Back to that leaky roof

So one of the things that makes it tricky to sort out how much to take out and what to leave as is in trailer restoration is attempting to figure out how it got so bad, and how to prevent it from happening again. We could tell from the water stains on the ceiling wood paneling that water had come in from the roof, but until we peeled back the wood, didn't know that the underside of the steel had rusted so badly. Steel! Right. On the "all aluminum Boles Aero". Except for the roof, which is steel. Which is strong, but not so impervious to rust. And rust never sleeps. It doesn't have to be wet, just damp. And the Pacific Northwest is not lacking in damp.

removing the wood panel reveals extensive rust

After hitting the ceiling with a scraper.

After cleaning with a wire wheel to knock off the surface rust

You can see the wire wheel marks in the newly revealed steel, ready to be sealed. The white sealant in the corners is 5200 Marine Grade sealant that we used on an art project years ago. Fred is going to goop up every seam.

This last picture shows the steel underside completely sealed with epoxy primer. Very smelly stuff, took days of blowing with a fan to believe that we didn't just replace an old trailer funk with new modern chemical fragrance! But it did go away, and now it's easier to believe that the rust isn't just going to continue to eat away at the steel once we get the new wood paneling up. New paneling?? What about just putting up the old? Good question. Will show lots of reasons why in future entries. But next, I have to go back in time to show the outside job that Fred did on the steel roof a few years back...I know, following this blog will be like time travel...oh well, all will be revealed!

So here is a look at the first scraping job of getting the paint off the steel part of the roof. 

Razor blade scraper does the job. Slow. Really slow.

 To be able to sit on the roof safely, Fred made these 2x6 boards to straddle the rim of the trailer so he could sit on the boards while scraping. Could this be the key source of back pain for the past few years? hmmm. Anyway, it's a great system, held together by nylon webbing that just keeps the boards in place.

The bottom board is cut out to ride over the rim, not directly on it so as not to crush it. 

The next part of the system are these wiggly pvc hoses that we used to put over the boards before putting a tarp over the whole thing for the winter. The  hoses were left over from another project, and were useful in keeping the tarp from just sitting on the freshly exposed steel roof. 

We ran rope through the hoses to tie them down. We get a lot of rain and wind in the winters, so around October, the tarp went on. About two years ago, we found a dismantled carport on craigslist, and put that up in the driveway to cover the trailer. It made all the difference in the world in being able to leave the tarp off during the winter, making it accessible to work on. 

So zoom forward to fall of 2017, with the tarp off and the boards back in place for more roof work, this time sealing all the seams with 5200 Marine Sealant. The roof then got painted with (Fred? Por 15?, a primer first? then grey, then a sealer?)

And at this point, I believe that we agreed that painting the exterior was going to be far more desirable than removing all the paint and going for a flashy aluminum surface. Too many lumps and bumps on this old Boles Aero, and besides, there are terrific paint colors out there...now to agree on which ones!