57 Sportcraft Rebuild

So nice to see your project Windborn. And seeing it done right!

Hint: take a belt sander and curve the vent shim corners a little bit; it prevents creases in the roof metal. I use 40 grit. You could also use a heavy wood file if you don't have a sander...

Thanks, vikx. Do you just round them out a bit or do you try to make them more "dome"-like? I just looked through your photos and found this. Is the sanding already done here?

So when I started this project with my dad I warned him that it was going to be difficult and frustrating and that I fully expected to cry at least once. Now when people ask how the rebuild is going he always replies, "It's great, Shea hasn't cried yet." But I came pretty close today. The only thing is, I realized that under pressure I don't cry. I just curse really loud.

After waiting for some clouds to roll away my dad and I pulled off the tarp ready for a beautiful day of work. Instead we found a 3 inch puddle of water from yesterday's storm and our newly installed birch panel sagging heavily. The things nightmares are made of. Although we had tented the tarp when we had no ceiling, without the vent hole, we didn't think to tent it the last time we wrapped it up. Big oops.

I took this picture after we frantically sopped the water up with towels and poured it out through the seams. (I took a break from yelling the f word to shoot it.)


Then we went to work trying to get that sag out. It took us about 2 hours, but it's *almost* ok now. We had to put some nails into the bracing for the vent and a ton of staples in places that would be hidden. (What a great test for my new compressor! We probably would have needed to scrap this panel without it.) And we also put up some 2x4 braces to hold the plywood up while it was drying. It's still ripple-y in places, but overall I'm amazed with the recovery. There isn't even a spot of water damage on the shellac!


The red here is the light shining through



The rest of the day got a lot better and we checked a lot of small woodworking tasks off our list. We got the bunk supports on, the back window panels on and structurally sound. We got the upper kitchen cabinets installed:


The molding for the edges on:


And the vent opened up!! Now we can put that pole in before we tarp again.


Here's how the ceiling looked at the end of the day. It's not perfect but nothing in this camper really is haha.


We're letting it dry out tonight and then I'm going to squirt some bleach up there to get rid of the mildew. I think (fingers crossed) that we may have saved it.

Driveway rebuilders unite! You are very fortunate about the shellac... The heat under a tarp ruined my new finish, the wind destroyed my carport, but I put it back up this week with another tarp as the May Grey/June Gloom mist was puddling on the roof too.

Thanks y'all. I'm seeing the benefits of a trailer port more every day. Though if we stay on schedule I'll have the roof on next week so I'm hoping I won't even need a tarp soon!

Dan, the tenting really worked for us prior to this. We just worked a little too long before we wrapped it up last time and weren't thinking things through. Though if you have a carport, that's probably preferable.

Vikx, we used some finish nails all over that seem to be doing to trick. You can't see them in the vent photo but they run parallel to the seams along the edges of the vent. We decided to give it a little more time to dry before going too nuts on the bulges

Thanks mobiltec. I can see how the trailerport makes sense for people who are working on multiple trailers. There were so many "ifs" that could have cost us so much time and money, and probably enthusiasm, with that leak. (If we had waited one more day to open it up, if we had gone with cheaper plywood, etc.) I wouldn't want to risk it. Maybe I'll get a port for my next trailer