Need Input on How to Do This!!!

[cropper2]

Everyone,

The time has come for me to get started making the basic repairs that are necessary for me to be able to use my "new" Shasta this summer. I continue to be awed by all of you who gut yours. I am leaning toward trying that, but not until this fall at the earliest. Meanwhile, I need to shore up what fell apart. There's the rub. I'm not really sure how to do it. All you you learned folk have clearly said that I need to pull away the skin to do it right.

I have four photos to share with you. I have come up with plan, that I will also share, but I'm really hoping that you will tell me where I've got it right and (more importantly) where I've got it completely wrong. Better to know that now, than when I start this weekend.

My primary concerns are these: not having anything to which to secure the new wood and getting the angles in the corner wrong. Well, there is also putting the skin back on and having new leaks that I don't have now, but one panic-inducing issue at a time.

This first photo is one of the full problem corner. I need to replace the framing in the corner and put new paneling on. You can see here the Starboard Side (A) and the Back Side (B).

1.) I think that almost all these pieces are (or used to be) 1x2, except for B1 and B5. Although badly eaten away, they look like that were maybe 1x3s at one time. Can anyone tell me if this correct?

2.) I have not (and hope not) to remove paneling any higher on the Back side. The framing above B3, although not perfect, appears to be fairly solid. B3 and B4, on the other hand, are very mushy in this corner. So here is the first of several dilemmas. Clearly B3 and B4 go all of the way across the back wall under the paneling. So I guess I have to take off the back skin and the window to replace these. Is that right? Or should I try cutting them and joining them to new pieces for now? I've seen that done (via videos/photos in this Forum) with the Kreg Jr. jig or nailing aluminum sheets to each to make them one. What do you think is best for this temporary fix?

4.) Does anyone think that I can accomplish this from the inside?

See the next photo and set of questions in the next post.

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[cropper2]

Hmmmm. I think that I might have to take back one of the things I said in the last post about B2. In this up-close photo, the bottom edge of that doesn't look like it would take screws. Wishful thinking?

What do you think?

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[cropper2]

Here is an up-close look at that back wall from the middle down, with a little of the starboard side in the shot. B5, A6 and A7 all need to go.

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[cropper2]

OK. Here is the scariest part for me. I didn't get a great shot of this far right corner, which is a shame, because one of my greatest concerns is getting all of these angles correct again.

A1, from the center to the right, was eaten away by termites. But from the center left, it looks like nice yellow, solid wood.

A2 looks fine. Although where it hits the floor it looks a little dark, it feels solid.

A3 is OK, but the staples are very loose, so I'll probably replace it.

A4 is fine to the left (center), but completely rotted through in the corner. That has to go.

A6 is in awful shape. At the top by the window crank, you can see that termites ate it away almost all of the way through. Again, I haven't torn any of the paneling away above the window, so I have no idea what it looks like there, but it can't be good.

A7 is completely rotted from the floor up to the "corner" of this wall.

A5 is rotten. It is also attached below the floor.

So! Once again, I fear that I need to take out this window to do the repairs. I'm hoping against hope that someone tells me a way to do this without having to be so drastic. If the skin does have to come off, I'm wondering how to do this to ensure that I can replicate and replace these pieces one at a time to make sure that everything fits back together correctly.

1.) I thought that perhaps I could cut a piece of paneling the shape of this back corner, afix it to the solid parts of A1, A2, A3 and A4 (and maybe even A5). I can't imagine that I could get anything to afix to A6 or A7 (A7 where I need it most because of the angles). Then go outside and peel up the skin. Take off one rotted piece at a time and secure the new piece to the paneling. Does that sound right? Close? Not even in the ball park?

2.) Again, I'll need to cut A1 to the right of that center piece of vertical framing and somehow join the new piece to it (Kreg Jr. Jig and/or aluminum?) Thoughts? Are you going to tell me that I need to take out the whole thing to make this work? Hopefully not.

3.) Does anyone know if A7 is supposed to be a 1x3 or a 1x2? It is so eaten away on the corner side, I can't tell.

4.) Is there anything wrong with adding a third A3/A4 piece? I'm trying to figure out how to help this be more stable while I work on it.

5.) What about insulation? I've seen everything on this forum from the think rolled fiberglass stuff to the hard board type. Is that dependent upon geographic location or other factors?

I'm sure that the minute I post this I will remember something else important to ask, but I've already asked for more answers than is probably considered polite. I'm not yet well versed on forum etiquette. But I'll certainly appreciate any and all input.

Thank you!!!

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[cropper2]

A slightly better shot of that starboard corner, showing the angles that concern me.

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[cowcharge]

Hi Cropper, fear not, you can do this stuff!

Yes, you can do it from the inside (mostly). However, if those corner uprights are gone, there's a 99% chance that the bottom of the wall and the outer edge of the floor frames are also gone, because the water would end up sitting down there longer than anywhere else. You might need to fix those too, just to have something to attach the bottom of the new wood to.

Yes, you can do it without removing the skins (technically speaking). You can probably get away with only actually removing the bottom rear skin and just peeling back the sides (like in my pic). But you'll need to at least open up the corner seams, because the outside j-rail is screwed into the frames you're replacing, and the ends and the bottom edges of each piece of skin are stapled or nailed into the frames as well, and you won't be able to either fit or fasten the new wood in there without removing the old staples and screws that are pointing in from the outside. There's also no point in replacing the wood without resealing the leaky seams that ruined the wood to begin with.

You'll want to brace the roof up with something to keep the walls from sagging down before you take any wood out. A couple of braces made out of 2 x 4s works well, you make them each like a tall "T" with short arms to spread the load out on the ceiling, and just tall enough to make a nice snug fit when you stand them upright. Maybe 1/8" longer than the measurement from floor to ceiling. Ideally, the top cross bars will run fore-and-aft, and be long enough to reach across at least two roof rafters for good support, say two feet long. They should need a few light-to-medium taps sideways at the top with a hammer to get them perfectly vertical, in order to be tight enough to stay there, but not so tall that they actually raise the roof (unless the roof has already sagged, which you may find when you compare the measurements on left and right sides, or if you see wrinkles in the bottom rear skin where it's pressing on the bumper supports). The point is they should be snug, but you shouldn't have to pound them into place. You can even wrap pieces of carpet around the top crossbars to protect your ceiling finish if you want, but make sure you tack the carpet on from the bottom of the crossbar tops so as not to scratch the ceiling.

Yes, you'll probably have to take the windows with the rotten frames out, again because of the screws that need to come out and because there's no point in adding new wood if you don't reseal the windows to prevent the new wood from getting wet. But windows are pretty easy to remove and replace. Probably no more than a hour or two each way, not counting the wood work.

You can kind of see in the pic how I fixed the bottoms of my studs, by cutting off the rotten bottoms and adding a double-wide piece. It's double wide where the stud was cut off, then single wide alongside the good part of the stud. Sort of like an "l" next to a lower case i, with the shorter piece replacing the missing stud bottom, and the longer piece glued and screwed both to the new bottom and the old top, like a splint on a broken leg.

To get the proper angle for the joints, get a bevel square. You can google it to see what it looks like, they're $10-20 at any hardware store. It's a very simple adjustable tool that looks like a leg, that's held at the "knee" with a wingnut. You just loosen the nut, lay the tool in the corner with one leg along the bottom frame and the other leg running up the corner frame, knee pressed into the corner, and tighten the nut. Then you lay the tool on your new wood to mark the angle to cut. You can also make one out of scrap wood very easily, or just use two pieces of wood without the screw. Lay one piece on the bottom, hold the second piece up the corner, and trace the line where the vertical piece crosses the horizontal piece, and that's your angle.

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[cropper2]

Cowcharge,

Thanks so much!

Glue: Is there a right glue/wrong glue for this job?

Bevel Square: This is exceptionally helpful. I will get one!!

I don't suppose you have a photo of the work that you did from the port side, do you? I can't quite tell what is going on there.

Did you use 2x2x or 2x4s? The wood looks a lot fatter than the 1x2 or 1x3s in my Shasta.

All of the nice golden, solid wood is a mighty pretty sight!

[cowcharge]

You're welcome!

I first tried a polyurethane "construction adhesive" from the lumber yard (also saw it at Home Depot) that you shoot out of tubes in a caulking gun. Didn't like it, it was exceptionally messy and sticky, got everywhere, kept squirting out of the gun after you let go of the handle, stained my skin brown for days, and didn't seem particularly strong unless I used enough to basically encapsulate the whole joint in plastic. I'd hate to try using it on anything I had to look at. I switched to a heavy duty traditional yellow wood glue that cleans up with water. It comes in a squirt bottle like regular Elmer's Glue-All, is waterproof and made for wood joints. I think it's Elmer's Carpenter's Wood Glue (sorry, I'm not near the camper right now to check the bottle, but I got it at the hardware store). Any yellow liquid wood glue should be fine. You can clean up your hands and what squeezes out of joints with a damp cotton t-shirt/underwear rag, bags of which you can buy at HD, and they're good for staining wood too.

Sorry, I don't have any good pics on this laptop, they're all on the desktop out at the camper, so I whipped up this drawing on Photoshop. It's a very simple method of repair, but plenty strong when glued and screwed. I used it on all my left side studs and most of the right side, since they were all split by the giant screws they used to build the thing, and/or rotted. Drill pilot holes for EVERY screw or you'll split your wood, and try to avoid putting screws closer than a couple of inches to the ends for the same reason. And don't drive them in too far or too fast because the heads will split the wood too, countersinking the heads is a very good idea. I'm sure there are a lot more professional woodworkers here who have done something more elegant and perhaps stronger, but it worked for me. You can't make these things into tornado-proof fortresses no matter what you do (there wouldn't even be enough left of them to land on a witch, much less kill her), and the joints are definitely much stronger than the wood was when they built it 40 years ago, especially with the absurdly big screws they used at the bottoms of the studs.

I used 2 x 2s for all the floor framing and the bottom piece of the walls, ripped from 2 x 4s and 2 x 6s with a skil saw (don't have a table saw). I don't recommend the Skil saw method, it's slow, and a pita to make straight cuts on such narrow wood without a table and saw guide. You can also buy cheap 2 x 2s at HD, which saves a ton of work but you have to go through the whole pile to find straight ones without knots, and they only had 8-footers so they're not good for the long floor frames. You can also buy poplar 1 x 2s at HD in any length, which would be much easier, but a bit more spendy for framing. I ripped my own 1 x 2s for the wall studs and the corner pieces. If you can afford a table saw or have a friend with one, it would help. The only 2 x 4 in mine is the front end of the floor. I did end up cutting a couple of roof rafters from 2 x 4s.

Again, make sure you take the weight off the walls with the T supports I mentioned. I only cut one stud at a time figuring the walls wouldn't sag, but they still went down about 1/2", which sucked when it came time to re-fit the bottom of the skin.

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[cropper2]

Aha! I get it. Thanks so much for the drawing. That really helps. You're also funny.

I'm not sure that I can actually attach new stuff to old stuff as the old stuff is all but gone or so rotted nothing will attach. That's my biggest heartburn. How the heck to I build against nothing? I came up with the idea to make "pattern" out of a single piece of plywood that is the shape of the whole opening, afix it to the good stuff and, hopefully, the floor, if it isn't also rotten. Then I can take off one bad piece at a time. I'm not sure about that, though.

Thanks also for the glue discussion. I couldn't believe how many options there were at HD!

I have a table saw, so I think I'll rip the 1x2s and 1x3s. When I was building my fence, I needed a mazillion 1x4s and spent countless hours at HD finding the straightest ones. If I had it to do over, I would have ripped all of them.

If you think of anything else that I need to do/not do, please chime in.

I have a 3rd Hand just for extra safety, bracing the ceiling. I wonder if I could just use several of them (I have 4) and put a 2x4 on top of them to hold up the ceiling. One 3rd hand on the starboard, one of the port with the 2x4 between then. Maybe a third 3rd hand in the center?

[Deleted]

Wouldn't a "third 3rd hand" be a ninth hand??

[cropper2]

Pfffffff!!!!

[Bow_Tied]

Cropper, excellent job on posting a well laid out question!!!

Cowcharge, great answers!

You both would make good engineers.

(I guess Chris would be an accountant)

[cowcharge]

Bah, I hate it when I'm about to click "post" and all of my text vanishes for some unknown reason. Damn these laptops with their devilish finger-paint pointers that move the cursor in the middle of typing a sentence. And that stupid little rubber nub that keeps blocking me from typing "b"s. Bah, I say!

Third Hands are perfect. But run your 2 x 4s fore-and-aft, not side-to-side, so they support multiple rafters and hold the whole roof up as one unit. Side-to-side will only support one rafter at a time, or worse, be between rafters, putting all the weight on the ceiling panel. With four of them, I'd run a pair on each side, say 1/4 of the way from the walls. You could run one set up the middle, but having two rows will let you adjust the height of each side independently to make things nice 'n' level, and to take any sagging slack out of the skins.

If your ceiling is curved from front to back, you might want to use one row of three up the middle, using a 1x4 to allow it to flex with the curve, with the middle support in the middle of the curve. Whatever fits the surface the best, you just don't want all the lifting force in one spot, you want to cross as many rafters as you can, and you want equal pressure on each third hand.

The plywood patch idea should work fine as a temp fix for the summer, for the walls and under windows, just make sure it's thick enough to give strength, at least 1/2", and 5/8" would be better. And make sure it's not covering half the trailer, you can only do so much without fixing it for good, you'll get flexing between the plywood panels if there are too many of them. The more good framing they can draw strength and stiffness from the better, so if you can, make the the edges cross two good uprights instead of just one. I doubt plywood alone will work in the corners though, you really need those uprights to tie the sides and rear together. Stiff walls won't do much good if you get a huge gust of wind on the side and the corners are weak.

Haha Bow_Tied, I flunked out of Elec. Engineering in college (partly from discovering that too much freedom from parental control is a bad thing). And what had always been a good brain for math abandoned me when I got to calculus. So I switched to Jr/Bd, hence my over-wordy posts.

[cropper2]

Again, I thank you much for taking so much time to help me. I've just returned from buying supplies. Woo hoo!!

I plan to put the framing back up once I have the plywood in place. I know that seems bass ackwards, but I don't know how to keep everything solid otherwise. After I get the plywood up from the inside, I'll start peeling away the skin from the outside (obviously) and then start taking off the bad framing one piece at a time, then replacing it with good. I can't figure out how you knew how to do the angles on your refurb with nothing but blank air. A gift, I suppose.

Thanks also for the info on the bracing. I was going to do it side to side. I bought 2x4s, 1x2s and 1x3s today, so I'll get that ceiling good and braced before I do anything else.

I'm soon running out of busy work to do before I actually have to start taking out J-rail screws. Yikes!!

[cowcharge]

It almost seems like you might as well do the final permanent repairs, at least in the back, seeing the amount you have to do just for temporary repairs. Since you have to (a) open and reseal the rear seams and bottom edges and (b) replace side wall and rear wall and possibly outer floor frames, then add plywood, it seems to me the only thing you're not already doing permanently is replacing the paneling. The only reason you need heavier plywood is to strengthen the places without new framing. Why not tear it all out from the back forward, just one panel width? It's only four feet, in mine that brings me just forward of the rear window.

[cropper2]

I still haven't found the "right" way to know when I've gotten a reply to one of my posts, so I've just now seen this one, CowCharge. I think that I'm in for replacing the back wall entirely and the starboard rear lower quarter entirely. If the rain slacks off later, I'll take some photos and post what I THINK is the right approach to putting her back together again, then you can tell me where I've got it wrong or backwards or upside down or something.

Thanks!

[cowcharge]

I don't know if there's any kind of email notification about replies available or not, I've never checked into it. I just come to the main page, look for sections that have "New" labels, and go to that section. It does say way over to the right what thread the last post was in and who wrote it, but that's luck of the draw if it happens to be on your thread or not. There could still be a reply that was trumped by a later one in a different thread before you got there.

[cropper2]

OK. Here is more detail. Again, I'm sure if the boss of the forum gets angry with my putting too many pictures up here, I'll hear about it. The sun came out for 5 minutes today and I'm hoping to use every hour of daylight tomorrow to start putting Trixie back together again. Hopefully, by using these photos, I'll be able to explain what I think I should be doing. Then you can correct me.

OK. Here goes.

First, here's a picture of her with the whole back panel gone. You can kinda see the interior and exterior panels stored inside for now. I've kept everything I could for reference.

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[cropper2]

Here is the same photo, but this one helps me set up the "what I think that I need to do next" steps.

The point is that I think that I need to get just enough framing in place to allow me to close her back up again. To do that, I think that I need to get all four pieces of corner framing in place, plus what I'll call the exterior paneling/1x4s in around the very bottom framing (I'll show you in a minute).

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[cropper2]

Here is a photo of that starboard side from the starboard side (versus the rear). Looks to me like they started building with the floor, then put up the paneling, which went all of way down the outside, then they put a 1/4 on top of that, THEN they put on the skin.

First a photo of the corner from the outside.

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[cropper2]

Closer up, you can see what I mean about the paneling going in first, then the 1x4. You can also see where I cut away the rotted paneling and 1x4, so I'll need to cut pieces of those to fill in this corner.

Question 1: In order to replicate what was there, I'd need to put in the whole wall of paneling, so that it went from the bottom of the window all of the way to the bottom of the floor joist (or whatever it should be called). Is there any harm with my just cutting a piece of paneling to cover the outside of the floor structure, then add back the missing piece of 1x4 and screw the side back on?

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[cropper2]

Next!!

Here is a photo of before I tore out the back. I'm pointing to the two sets of framing that I think I need to get on before I can close up, then I can do the rest of the framing from inside.

If I have this right, there should were two pieces stapled to the starboard skin (a top and a bottom, to get the angle) and two pieces stapled to the rear skin in the starboard corner (again, a top and a bottom). Those two sets of 1x2s will then meet to form the corner when closed back up.

Question 2: Is this correct? Cut the two 1x2s needed to create the starboard part of the corner, screw them together to be one piece, then affix them to the starboard skin with staples. Yes? No? Sorta?

I suppose I could always create a pattern of the starboard side "shape" and cut that out of a single piece of 3/4" plywood to create the angle, rather than joining two 1x2s. Thoughts?

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[cropper2]

So now we are addressing the back. The PO did a lot of patching on the port side. There is something white and very hard affixed to the piece of 1x4 in the far left corner. I couldn't figure out how to get that roughly 5" piece of 1x4 off, so I just left it alone. Again, I know that, the way it was, the paneling piece should go on next, forming the interior wall. But would there be any harm in my putting in the 1x4 next, then the paneling after that?

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[cropper2]

OK. That will do it for tonight.

If anyone would like to come to the beautiful Chesapeake Bay for a day to show me how to do this, just come on down/up/over!!!

[pathfinder3081]

I must add that you are doing a really good job dissecting this thing down. I wish I could answer you and help but I have not been there.. yet
I am waiting for your procedures to be address as well.

[cowcharge]

They built the entire wall separately, paneling and all, and then stood it up and attached it as one big piece to the floor, that's why the paneling goes down between wall and floor. Probably it was more for ease of building than specifically for strength, so I doubt having a joint in the paneling there will do much harm. I hope so, since my new wall paneling stops at floor level, hehe.

My biggest worry is what condition the floor framing is in. The floor plywood looks pretty rotten in the starboard corner at least, which usually means the frame underneath it is bad too. I'd want to investigate that, since that is the base for the walls to attach to. I'd cut out the rotten plywood and see what's under it.

Did you cut the ends off the bottom piece of the rear wall frame too? Since you can easily get at the whole length of it, I'd prefer using a single piece to replace the whole thing rather than just replacing the ends with short pieces, it'll be stronger and more level that way.

I wouldn't use plywood for the uprights, it's much more vulnerable to future leaks. With end grain everywhere, it soaks up water.

I did my back corners wrong. If I do another one, I'll do it this way:

Do all the framing with the skins loose. Put each pair of third hands up on the sides, with the front ones right where the good wood starts, and connected with a 2x4 at the top.That way, when you raise or lower the rear third hand of either pair, the whole back section of the roof on that side will move up and down like a teeter-totter, with the pivot being at the front third hand, if that makes sense. Then tape the side skin layers back together temporarily, pushing them right up into each other tight, and raise or lower your rear third hand on one side so that the fold in the bottom edge of the side skin lines up with the bottom of the floor, to get the side walls jacked to the correct height and level fore-and-aft. The front third hands won't do much on either side, because everything is till tied together up forward, but you might be able to get a little help from them. Raise or lower the third hands to get the skins level fore-and-aft and at the right height for one side wall, then measure the height at each third hand along the top edge and readjust front and rear third hands if needed to level them out with the rest of the trailer up forward. Then do the same to the other side, compare the measurements and readjust if necessary to get both walls at the same height. If you rafters are strong, raising one side of the roof will move the other side a bit, so you might have to measure and adjust a couple of times between left and right. Once the two sides are as level fore-and-aft (first) and at as equal a height (second) as you can make them, put the rear skin back on to test its bottom edge. You might have to compromise and leave some error in the sides in order to get the rear close enough to look good when you reattach it. Errors will show up worse on the back than the sides, especially if it's not level left to right. When you're satisfied, pull the skins back apart and measure and replace all the missing frames, including the uprights, and attach the walls to the floor. That way you're building the frames to fit a square trailer instead of a saggy, uneven one.

You gurus out there, anything I missed or that you disagree with? I could use some help here, lol.

[cropper2]

Outstanding assistance, thanks.

Heaven forbid I actually wait for a response before I get started, though. I was worried about losing another day to rain, so I got going early this morning. I'm about to put it all up on the blog. I ran into a few issues, so maybe you'll have even more helpful info.

[cropper2]

Made some good progress today. Thanks again for all of your help.

Check out the photos:

1972shasta.blogspot.com/

[boandsusan]

Now ya cooking! Your doing a great job. Your going to feel so much better know that the rear is all new.

[cropper2]

Oh! I feel so much better just knowing some of the basics. The hip bone is connected to the thigh bone and so forth. I really, really, really hope that once I get those to "corner?" pieces out of the roof - the curved pieces to which the rear uprights attach, that I can stop removing for now. Getting into the ceiling is still a very intimidating prospect AND I hope to get Trixie out on the road at the end of June for our first camping trip.

Thanks for the encouragement!