Soul-Journer

It’s so nice when we both have time off to work on the trailer and when the weather basically cooperates!  On July 3rd, we measured, cut and attached more of the marine hull liner fabric on the walls.  Our work area for spraying adhesive on the fabric is a tarp in the front yard.  We had to stop at one point when it started sprinkling….

I neglected to take pictures of these areas after they were finished, but it all looks pretty good. At this point we just have some small pieces of fabric to put in the upper cabinets, as well as putting on the seam cover strips. Yay!  I’ll be glad when this part is over!

On July 4th, Wayne started the process of reinforcing and extending the bed platform. The center divider will help to strengthen the platform, plus it will allow items that are put in from the side storage area to stay where we can reach them.  He also added some vertical supports at various places along the platform. Two pieces of curved plywood form the sleeping surface, and we don’t plan to permanently attach them so that we can access everything under the bed.  That said, we’ll probably use the front areas more than those in the far back on the driver’s side.

Last week we bought a print fabric for the curtains.  I’m not quite sure if we have enough to do all the windows, but my goal is to make curtains for the large front and back windows, first, and use a coordinating fabric for the side windows, if necessary.  The dark blue fabric will serve as a liner, offering privacy, as well as helping to block incoming morning light.  I think the fabric is much prettier in real life than it is in this picture, by the way!

Making the curtains should be a very interesting project for me.  While only simple seams are required, I don’t sew.  Seriously.  I don’t own an iron or an ironing board (yet).  I bought an older used Singer sewing machine last spring–which is in my classroom at school–and one of my co-workers gave me about a 30-minute lesson a couple of months ago.  I honestly don’t know if I can even remember how to thread the bobbin!  Various YouTube videos have helped me understand the mechanics of measuring, hemming and cutting the fabric to make the kind of curtains I want, but lack of familiarity with the machine could, indeed, be a challenge.

When we get ready for cushions for the front dinette, we’ll probably use a dark blue fabric, but with the colors in the curtains, we could even do a bright green.  Or if I’ve somehow morphed into an exceptional seamstress, maybe I’ll whip up some cushions that are blue with bright green piping!  Guess we’ll figure it out when we get there…

And so that brings us to flooring….  We’ve looked at Allure vinyl “planks” and at other vinyl peel ‘n stick tile patterns, but today I wondered if I could use some vinyl tiles that I have left over from some household renovations.  We spread out about a dozen to see if it would be too “orange” against the chestnut cabinets.

It’s not awful–and it would save some money to use something we’ve already got–but I really don’t like the color or the pattern that well for the trailer.  Guess we’ll keep on looking.

We had the opportunity to do a bit more work on the trailer this morning, and our first project was cutting a piece of blue-gray indoor/outdoor carpet to go under the bed in the back.  We’ll use the space under the bed for storage and wanted to have a smooth surface for plastic bins and boxes which will slide in from the front.  We need to reinforce the bed frame–as well as divide it (front to back)–so that things that we put in through the outside access door will stay on the passenger side where we can reach them.  With the carpet down and the fabric up on the walls in the back, Wayne will be able to work on the bed extension (connecting it to the cabinets) so that it will be a full double in width (54″).

Since we had a little more time available, we put up some more of the fabric.  Again, this is not an easy job, but we’re pleased with what we’ve installed so far:

The good news is that I think we’ll have enough of the marine hull liner fabric that I ordered.  I had some concerns after hearing of someone who ordered far more of Scamp’s “rat fur” for her 13 ft. trailer than I did for our 16 ft trailer–and barely had enough!

After Wayne left for work, I went back out to the trailer and finished putting a 2nd coat of stain on areas that needed it.  Glad to have that done for now–we’ll need to stain again once we put doors on the cabinets–but with this much accomplished, we’ve been thinking again about flooring, fabric for curtains, backsplash material, etc…..

The summer already seems to be slipping by too quickly, but we HAVE had a lot of things going on recently, including a first-time, incredibly amazing trip to Colorado to visit my youngest son.  Time well spent!  We checked out some camp grounds while we were there, so maybe someday we’ll do a big road trip and stay at Dowdy Lake Campground and Cherry Creek State Park Campground.

For now, however, we really need to get some things DONE, if we hope to use the trailer this summer!  Today’s project involved putting up more of the fabric (marine hull liner fabric instead of Scamp’s “rat fur.”)  This really isn’t particularly easy to do…

We started on the rear passenger side (door side or curb side, whatever you choose to call it).  I decided to do it in two sections: above and below the window.

The top piece was more challenging than the bottom due to the curve at the top.  The bottom side wound up being challenging, too, given the bed frame that fits so tightly into the space, and the need to cut around the access door.

Once we had that side done, Wayne suggested trying to use one BIG piece for the other side, instead of doing a top and bottom piece like we did on the other side.  I had my doubts, but at least we’ve learned that we can pull it off, re-spray with adhesive and re-attach if necessary….

So yeah, the curves were a challenge–as was the weight of a piece of fabric that big–so we took turns, giving both of us the opportunity to cut, spray, pull and cuss. 🙂

So now at least we have the back part of the trailer done, and I think it will look pretty good once we put a strip of fabric over the major seams. 🙂

On Sunday, May 24th, Wayne worked on removing the old chains, which need to be replaced.  The bolt that held the chains on was totally rusted, and despite using WD-40 and a product called “Rust Buster,” he still had to lie down in the driveway and alternately saw it and hit it with a chisel…  As he was doing that, I got ready to start staining the wood in the back near the bed, rationalizing that it would be good to get that done before putting up more fabric.   As it turned out, neither of us had a particularly fun day of trailer renovation, although he DID finally manage to break and remove the bolt so that he could get the chains off.  He also continued to work on getting the door to close…

I’d woken up with a headache on Sunday, and even though I was wearing a mask and had a fan going, it was hot in the trailer and the fumes were incredibly strong.  By the time I finally decided I’d had enough, my head was pounding and I was also very queasy.  AND I wasn’t but so pleased with the results. 🙁

I liked the color, but it was so hard to keep it from streaking!  Plus, the “disposable” brushes I’d bought were shedding even more than my cats…  I seriously wondered if we should just change gears and paint instead of stain!

When I looked at it again on Monday, May 25th, I decided I liked it enough to keep going, but I knew I needed to be better prepared….

In the meantime, Wayne started patching the tiny holes on the roof above and to the front of the door–the source of the leak in our future “dinette.”  Now that he knew what to look for on the roof, though, he was shocked to find LOTS of tiny holes!  WTH?  There’s no evidence that any holes other than the ones over the door are leaking, but while he was at it, he tried to sand and repair all of them.   So with rain in the forecast tomorrow, we’re (one more time) pretty confident that we’ve sealed anything and everything that could possibly leak.  Fingers crossed on that!

Wearing a respirator and with a better fan set up, I started in the back again and put a second coat of stain on the walls next to the bed.  Since we want to get all the fabric up in that area first, it makes sense to get it finished–though I’m not exactly sure when we’ll decide that it’s done….  Supposedly this type of stain also has a poly “gloss” to it–which I’d like–but I’m not seeing it yet.  Maybe after more sanding and putting on another coat??

I found that the respirator helped a LOT–as did the fan–so I was able to get a second coat on all of the surfaces I’d stained yesterday.  Wayne came in later and started staining the walls of the “bathroom,” and between the two of us we almost got everything stained (first coat).  I wish we could have finished, but we just didn’t want to push it.  So here’s how I spent my Memorial Day afternoon:

Ultimately there will be doors on the upper and lower cabinets, and at some point I want to put a thin laminate on the “kitchen” counter tops.  I have to admit that I like the look of the “American Chestnut” stain, and now that we’re at least getting to this part of the renovation, we’re excited about the possibilities! We looked at fabric last night for curtains, but just didn’t see anything that we liked enough to get.  I hope we’ll know it when we see it. 🙂

This was taken through the screen from the outside, looking towards the front of the trailer:

BTW, we’ll probably use this AC this year, though we’d like to get one with controls on the front (instead of on the top) so it won’t have to stick out so far from the cabinet. Getting the housing set up for that will be another big project….

Saturday morning, May 23rd, started with the installation of a new rib door seal.  Yay!  Looks nice!  It will be great to have the door shut more securely!

However, it would be even better if we could get the door to actually CLOSE!  Ugh.  We’ve tried to adjust the hinges, but we still can’t get it to latch. Not good.  As I’ve said, one step forward, TWO steps back sometimes. Guess what tomorrow’s project will be? 🙁

But we did get more of the fabric put up:

And no, there’s not a huge bowed out area in the fabric under the window–the light was just coming in at an odd angle from the hatch.  But while I was crawling over and around the “bones” of the future bed, I trimmed the fabric along the floor.

We got the first long strip put up on the ceiling, starting from the top of the rear window to about halfway towards the front.  For the second coat of adhesive on the fabric (after getting two coats of it on the ceiling), I had to start using the 2nd can of 3M-90 adhesive.

I put wide painter’s tape over the opening to the hatch (especially on the handle) and ran the 3 x 6 ft. piece of fabric over it.  It was easy to see and feel where to cut out for the hatch, and after making sure everything was well-attached there, we put the wooden trim piece back on.

Of course the goal is to have only as many seams as necessary, but it’s really hard to get it perfectly placed–and it’s not like we’re experts at this!  Ultimately I think it will look fine, but it’s definitely a challenge to get it put up neatly and evenly, given the odd shapes and curves.  We start by measuring and cutting a piece that’s close to the right size. Then we take it into the trailer and try to trim it even closer.  Once we’re pleased with the basic size and shape, we take it outside and spray on the adhesive.  We put it up, smoothing as we go, and then trim it again if we have to, once it’s on the wall or ceiling.  And yes, we’re wearing masks while we’re doing this.  In addition to trying to protect ourselves from the adhesive, we’ve found that the marine headliner fabric has lots of fibers that come off and float around.  I really, really hope this shedding won’t be an ongoing issue.

We took a break in the afternoon to get together with some family members, and then we spent a couple of HOURS and almost $100 at Lowes.  I made an executive decision this afternoon that we should go on and stain or paint the wood before putting any more fabric on the walls or ceiling.  We were leaning towards stain rather than paint–and I was leaning towards a darker stain rather than a lighter one (since the walls are white)–so we opted for a color called “American Chestnut.”

It’s dark, but not TOO dark, and I like the reddish tones.  If we decide we don’t like it, we’ll paint over it at some point. 🙂

…. and I have my damned puddle. 🙁

While we were out today (Sunday, May 17th), there was a hard rain here.  When I checked the trailer after we got home, this is what I found.  AGAIN.

What made this even more frustrating is that on Saturday Wayne caulked over EVERY rivet that he could reach on the roof, caulked along the belly band by the door and over the screws on the door hinges.  We REALLY thought we’d taken care of the leak in the front…

On the positive side, after yesterday’s rain, there was a tiny bit of water in the window track on the inside, so I cleaned out the track again, cleaned out the weep holes again, and I was delighted to see that it was completely dry after today’s hard rain.  Yay!  As a result, I feel pretty confident about putting the fabric on all of the rear walls and ceiling.

But as to the water in the front, Wayne has gotten up on a ladder a couple of times to look for holes or cracks on the roof and he hasn’t seen anything.   This evening as it started to rain yet again, I decided to try a different approach.  I already knew that there were no leaks through the insulation, because it always come from behind the insulation–though I didn’t know which route the water was taking to ultimately wind up on our future “dinette.”

I figured the only thing to to do was to start ripping off the insulation–while it was raining–and this led to a “Voila!” moment and a simultaneous “What the hell?” moment….

To my complete surprise, I discovered a series of tiny holes in the ceiling above the door and towards the front of the trailer.  I don’t know why we haven’t been able to see them from the outside, and I have no idea what might have caused them.  I took some toilet paper and pressed it against each dark (moldy?) spot and all were wet–some more than others.

I dried them as best as I could with a paper towel, and Wayne caulked them from the inside before the rain got even heavier.  Not sure if the caulk will stop the leaking, but it’s the only thing we could think to do as a short-term fix.  At this point, I’m not sure what the best long-term fix might be.

While I’m very glad we finally found the source of my “damned puddle,” I have to wonder if there are OTHER tiny holes (of unknown origin) behind the insulation in other parts of the trailer.  We haven’t had any other leaks (yet) and I really, really don’t want to rip out and replace ALL of the insulation, just to check!

But in other quick news, on Saturday we re-attached the door latch that was held on with one rivet.  We put a couple of small bolts through it (with washers and a lock nut) and it’s very solid now.  We also discovered that wasps were building a nest under the hitch!  While I don’t like to use sprays, these guys needed to go to wasp heaven, and we sent them on their way.  Since we still need to replace the chains on the tongue–if we can ever get the bolt off–we had to make sure that we wouldn’t be reaching into a wasp nest.

Yesterday we bought a piece of indoor/outdoor carpet that we’ll cut to fit under the bed.  We bought a smaller piece to put in the “bathroom.”  We’ll probably use a plank-type of flooring (like Allure) on the visible sections of the floor, but we won’t do that until we finish building the bed, bathroom and dinette. And yes, we bought some some new, heavy-duty scissors!

Today Wayne brought over a relatively new  5000 BTU air conditioner unit that he’s had in storage to see how it would fit in the closet space.  It’s not bad, but we might see if we can find one with all controls on the front–instead of the top–to avoid having it stick out into the trailer quite so far.  There was an A/C in there at some point, so there’s already a drain hose through the closet floor.  We’ve watched a couple of tutorials on how to install one into the space; now we just need to decide if we can use what we’ve got or if it would be better to get one that might fit better.  Prices are pretty reasonable for ones with the controls on the front; it’s just an expense we hadn’t counted on…

Good news is that we finally had some rain–not a hard rain, though–and the window that we took out and re-sealed seems to be nice and dry.  I won’t put fabric on that section until we get a heavy rain and I’m CONVINCED that it won’t leak again!

Bad news, like maybe *really* bad news, is that there was some water AGAIN in the very same place in the future dinette area near the door.  First thought was that it was leaking around the belly band near the door.  The rivets seem to be well seated and the caulking is okay there, but there’s a little gap in the corner of the belly band where water *could* possibly come in.  We’ll caulk that as soon as we get a chance.

Worse news, though, is that I started pulling up insulation over the door and it felt damp.  Was it from a loose rivet in the drip guard over the door?   I pulled the insulation up a little further and the area around the rivets was dry, but it was wet ABOVE that–like it’s coming from higher up.  There must be a hole or crack somewhere in the fiberglass on the roof.  Not good; not good at all.

One step forward, TWO steps back, it seems….. 🙁

We’re still waiting for rain to test our re-installed window and caulking work from last weekend, but I rationalized that I could safely start putting the material on some of the walls–plus I just needed to do something to move this big project forward!

We really weren’t wild about using a spray adhesive, and I posted in a fiberglass RV forum this morning to see if there was some sort of paint-on adhesive that might work better.  There didn’t appear to be anything really designed for this type of material, so we decided to use the spray–and it was okay.

Ideally, I would have cut one huge piece of fabric to go beneath the rear window and up each side, but I just wasn’t sure how well we could manipulate such a large piece.  As a result, we put one big piece below the window:

We were able to pull the bed platform towards the front of the trailer a little, but it fits in there too tightly to take it out!  We had to crawl over it, which made all of this a little awkward.  I purposely left the fabric a little long at the floor; I’ll trim that–or not–later.  Once the bed is finished, you won’t see it.

Next, I cut a piece to go on the left side of the window.  While the seam between the upper and lower pieces isn’t awful, I may put a “seam cover” strip over it when I get to that stage.

First impression, though?  I LIKE the color (a silvery white) and the feel of the fabric, and I think it’s going to look really, really good!

Before doing more, however, we have GOT to get some really sharp scissors; this stuff isn’t all that easy to cut!

Up to this point, I’ve been trying to “catch up” on everything that’s happened since we bought the trailer in November 2014.  Current “theme” is this one, though I’m looking at others that might look better.

 

The interior walls and ceiling of Scamp trailers are typically covered with a type of mold- and mildew-resistant fabric that owners refer to as “rat fur.”  The rat fur is adhered to a bubble wrap, foil-covered insulation that’s glued to the fiberglass shell.  The previous owner ripped out all of the rat fur, saying he thought it was too dirty to clean, but he left the insulation.

After researching and talking with folks on various modification forums, I decided to purchase a marine headliner (typically installed in boats) for the walls of our trailer.  I ordered the Silver Grey Stratos (plain pattern) from  “Perfect Fit” and it arrived in a ridiculously long roll that we have stored in the hall in the basement.

First, I had to remove pieces of rat fur that were still around the rear window and the rear driver’s side window.

 

I really, really didn’t want to take these windows out, so I carefully cut and ripped out the old fabric.

Another Scamp owner said that when she replaced the fur with marine headliner, she simply made a fold and butted it up against the frame of the window instead of loosening the window frame to tuck the fabric behind it.  That’s what I plan to do, too.

Concerned about the amount of glue residue left on the walls from the removal of the old rat fur, I started using a “Goof Off” type of spray applied to a sponge, then I lightly washed the walls to remove the solvent.  (I still need to do more of this on the ceiling.)

A couple of weeks before this, I sanded and painted the bumper and tongue of the trailer with black Rust-oleum.  Looks much better.

Before

After.

The first time we saw some water in the “dinette” area near the door, we thought we’d tracked it in.  To our dismay, we finally realized that water was coming in from somewhere in the front, and we also discovered that the rear passenger side window was leaking.  As a side note, there was no rat fur around the leaking window, and I’m guessing that when the previous owner took it out to remove the fabric, he just didn’t re-seal properly when he put it back in.

We caulked over all the rivets in the roof, loosened and caulked around and under the hinges on the door, and we caulked over the leaking window.  We were pretty confident that we’d taken care of everything, but the next hard rain proved us wrong….

We knew that we had to get everything dry before we could consider putting up the wall covering or building the dinette or bed extension, so I ordered some butyl tape (that we couldn’t find locally) and we pulled out the rear passenger side window.  A large tarp covered the roof and hole for a week or so…

It took a while to remove all of the old caulk and adhesive around the window, but the solvent we used (and elbow grease) worked well.  Followed that by rinsing off the solvent and letting it dry.

I removed the old adhesive and caulk that were left on the window and cleaned out the weep holes.  Then we started the process of putting it back in.

Wayne put strips of butyl tape around the window opening.  I can see why this is the recommended way to re-install RV windows. It’s much thicker than the thin strip of adhesive that was there before.

Next step was to trim off the excess butyl tape that oozed out around the window, and we also caulked around the window.  I can’t think of anything else that we can do to make this leak-proof!

We also caulked around the big front window–both around the outside of it and between the gasket and the Plexiglas window.  In a perfect world and if we had crazy skills and an unlimited supply of money, we’d probably opt to replace the gasket around the window.  After watching some how-to videos, though, we decided not to mess with this right now.  Our goal is to be able to use our trailer as soon as possible, and while we’re not trying to cut corners, some things will just need to wait.

During the week of May 2-May 9, there were strong thunderstorms all around us, but not a single drop of rain fell here.  Now we have a nice Saturday to get some more work done on the trailer, but until we know–for SURE–that we’ve sealed up everything to prevent further leaking, we just can’t move forward with the dinette or wall covering….