Tuesday Trailer Progress

Out I went at 6 PM on the dot to start working on the trailer. The steel I primed yesterday received its top coat of paint. I made a couple cuts on one of the sections of plywood floor for a better fit, then painted the cut edges to help seal them a bit. Then I cleaned around the leakiest window and sealed it with Parbond sealant, as well as cleaning and resealing the top seam of the drip caps above three of the five windows. I guess I'll see how much difference that makes when next it rains while I'm in the trailer. The drip caps over the other two windows will have to wait until I can get a better putty knife.

The shiny black surfaces on the bottom half of the photo are freshly-painted steel.
There's about four and a half feet of floor missing.  Note how many tools are sitting on the other side.
I really could have used a few of them this evening. Oops.

I actually have several decent putty knives, but along with my good hand saw they were in a corner of the trailer. The wet paint lay in between. Much sadness. [sigh]

Photo of the section of aluminum skin that was riveted into place yesterday.
Olympic rivets installed but with mandrels untrimmed and unshaved.

Then I decided to seal up a few rivet holes by putting rivets in them. I'm using TremPro 635 polyurethane sealant on each rivet I install. The rivets are 5/32" Olympic rivets, a blind rivet that is somewhat stronger than normal blind (pop) rivets and that can be finished to look much like the solid buck rivets Airstream used on the exterior. All of the 75 or so that I've installed still need to have their mandrels trimmed and then must be shaved using the rivet shaving tool. For now, there's a bit sticking out of each one.

Today I put in about two dozen and had a dozen to go when the rain started. I then spent ten minutes rushing around putting away tools, getting the plywood with its wet paint under cover, and generally cleaning up. When I finally walked in the door, I found that almost exactly two hours had elapsed.

Tomorrow's forecast calls for it to be too cool for the sealants or paints, so I will likely work on getting everything around where the wheel wells go ready for their installation, dry fit them, and do the necessary drilling. Then come Thursday I should be able to install them for real, with sealant and everything. As soon as the wheel wells are in place, the middle section of plywood floor can be dry fit if not permanently installed. When that plywood goes in I will be 60% complete on the floor replacement.