Repairing and Repainting an Older Handmade Teardrop Trailer

[BeCeejed]

I just got myself a beautiful old light handmade woody/breadbox trailer!

I don't think her previous owner named her so I am calling her the Rosaleda.

She isn't fiberglass, just painted, and she likely needs a complete repaint. I love her decals but some are damaged so I'm most likely gonna gonna strip her completely and repaint her entirely.

The seam of the roof skin and the side wall skin is warping a little as well.

So: opinions!

If I'm repainting her, what's the best paint? Colorado has real high UV, and she'll be under an old carport when not camping, but I want the toughest coating I can manage without fiberglass.

As to the seam, how would y'all recommend repairing that? I am not up to fiberglassing it (financially) right now and I could PMF it and the overlap of the roof sheet would probably seal that gap well but I don't really want to do PMF right now...I would rather sand and paint directly to the wood. I could just silicone into the seam but that won't really fix the problem...

I was thinking some thin, angled sheet metal? Like aluminum roof flashing? Silicone and screw it to the roof flat, and make cuts and overlap it on the sides to get the right curve and silicone and screw it in there?

Has anybody fixed such an issue on their teardrops before?

 

[KCStudly]

Cool teardrop (a little research and I think you will find that a breadbox is a completely different form).

Don't use silicon! Okay, some people refer to all types of caulk generically as "silicon", but actual silicon sealant won't take paint, won't fix the problem at all, and will only cause more trouble down the road.

Short of major reconstruction to eliminate any dry rotted wood and reconstruct that joint, and without seeing the real issue first hand... in other words, what I'm about to suggest is hypothetical... I might take the following approach.

1. Sand back adjacent paint to expose decent wood (doesn't have to be perfect, and try not to gouge out more significantly dry rotted areas).
2. Saturate the entire area with a penetrating epoxy to stabilize the rot. You're not trying to glue the joint back together yet, you're just trying to stabilize the wood so it doesn't flake apart or suffer bigger loss.
3. Once that cures, do a dry run to see if you can get the joint to close up. Even if you have to screw some temporary cleats through the outer skin and into the underlying structure to give yourself something to clamp, wedge or shim to, those small screw holes will be much easier to deal with later than the gapping wound you have now. You might even consider drilling holes through catty corner to accept "stitches" in the next (glue up) step.
4. Once you know you can close the gap, open it up again and put thickened epoxy in the joint, then clamp it back again to cure. If using temporary stitches (research "stitch and glue" boat building techniques) stick wire ties through the extra holes and bind the joint together. Additional screws with plywood or fender washers can be screwed through the skins into structure, temporarily, to pull the joint back together.
5. After cure remove all of the clamps, clamp blocks, temporary screws and stitches, and fill all of the temporary holes with more thickened epoxy.
6. Finish sand, prime and paint.

You mention decals, but those flourishes appear to be hand painted pin stripes. I would take many detailed and overall pictures so you can look for someone who still does old school pin striping. They're still out there, and even some younger artist are taking up the trade. Check with sign companies and/or the rockabilly car culture groups for active pin stripers.

Good luck!

 

[BeCeejed]

Ah, you're right about the pinstripes! The seller mentioned that they were decals but on closer inspection they are too irregular to be decals. I think most of them will have to be destroyed though to get a new protective coat on there. I'm not up to paying someone to recreate them but I might try to replicate something similar design wise after I've given her a new paint job. I will probably keep her white (reflect that light! Keep the sleeping cabin cooler) but I want to make some of the maroon and black colors of the tow vehicle flow into the design of the new paint job a little.

Thank you for the recommendation on the epoxy, I didn't know about penetrating epoxy or that stitch method, this has been a very productive morning of googling. None of the local hardware stores or big box stores carry it in stock on premises, so I've ordered some penetrating epoxy to try and repair some of the seam spots that are popping. I'll strip the paint off her completely and that should give me a clear indication of everywhere that needs to be reinforced with the penetrating epoxy or more.

I think she had some sort of dark grey paint job before as that seems to be under a lot of the cracking paint especially in the front.

So I'll get rid of any previous layers and put a new primer and topcoat of my own on.

 

[Rich796]

I would do something similar. Except run 1-5 as one complete process. Use laminating epoxy thinned for penetrating.

If you saturate the area with penetrating epoxy and let it cure. It will lock in any blistered/expanded/ out of shape areas of the plywood into place. You will not be able to adjust/clamp them to shape, afterwards.

You will also have to reprep/clean/sand the same areas again. Before bonding them into palce with the stitch and glue / thickened epoxy method.

I would thin laminating epoxy to penetrate, probably 3-5 coats. You will see the wood dull back out. As it soaks in, if it starts glossing up after a few coats. It's pretty well saturated. Mix full strength epoxy and give the area another coat, this is called a bond coat. Mix your structual/thickened epoxy and apply it to both sides of the repair area. Then clamp/jig/fixture into place. You'll obviously want to practice this part in advance. To know you can get everything aligned how you want it. Before you start mixing epoxy. Any fixtures/clamps/blocks you don't want bonded to the epoxy. You can cover/layer with packaging tape. It makes an excellent release film.

As far as a high quality paint. A true high quality automotive grade paint, would be hard to beat, imho. But that may not be realistically achievable, or practical.

 

[BeCeejed]

AH, I was struggling with what would not bond with the epoxy for clamping, I was thinking the epoxy packaging might tell me when it got here Monday or so what it was NOT designed to bond to, and I would do some tests with some old plywood. The packaging tape is a great tip, thank you! You have given me more to think about.

 

[Rich796]

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