Chapter 3: So what's under that wood anyway?

When we first looked at the Boles Aero, this was the view to the bed. A queen sized mattress sitting over storage cupboards! Awesome! 

We tore into it the first night. Good news: when we plugged the power outlet in, everything lit up! Other news: when we pulled out the mattress and the plywood boards it was sitting on, here's what it really looked like.

A bit of dry rot, wet rot, funky rot and other. Rot. Here's what's great about a Boles Aero: the frame is aluminum. Aluminum oxidizes, but it doesn't rot, like wood frames on other trailers of its vintage. And so, peel back the rotten parts, replace them, and go camping! At least that's my understanding of it.

Here's Fred unscrewing the sills around the window to see what's under the paneling...

Stubby has to help.

The inuslation was a paper product, sort of loose (at one time) corrugated stuff, but it was mushy and icky. We'll put more of that modern pink foam insulation here, like on the other repair at the front.

More moldy insulation...

But right, here's the good stuff, the intact aluminum frame and the pretty good skin.

 

Summer's almost here, and so it's time to air this thing out and start figuring out how far we want to tear it apart.