57 Sportcraft Rebuild

Well, winter finally arrived in New England, so I had to wrap Willie up for hibernation. The next steps were to put on the gimp and the front & back curved walls. We even drove all the way to Boston to pick up 1/8" birch from Boulter. But two of the side walls were in good shape and we didn't replace them, so I need to strip the paint off one. I want to do that before I get the 1/8" on so I don't mess up the nice new wood. And I'd like to shellac the sides before I put the gimp on so I don't stain that. Alas, to do those things requires steady temperatures above 50, which we won't have in Massachusetts for quite a while. So the Sportcraft will have to hunker down in her tarp until April (gah! so far away!)



I did a little sanding test right before we tied the tarp up so I could make sure I'd be able to refinish these walls. I was shocked at how easy it was to get down to bare wood. I guess that's the beauty of shellac?


The very top of one side wall is a little delaminated, but not rotten, so I'll need to figure out what to do about that. (tips welcome)


I'm pretty sad about having to take such a long break because I was having a lot of fun. Luckily I have a lot to do in terms of fixing up the windows, light fixtures, etc. I also need to figure out what I want to do about electrical, plumbing, interior design, etc. So I've got work. But I'll miss hanging out in this thing.

Good questions! I don't know a whole lot about wood, so I guess I just assumed it was birch. This is what the lower part of that wall looks like. (lighter spots are sanded)





It wouldn't be the end of the world to replace this wall if it's un-save-able. I'll give it a shot, and if it doesn't work out I'll just add another thing to my spring to-do list. If I can get it looking ok I'll probably keep it as is since this delaminated spot is behind the upper kitchen cabinet and you'll only really see it if you're in bed and the bunk is up.

It does kind of look like fir. I didn't even realize that was an option. Though, (y'all are going to hate me) that almost makes me want to keep it even more, knowing it'll be different. I want this thing to have some of its character left when I'm done and I'm not too concerned about it being perfect this go-around. I'm guessing I'll give refinishing a shot and then have a "you were right, VTT" moment and end up replacing the wall.

You're right that if there is a second time, it makes a lot more sense to buy a camper that's barely held together for a lot less money and replace it all. Though I'm happy that I went about it the piece-by-piece way starting out. I've been less scared about ripping things out since I can see how everything fits back together.

Somehow the weather is still not cooperating with us here. Our days off never align with the sunny, warm days. But my dad needs the camper moved out of his yard by June 15, so we're trying to chip away at anything we can. We put in two full days yesterday and today and checked a lot of things off the list:

Got the back panel off:


And glued up a little bit of delamination:


We also took out the giant old aluminum water tank, which was still full of water! Are these things worth any money or should I just beg someone on craigslist to take it from me so I don't have to pay to trash it at the dump? (I don't ever anticipate needing a tank this big.)


I'm also nearly done with sanding all the old finish and paint off the two original panels that we're keeping.
Before:


After Sanding (before shellacking):

This wall was particularly banged up, but I'm leaving it as is for "character."

Sanding was a lot of work (3 full days for two panels) and it probably would have been easier to just replace the panels entirely, but I love the grain and the character that the old wood has. Having two original panels in opposite corners has also proved to be helpful with catching mistakes we're making on the panels we replace. Yesterday we realized a wall we installed last fall was an inch too low in the front. Luckily we were able to back the screws out and jack the wall up where we needed it, but still a close call!


We started building the front and back walls with 1/8in birch we got from Boulter in Somerville last fall. We're using the mobiltec technique of glueing the lateral supports on before anything else, and while I have yet to shellac or install the boards, it seems awesome! The 1/8in was SO SO bendy before, and now it's a lot easier to work with.

This was before we made a trip to home depot for more clamps:



A little more professional:



I also got all the nails out of all of the siding and cleaned off the black gunk. (butyl tape?) The dogs need to be in the middle of everything, all the time.



I brought home some wood samples and shellac to start figuring out how many coats I need to do. That's the next step, then gimp, then curved walls & ceiling, then aluminum & windows, etc. back on! A waterproof camper is in sight...

You are rolling along. It's tough working without cover.

We had a super productive day yesterday and Willie is starting to feel like a camper again! I spent all day Friday sanding and vacuuming to get ready for shellac. I was having minor freakouts about how orange the amber shellac was all week (feel free to read them here and here) but managed to do a test with Terra Mixol tint on bare birch to get the tone I wanted.

So yesterday morning was shellac, shellac, shellac. I managed to get three coats on all the walls and the two panels of 1/8 that we had cut to size, all before 1pm! I think shellac is my new favorite thing. My woods don't match at all, but they don't clash anymore, and I think it all looks awesome.


Next, we got the gimp on.


And installed the back panel! We added that horizontal brace last time. It'll be for the bed, but it's screwed into the side walls to keep the trailer at the right width. Before, the bed was just resting on a support attached to the 1/8in, so I feel much better about this.


Then we got the front panel on, which I didn't take many good photos of because we were on a roll and took the whole roof off, wood and metal, in a few big pushes.









We're getting to the fun part now! I also have a timeline in place to get the trailer out of my Dad's yard by June 15, as requested, and this put us a whole weekend ahead of schedule. 

I can't see any of windborn's images in the last post, and most of them are kind of scarmbled looking in others, including the profile picture. Very weird. I went to some other image heavy threads and they are fine.