is visible when on the ground, I had to polish it.  I spent a couple hours experimenting.  The metal polish I bought is a complete waste of time.  But it seems to work pretty well to start with No. 7 rubbing compound, then polishing compound on a rubber pad, than polishing compound and a fleece pad.

Here’s my first test piece.  Since it’s against the side of the trailer, that’s a before and after.

It’s not a perfect mirror finish, but it looks pretty good I think.  After 65 years I think it deserves to have a few battle scars and imperfections. Here’s the rear roof panel, polished and with lights.  Note you can start to see reflections.

I also continue to work on windows as a fill-in project.  They also don’t come out perfect, but I think reasonable.  As an example, here’s one of the door windows.  It started like this:

Outside:

 

Inside:

with (as mentioned previously) two different kinds of putty on that.  Two completely useless attempts to stop leaks without doing it right. After scraping, wire brushing, and cleaning looked like this:

 

And after painting with alumathane and reassembly with new neoprene edge seal looks it like this:

 

 

 

 

 

For the last few days I’ve been dodging the rain.  I was able to complete the right rear inside panel.  The original 2×2 that I had sistered was the first piece of wood that was less than 100% that I kept.  It still was fairly strong, but the top surfaced was wet and a bit spongy.  So I drilled some small holes and filled those with propylene glycol. When that soaked into the wood I filled them again.  And again.  And again.  I probably got a half cup into it.

I added a cross-member above the hole. which you can see in the previous picture.  That’s the access to the externally-accessible storage, and I like having the hinge supported better than the original. For the side panel I used ACX plywood I had. Pretty ugly stuff, but most of it will be below the mattress so never seen. With a combination of wood glue, clamps around the edges, and some brads I got that attached.

That now all looks pretty solid.  Still needs some stain (maybe) and a couple coats of polyurethan.

I  continue to dodge rainy days.  Today we were supposed to have no rain from about 5 AM to 5 PM.  It actually started sprinkling about 2PM, so I didn’t get everything I had hoped to done.  As thought I’d ever gotten everything I wanted to done.

Mainly I’ve been working on the back of the trailer.  I’ve got the right side almost rebuilt.    

The rotten wood is all gone. I had to replace a piece of plywood, as you can see.  I still need to glue that to the side beam. This is a storage bay next to the bed, with access from the top.I’m going to remove those screws, put wood putty in the holes, sand and/or scrape the peeling varnish off the original wood, and put a couple good coats of polyurethane inside and out.

On the left side I need to replace a larger chunk of plywood.  Like this:

It’s just sitting in place.  I need to trim to match the curve of the rear, next time I get some clear weather.  After I pulled the old pieces off I found that the posts were loose and the stringer was broken. The two verticals in this picture were attached so poorly I pulled them out by hand, with no tools.

The stringer is broken.  Just a poor piece of wood.

So I’m sistering it. I don’t have any wood screws that long, but I’ll get some.

This is where I was when the rain started.  Another two or three hours should see the structure glued and polyurethaned.  When that’s all cured I can put in the new rear inside panel- the old one was massively disintegrated.

I’m also working on the windows. I’ve rebuilt a couple of them.  There are two windows in front, one in the rear, one in each of the two doors, one more on the right side, and four on the left.  All but the door windows open. One of the door windows was in fairly decent shape. Not usable as is, but not major problems and little rust.  The other was horrible. Somebody had sprayed it with copper paint from the inside, without even masking.  Somebody had tried to seal it twice. Once many years ago, using some kind of putty which has hardened.  Then over that an attempt with silicone.  Neither worked of course.  It never does.

 

But getting it off was a pain. I tried a couple things, but what worked best was chiseling it off, using a plastic hammer and a 2 inch wide flexible steel putty knife.  That seemed just the right amount of force to get it off in hours rather than days, but gentle enough not to damage the window frame. Took about two hours of that before it made sense to start with the wire brush. Now that’s all ready to paint and reassemble. Now it looks like this:

all the roof insulation, almost.  I mounted the three roof lights that indicate that the trailer is over 80 inches wide, but I found I didn’t have the multi-wire crimps I need. I ordered them, but until I get them I won’t be able to do that panel.

Leaving that aside, I got all the roof looking like this:

In this picture the front part has been sealed with aluminum tape but the three closest bays haven’t.  This picture is taken while I’m doing that. There are three 14-2 wires running from left to right in that picture, but they are covered by the aluminum tape so not visible.  One for the kitchen lights, one for the bathroom lights, and one for the water pump and water heater.

Then the panels go on with butyl tape at every overlap, like this:

You can see the old roof  “sealant” there.  It doesn’t seal anything.  As far as I can tell it does two things. It transfers money from the trailer owner to the people who sell the stuff, and it allows the trailer owner to feel like they are trying to stop the leak. The alternative is not trivial- it’s pretty much what I’ve been doing.  Pull stuff apart, replace rotten wood, clean off the old junk, and put it together with butyl tape everywhere.

I got this much done on Sunday.

 

And from there back to here on Monday.  The vent in the center right of the picture below is covering the hole on the center left of the picture above. The left panel, with the left-side vent, is where the lights go.  So that vent and the panel are just sitting in place. But front vent, both stacks, and all the other panels are firmly in place with all solid wood, new butyl tape and watertight. I keep the tarp on anyway, because the corners aren’t sealed yet.  Eventually there’s an aluminum angle, and a drip rail on the right side where the doors are.  That can’t go on until the entire structure rebuild is done, including the floors and the steel understructure.

I’m rebuilding the rear end next.  More photos to come.

New Year’s Eve!  I’m not much of a party animal, but I did get some trailer work done today.

I decided that I would calk the upper side of the stringers to the plywood ceiling. That way if there is some slight moisture (condensation?) it won’t get pulled into the gap, where it stays. Note that except for the top, where the roof is pretty flat, I left the lower side uncalked.  After that was done the roof looked like this:

While that was curing I completed removing the roofing felt that was supposed to seal between the roof panels.  At some point somebody tried some kind of roof sealant.  That stuff may do something but I can’t imagine what.  It’s certainly not going to seal seams in an aluminum roof.  It looks like this:

I got a lot of it off, but it’s not easy and I didn’t try to get it completely clean.  Even Goof-Off only loosens it a bit.  Heat loosens it, but the adhesion is amazing.

Then I started putting the polyiso insulation on. It feels good to be assembling instead of disassembling.  I taped all the seams with aluminum tape, trying to get as close as possible to an airtight seal across the roof.  It looks like this:
The panels across the top can just sit flat. Each gap appears to be unique, but they seem to average about a foot.  On the rear just over the window there’s an sharp curve, so I slit the panel and taped over the seams as above.

And here’s the first panel, on the rear, sitting in place.

There’s a 14-2 marine wire running across from the one light to the other, under the far end.  The wire you see on the left will go to the three “id” lights I’m going to add.  The rules say that a trailer over 80 inches wide should have three red lights to indicate the width. I know I don’t have to meet those rules, but I think it’s wise to do so. You’ll notice the left side is all white and the right side … isn’t.  That’s because I had gotten a tube of “bronze” calk by mistake.  It’s not bronze, it’s dark brown.  But just the color is different.