Sealing Things Up

First: a little background on this weekend's efforts: A week ago Saturday, I managed to get myself working fairly late, put in a big effort, then pretty much passed out. The effort kept me down all day Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday, I met a friend for lunch, barely keeping myself from falling over. Afterwards, I collapsed into a chair in my doctor's waiting room. The verdict came and it was surprising: tetanus. A week earlier, I'd had a tetanus shot, in preparation for our upcoming relief trip to New Orleans. Apparently, I had a reaction against the shot. Verdict: I would have to wait for it to pass--and I should look with extreme caution on taking a booster of that vaccine ever again. By Friday, I was on the mend and yesterday I put in a full day of work again (though I still have a sizeable lump in my arm) .

So, with little time ahead, we swung into action this weekend. My first order of action was finishing up the panel to seal up the old furnace hole. Over the week, I'd taken a file (properly called, to my endless amusement, a bastard file) to smooth off the edges and round the corners off. It's funny how rounding off the corners really transformed it from a crude piece of metal into something that looked like a real panel. I measured in a half inch and marked hole points every 3". With that, I slept--something I did a lot of in my fevered state.

Saturday, knowing my tendency to skate a drill on smooth aluminum, I decided to work slowly to guard against error. I started by drilling small holes in my marked spots with a very small drill bit. Then I took a #20 drill bit (one the size of Olympic rivets) and widened the outermost top holes to full size. Then Rick held it up to the hole while I looked for visual fit. When it looked right, I took a Sharpie pen and marked the holes on the skin of the trailer. I drilled in those holes, gooped the back of the panel with vulkem caulk and set my first rivets. Then I continued drilling out holes, gooping rivets with vulkem and cranking them in place. By far, the hardest part was the bottom, which curved over the belly pan. We tried bending the edge with a broomstick and a pvc pipe--with little result. Finally, by working together, one person forcing the panel to curve while the other riveted, we managed decent success. Completion was a cooperative result and we were both pleased with the result (moreover, today it rained all day and the panel never leaked!).

Today, we focused on completion. Rick finalized wiring while I attended to insulation. I put Reflectix insulation under all of the exposed exterior panels, sealed it with aluminum tape and filled in the gap with fiberglass batting. Most of the panels are done--but we ran out of batting, so I will have to finish up tomorrow. Overall, it was an exceptionally tedious job. There are few ways to make endless hours of taping and cutting sound exciting. However, the notion of gaining some decent warmth made it worthwhile.

After replacement of a couple of interior rivets gone awry, we quit for the evening. Tomorrow we reattach the inside wall. Then getting this trailer back on the road will start to become a real possibility...