WILL MY SKINS FIT

[ocd carpenter]

Ok, real newbie. I have my 62 stripped down to the frame, started rebuilding the sidewalls, one done i'm useing 1/4 oak plywood its about 3/16s thick. will the added thickness hinder the reusing of the old skins? If so i can hold the plywood up on one side and put another framing member at bottom of the floor to secure the plywood on that side.

[ocd carpenter]

still trying to figure out how to link pics

[schweetcruisers]

The side skins should fit, however the roof and the lower front and lower back panel might not.

[boandsusan]

We replaced all our 1/8 inch paneling with 1/4 inch Birch and the skin fit real snug but managed to get it back on using the original screw holes without too much of an argument.

[ocd carpenter]

Thanks so much boandsusan this is my first camper project. this is the best fourm with a wealth of information from experinced and very friendly people, im new to the fourm, but youall rock!

[harrison429]

we couldn't fit our rear skin back on once we replaced the bottom rails with new wood. we had to then sand the framing down to allow the skin to fit...so beware of any size changes anywhere because you just never know what else is going to be affected.

[paigenmarc]

We were unable to get the front and rear skins back on (the lower portion) after we rebuilt it. We had to get it specially made because it had an unusual bend pattern, so it ended up costing us about $400 dollars for those two panels.

[ocd carpenter]

Thanks for all the advice everyone, have a lot more questions some have been answered by my reading of this outstanding fourm, have to figure why my pics will not come through on flikr, as i have totally disassembeled my 62 down to the frame, painted it and are now rebuilding the side walls, one done another to go! All in about 10 days!

[capnjonny]

When I completely reframed my 65 compact I did not install the paneling first like they did at the factory. I framed the walls then screwed them to the sides of the frame . I then installed the skins. Doing this made the trailer about 3/8" narrower. This allowed me to trim the top and end panels slightly when putting them on. I first made sure that everything was centered before Hammering the corners over where they were a little loose and then trimming the aluminum skin with aviation snips. I would recomend this method for a couple of reasons.
First, the way the factory did it the edges of the walls were exposed to moisture at the bottom of the frame. Secondly, unless you are exceedingly careful and lucky, when you get the frame finished it might not fit under the original skin. Also having a little extra skin let me cut out some corroded aluminum that would potentially have led to leaks. a final advantage to framing, skinning, and lastly paneling is that you will have the trailer skinned and the frame exposed. This allowed me to find some pin hole leaks and seal them before insulating and paneling. Another advantage is that I can now run my wiring from the inside and not have to do it after the paneling is in place. Since I am doing some custom wiring I can experiment without cutting holes in the paneling. A final advantage in my mind is that I am going to make all the interior paneling removable, using screws to attach it with battens over the screws so that one day when I have a leak or need to change something I can remove the ceiling and wall paneling as necessary.

That's the plan anyway.

J

[capnjonny]

One thing I didn't mention in my post above is that after framing and skinning I found a number of places where I wanted to add extra framing. I added extra framing between the roof frame to stiffen it and keep the joints in the roof from sagging and pooling water. I also added wood backing at various other spots.

Insulating from the inside was easy. I used 1" foam at the roof and 3/4" at the walls.