OK, some better photos after the 2nd/3rd/4th coats and removal of the masking:
I need to do some touching up and scraping around the window frames still - if I was smart, I'd have removed the window surrounds while I was replacing the rivets in them, and stripped them off the window, then painted, then replaced them - but I'm not.
I'm really happy about the replacement of all visible rivets with Olympic rivets before painting though. The difference is very noticeable in those few places (which will be under cabinets) where I used conventional pop rivets with the hole in the head.
I'm also happy about having decided to route cables under the skin rather than in channel on top, even though that meant adding a lot of little patches. The patches look very natural and don't really catch your eye the way the channel would have, even painted. If you look at the 2nd-to-last photo there of the ceiling, you can see probably half a dozen patches but they don't really pop out at you.
I'll have to see how it looks with the cabinets back, but so far I really like the two-tone colour scheme too. I didn't really think of this when I picked the colours, but it's actually quite a 50s/60s style, e.g. on this (model) 1959 car:
Probably it would have been more original to do the roof in cream for that effect, though.
I'm trying to figure out what to do with the bathroom now; originally I was planning on painting the bathtub and the wall around it (which is part of the shower) with Whitecote, but now I'm thinking that the contrast between the very-pale-green ceiling and bright white paint would be unpleasant. So plan B may be still to paint the bathtub in white, but to paint the wall in a dark green or dark yellow, probably with the POR-15 Hardnose paint (which seems to be the same thing as Whitecote, just tinted). That could be a little dark when you're in the shower, but I was thinking that some waterproof LED lighting would help with that.
Browsed back to this to for second look, and yup, reminds me of a DC3 cargo plane interior, no stretch of the imagination since zinc-chromate primer pistachio neon green is such a close match!
Well that's obviously the exact look I was going for! I think I've only seen that finish on the outside of unpainted aircraft...
A friend said it was like an upside-down, inside-out caterpillar, which I thought was a nice image.
As for the surface prep, I didn't take a very close look yesterday at the difference between the areas where I painted over Zolatone and where I painted bare metal or sanded Zolatone, but I suspect that the difference isn't going to be very noticeable in the final equation. Something in either the primer or the surface coat or the rollers I used or some combination of these things gave the surface a sort of very-slightly-bumpy eggshell finish. Still, I do like the way it looks, but it's not the perfectly smooth finish I was expecting in places where I'd sanded or over new flat aluminium.
I'll try taking some close-up photos of the areas where I sanded and where I painted over Zolatone for comparison, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's no visible difference.
oh yes - reminds me of something off the LOST TV show, "lookit what we found in jungle, an upside-down, inside-out caterpillar thats gonna get us off the Island..." Good job JD !
No knocks - this is for next time.... For smoother finishes wetting the roller to slightly damp core before paint touches it helps, as does small amount of thinner mixed into paint, whether water of mineral spirits etc - also important to keep container closed and just dispense it as needed to keep it from thickening in can from exposure, and cleaning roller tray & starting over when edges get beyond gummy towards dry since that large surface area really wicks away solvent... In Minnesota winters the air is so dry you can glue the brush to trimwork indoors if you're not carefull, the paint never has a chance to level... All tricks I used on frame painting - I could not believe how far a quart of PO-15 stretched with 3% POR-15 thinner added (2 tblspns, one per jar decanted half-qts into)
Advice I will take to heart on the frame painting, which is one the next tasks, and informed advice is always welcome!
Today I moved the trailer from the warehouse it's been living in to my house - the warehouse has finished building out their storage space, and wanted to up my rent from $300 to $500 and move me into a different space. I said no thanks, since I just moved to a new house where I can put it in the driveway for free, and since most of the really noisy work is done (and it's the summer - it was nice to be indoors during the rainy winter to do the exterior work).
This time I rented an F150 pickup instead of a moving truck which turned out to be much easier - no brake controller so no electric brakes, but the truck was easily able to stop the mostly-stripped trailer. And now I want a new (well, 2004-) F150 as well, but that's going to wait until the trailer is ready to take somewhere. No point making payments on a truck just so it can sit in my driveway and depreciate. But if I could have done the long drive from Lubbock with an F150 instead of a moving truck it would've been a lot easier.
To prepare for the road I riveted the sides of the belly skin back up onto the frame - most of the belly skin is cut out between the frame rails for floor & frame repairs - reattached all the window latches, and screwed the fridge to the floor.
Getting hooked up was easy enough, I had to fabricate a 4-pin to 7-pin adapter on the spot because I forgot to buy one, and the towball happened to be at the exact perfect height. Out of the warehouse was close, but drama-free:
The F150 seemed like the perfect size for this trailer:
After an epic journey of two and a half miles to my house from the warehouse, I had no trouble getting it into the driveway with the aid of a couple of spotters, starting from reversing from parallel to the opposite curb, cut across to rotate it to align with the driveway, put the truck up onto the opposite curb to straighten it up, and then backed straight in. Now, it is true that to do this I had to drive the wrong way down the one-way street I live on, but it's pretty quiet so I think it's fairly safe The nice thing about this maneuver is that I think next time I could do it alone or very quickly with one spotter, and that in order to do it I only need to block off one parking space on the street in advance, so despite my street being narrow I should be able to get in and out at will.
Good to have it home, tomorrow I think I'll wash it - being inside, it's accumulated a thick layer of dust and dirt that I haven't been able to wash off.
Pretty strange seeing it out on the road under natural light after so long in a dark warehouse, and also to look at the outside photos and think, "Well, it looks pretty much the same." Which is true - but no awnings falling off it, lots of patches applied, and of course lots of wall & floor repairs, electrical work, and other things invisible from the outside.
I still need to patch a large (2 foot square) hole where the previous water heater was and put on the vent stack covers I just got from VTS, and the bulb seal in the front window, but then it should be rainproof at least for storage (no belly skin means I wouldn't want to tow it in the rain though).
Look at lower shot and you can see the mirror-like mini-skirt - on mine I knew the belly would be open a long time so I wanted to have a drip-edge of some sort to shed water past floor level, seal open pop-rivet holes against moisture intrusion, seal the F/R frame shell intersections... so I went with aluminum foil duct tape.
Yes, the removal of the tape can be a small hassle from adhesive lingering after it peels off but I can vouch for its staying power. The only seep I saw make it through the tape was at the rear frame corner shown, another strip of tape overlapping the first to get to clean sheet metal would have prevented it.
A very handsome trailer you have - feel free to reference the Siberian winter images anytime you catch yourself procrastinating
An excellent encouragement! No snow here but plenty of rain and it gets colder than I like to be out in come the winter so it'd be good to have all the outside done by then - at least with the interior I can bring out an electric heater.
I have plenty of foil tape around and I may take your advice - better than leaks, anyway, if it comes down to that.
Having spent some time taking an all-around look to it with an eye to water sealing, "handsome" isn't the word that comes to mind - "full of holes" and "badly in need of a wash and polish" is more like it...
Been doing nothing worth posting about lately, just some scraping of silicone sealant, replacement of a few loose roof rivets, and I put on replacement caps for the vent stacks at the back - part of project "waterproof by winter" - although only above floor level since the belly skin isn't going back on for quite a while yet.
This weekend I did patch the huge hole at the street-side back where the original water heater was - here's before and after:
I haven't even trimmed the rivets there, nor cleaned up any of the excess sealant.
Still, it looks okay - had to extend a little below the C-channel and overlapping the belly skin because the banana wrap was long-missing there (maybe never installed at the factory since I think the original water heater was there). Some wrestling & re-setting of rivets was required to get it to lay flat, but it's good now. Not the best piece of work ever, but not bad, and once the rivets are shaved, sealant cleaned off, and it's polished, it should look just fine. The alternative, after all, would be to replace the entire panel and the banana wrap. Sounds a lot like work to me.
Now, I just have to put new sealant around all the hatches, across a few of the windows, put rivets in a couple more screw holes in the roof from where the TV antenna was, get the bulb seal in the front window, replace the door drip rail, and replace the door seals, and it'll be waterproof above the floor line - in theory.
I guess I did a couple of other things inside - put in three ceiling lights, dome lights from Ikea, with 12V CF bulbs:
They're not incredibly bright, but good enough for general lighting since I'm going to have lights under most of the cabinets too.
Stripped the original reading lights at the front and replaced them:
Here's a before and after:
I like it - opinions may vary.
...
I guess I did a couple of other things inside - put in three ceiling lights, dome lights from Ikea, with 12V CF bulbs.
They're not incredibly bright, but good enough for general lighting since I'm going to have lights under most of the cabinets too.
...
I've looked all over for 12V CF bulbs. I assume these have their own ballast/hi voltage unit, like the new 110V CFs? If so, where do you find them? I heard that WalMart was carrying them, but can't find them.
My local trailer supply place stocks them, but I bought these from some mail-order retailer a while back (I don't remember who now).
They work about as well as 110v CFL lamps. I was having trouble with a whining sound earlier on, but I think that was just my junky old converter - no noise from the new converter. They take a little while to warm up, which some of the newer 110V CFLs don't, but they provide a decent amount of light at night, especially for the wattage of course.
Not done anything too exciting lately, and no new photos - I cleaned up the large patch (acetone works great on Vulkem), and shaved the rivets, and it looks pretty good (and watertight). I masked off a few of the window frames where I had removed some decaying silicone sealant, and applied some Alcoa Gutterseal. Good stuff, if a bit smelly, and it really does seem to want to get into spaces rather than just sticking on the outside (like Vulkem or silicone, which seem to work better when compressed between two surfaces). It was still sticky a day or two later, so I haven't removed the tape or any excess yet - it had a bit of a tendency to pull off altogether with the tape, I think I'll need to razor close to the edge of the window frame.
Also took off part of the banana wrap at the back and front. At the front I think I'll need to take it all off, apply Vulkem inside it, and replace; it seems to have no sealant under it there, and in fact to mainly serve to channel water coming down the skin into the belly skin via the floor. Great piece of design there...
So, the sealing project is coming along pretty well, but it's not very exciting. The Flair-It parts for the PEX plumbing replacement have arrived, but I haven't done any work on that yet (forgot to order a wrench and the clips for holding the pipe down (and the check valves), truth be told, so I need to get onto ordering that).
I'm looking at the termination of the electrical system - currently a free-floating affair of wirenuts, with no circuit breakers in the trailer (it's on a 15A GFCI at my house for now, so it's fairly safe). I was planning to buy a Blue Seas combination 12V/110V circuit breaker panel, but they're easily $500. They sure are nice, but I'm wondering if I care that much, and if a cheap domestic breaker box and a plain 12V fuse box might not serve for now.
I also have to design the new drain plumbing, which shouldn't be too hard. The main change is that the drain destination is just behind the wheel well on the curb side, instead of being right at the back. I also removed the front vent stack which was venting the kitchen sink trap, figuring to replace it with an air-admittance valve. I need to draw that up too, and attach at least the drain lines from the bathroom sink and the bathtub before fixing that back in place in the corner. And the bathroom sink needs a new faucet first... nothing is ever simple, is it?
Great thread Jacob. Look forward to seeing the end product.
__________________
Van
2005 F-150 FX4, SC, 4X4, 5.4 V8
former '78 Argosy 20' Minuet owner
former '77 23' Safari owner
current 25' Fun Finder X-250BHS SOB owner
I have a trailer like yours and do not have the time to restore
it myself. any ideas (what about Iowa boys in so cal.)
any input would be appreciated
joerigg
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Good job JD !
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