Bending the drip rail

[Hamlet]

I'm not sure if anyone else has done this (more than likely), but here goes...
We were frustrated at the first attempt to make the sharp curves with the drip rail, and found that the rigid aluminum (one of its characteristics) cracked or broke when we tried. I went to the bathroom, got my hairdryer and took it out to the garage. My husband thought I was nuts, but just a minute or two with high heat from the dryer made the aluminum malleable enough that it bent with ease.
SCORE!

[avannoy]

Jul 28, 2011 10:54:09 GMT -5 Hamlet said:

I'm not sure if anyone else has done this (more than likely), but here goes...
We were frustrated at the first attempt to make the sharp curves with the drip rail, and found that the rigid aluminum (one of its characteristics) cracked or broke when we tried. I went to the bathroom, got my hairdryer and took it out to the garage. My husband thought I was nuts, but just a minute or two with high heat from the dryer made the aluminum malleable enough that it bent with ease.
SCORE!

That's a great tip, I'm making a note of it. Thanks!

Angel

[avannoy]

Where did you buy your replacement drip rail?

[universalexports]

know just admit that if you had caught your husband outside using your hair drier on the camper, you would have given him the "what for" for using it outside like a tool!!!











.

[Hamlet]

Actually, the hair dryer was originally his and neither of us uses it very much! We got our drip rail and the butyl tape through a RV repair place in town. Neither was very expensive. You do have to decide what part of the rail you want for an awning and order that separately as the two styles are not the same.

[harrison429]

LOL Universalexports...even if hamlet didn't admit it, I will, that is too funny because it's too true!!

[Kristi Foster]

I did a little research about installing an awning rail. Visit www.vintageawning.blogspot.com to see the materials suggested and where to purchase them. Apparently, under the awning rail is one of the most common places for trailer leaks to start. So proper awning rail installation is very important. I would imagine that the same materials and techniques apply to the drip rail installation as well.

[Hamlet]

Good website, thanks! It wasn't around when we did ours. The drip/awning rails are probably the most common source of leaks (all the pics you see of stains in corners). Butyl tape may be more expensive than putty tape, but it's still pretty cheap when considering the number of hours spent on a restoration!

[Bob]

Here's my first attempt. I traced the bends out on a sheet of plywood and cut blocks to pull the drip rail to. I used a heat gun, but slow bending pressure seems to work just as well. I have one tear out so far that was caused by me putting a clamp with a small face on top of a screw hole and weakening the metal. Lesson 1: don't clamp the metal too tight or you'll create a stress point.

Time to go back and bend some more.

[boandsusan]

Hairdryers and a bag of ice cubes are also great for dents in alumunum. We found a thread in the Airstream forum a couple of years ago. Heat the area with the dryer, push the dent out from the backside then cool the area down as quickly as possible using the bag of ice. We removed severel dents using this method while restoring our Airstream.

[Bob]

Ice and heat work well on my dents, too. I had an ice pack on my shin yesterday - where I walked into a stool.

Round 2: me against the J-channel.
I found that using screws to hold the channel in place as it's being bent is much better than clamps - you can't put enough holding pressure on the clamps without distorting the aluminum. As you bend the channel in, the part that you already bent tries to bend out. I'm hoping that pre-bending the channel will make it easier to install than having to fight channel and putty tape together.

[boandsusan]

Too funny! Potomac. YOUR dents remark gave me the giggles. Thanks lol.