Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I build a nice little enclosed trailer to haul band gear a couple years ago.

It's a 4'x8' with a door in the back and has a 2"x2" walls covered with 1/4" plywood.

I had originally wanted to make it "convertible" so the top half could be removed and leave me with little walls to haul soil or other things and that turned out to be a very VERY bad idea :-)

The exterior was primed and painted with "extreme weather" paint. The manufacturer must have a different idea of what "extreme weather" is than I do because the paint promptly cracked and peeled as soon as winter hit.

Moving right along, I bolted the top and bottom walls together, added a bunch of gussets, fiber glassed all edges (to rid myself of the leaks from the winter before) and covered the exterior with 12" of flashing at the bottom and sheets of white shower stall covering over the rest of the trailer.

It looked REAL purdy when it was new but as soon as winter hit...the sheeting shrunk and cracked.

NOW, I'd like to take it all off and coat the walls with something to smooth them out and cover the cracks and voids and then paint it again.

I was thinking of stucco or something but have never worked with it. My daughter has a little shed that someone built and it has some sort of coating smeared on it and painted and it still looks good after years of sitting outside....but I don't know what the coating is!

What do you guys recommend for a covering that could be spread on this thing and then painted that won't crack and fall off in the winter?

Thanks
Mike

What type of weather extremes do you want it to hold up in? Don't know where you are located, also, do you have a budget in mind? Doug

Hey Doug,

I live in Sarnia, Ontario which is near Detroit, Michigan. In 2008, the lowest temp. was -20.4 C (-4.7 F) and the highest was 32.4 C (90.3 F) so we've got quite a range.

As for budget, this is just a box with a door on it to keep the weather off my gear when I lug it so I'm keeping things cheap.

I'd just like pretty it up so my wife will stop making fun of it and so it won't look so "ghetto" :-)

thanks,
Mike

I'd say...you gotta get enough paint off of it so that you can seal the wood. Sand it with something like 80 grit...then seal it up with a number of coats of CPES, (clear penetrating epoxy sealant). Scuff sand the final coat and then apply a primer and paint to it.

If the paint is peeling and cracking, that needs to be taken care of before you top coat with anything as all you are doing is covering up problems that may reappear.

I am only speculating on the fix as I haven't seen any pics on your trailer so it's sort of a crap shoot, but all the exposed end grain needs to be sealed completely. I use a regular epoxy, but it's more for a high end type of finish, that gets piled on and sanded down so it can be sprayed, lots of work and money. You probably are not be looking for that type of surface.

For winter storage, I'd for sure tarp it, with a good one, not just a cheapie blue one, and put some stickers under the tarp to keep any moisture from just sitting on it with the tarp holding it in. Don't seal it up real tight. It's wood, and needs to breathe and get the moisture out, needs an air cushion. When the snow piles on, go out and clean it off.

All of this is just my opinion, I'm sure others may differ. Doug

You want to use a good "Long Oil Alkyd Based" paint. A porch type paint would be ideal. Make sure you coat both the interior and exterior. The problems you are having is most like caused by moisture vapor migrating from the interior. The moisture from the inside gets trapped between the wood and exterior coating, then freezes which expands then causes the coating to lift, pop and peel.

Make sure you let the wood dry out a bit before painting.

CPES it, like Doug suggests, then hit it with a couple coats of epoxy garage floor paint. Put the sprinkles on the roof if you like the effect.

Ok, so I'm back to this project and will be working on stripping it this weekend.

Do you guys recommend painting the trailer inside AND out? I read somewhere on here that it was recommended to do so.

I'll update this weekend with some pics.

Thanks
Mike

Yes Mike, paint it inside and out...may seem like a bit of overkill but it greatly enhance the plywood's survivability...enough emphasis can not be put upon the importance sealing ALL END/EDGE GRAINS of your ply...

BUT FIRST, ya gotta get what ya have all cleaned up or you will be just tossing money away......

Tarp in winter with spacers between tarp and trailer...just Like Doug said..........

madjack

Maybe now, armed with a bit of experience, is the time to just tear it all off the frame, and start over?


Even if your latest attempts work, you'll still be left with a patched together mess...

What do you guys recommend for a covering that could be spread on this thing and then painted that won't crack and fall off in the winter?

When you're working with new wood, you have several options.
When you're dealing with already coated wood, your chances of succeeding by slathering something over it are VERY, VERY low...
Sorry, I'm not trying to be negative, but reality dictates that "quick fixes" quickly fail...

Rob

Do you guys recommend painting the trailer inside AND out?

Definitely inside! In a smaller trailer, moisture from the body will soak into bare wood; you close it up for a season and watch the mildew, mold and fungi grow.

Can I talk you into sharing a picture or two with us?

Mike...

"Can I talk you into sharing a picture or two with us? "

Oh most definitely! I will be snapping a few tomorrow (Friday) for your amusement :-)

I will not be totally stripping it and starting over (well...not with new wood anyway).

I picked up a belt sander today and will be removing all of the paint from attempt #1. "Most" of the seams were coated with fiberglass resin and cloth in some cases. After stripping the paint, the plan was to cover ALL of the rest of the seams with fiberglass cloth and/or resin.

I coated all of the edges of the 3/4" floor plywood with resin and that seems to have done the trick. The underside was also undercoated.

I'm going to remove the box from the frame, check the floor out to be sure, paint the inside of the box, remount the box and have my friend weld the nuts on the underside of the frame so the trailer can go from enclosed to flatbed by removing 12 or so bolts.

So basically, I will be redoing it all based on the advice and learnings from you guys.

Until tomorrow.....

Ok, so I haven't got around to my sanding and such yet, but here are some pics just for laughs!











I plan to:

- remove the box from the frame
- remove the sheeting
- Paint the frame again
- Make sure the sheeting is sealed REALLY well (seems ok so far)
- Refasten the sheeting
- Seal the split in the sheeting with fiberglass cloth/resin
- Paint the sheeting
- Weld the nuts onto the frame so the box can be removed for flat bed use
- Sand the crap out of the box
- Fiberglass cloth/resin ALL joints on box
- Paint inside the box
- Epoxy the outside of the box
- Add lights to and rewire the box

...now I just need the money. There shouldn't be a ton of expense there as it's mostly labor and doing what I should have done in the first place!

My prediction is that if you don’t put some fiberglass cloth, or some other impenetrable barrier, it will just happen again. You are not the first person on the forum to have this problem. Especially with a flat roof like you have you are going to have standing water – no paint on the planet is going to prevent that from getting through there after maybe one season. You can use the VERY lightweight fiberglass cloth – it’s not expensive, or cover it with aluminum or something. As a very minimum, I would cover the top with the fabric, or there are several on the forum that have used a [butyl?] membrane to seal the roof, then paint the holy crud out of the sides, but as you’ve seen, the regular paint doesn’t hold up so well.

I think one reason is that with a house it just sits there – a trailer moves down the road, vibrated, shifts and whatnot. All of that means that is far more prone to cracking. Also note that we don’t paint the roofs of houses, we put asphalt shingles (or something even more substantial) on them. I just hate to see you go through all of that effort only to be mocked by nature and your wife. Lots of boat forums also build out of plywood and if you really don’t want to have problems, you have to reinforce the plywood surface with something that will prevent the cracking.

Hust my opinion...

Kenny Ray, if you scroll down past my pics...I listed all of the things I'm going to resin/cloth the crap out of.

I also considering cutting and installing arches to mount onto the roof and then sheet over with bendable 1/8" ply and then laying cloth and resin to the new roof.

If I get enough cloth and resin on this thing, the paint should just be to beautify right?