It’s time for another Dewey the Dewdrop update! With another weekend under our belt, we’ve gotten a lot of the more tedious tasks done and out of the way and we’ll be moving onto the really fun stuff soon — the re-build!
^^it’s important to cover up all of your skin (preferably with baggy clothes) when angle grinding because bits of rust and metal fly off … eye and mouth protection too!^^
^^when we first discovered these EMT letters carved into the metal (we couldn’t originally see it under all the rust!) we thought maybe it was someone’s initials…but a fellow trailer-builder online informed us that it’s actually a type of electric conduit … that’s all the available tubing that was available in the 50s. He gave us some great advice on how to move forward with any possible welding, too! How cool!?^^
We spent last Sunday, the 5th, grinding off the rest of the rust from both the frame and base frame … the fact that we got all of this done in a day and half was huge. Getting two angle grinders going at the same time was definitely the way to go. “Work smarter, not harder,” is how the saying goes, right? After all of the grinding was done — leaving us with a smooth rust-free surface — we applied a glossy rust inhibitor. With a project as small as Dewey, we only needed to order a single quart. We applied the first coat just in time for some of our neighbors to come out and offer us their garage spot while it dried. Doing a renovation project like this in our tiny garage and driveway space isn’t always ideal, but I can’t stop reminding myself how lucky we are to have three sets of neighbors who are completely cool about everything. That’s definitely something that money can’t buy. 😉
^^she looks brand new! We are counting ourselves super lucky to see the actual trailer base to be in such amazing shape.^^
During the week, I was lucky enough to have a day off from work so I applied the second coating of rust inhibitor to both frames and we were able to check that task off of the list! The following weekend, Virgil was out of town, and so Alex and I took charge of probably the most tedious task of them all: removing all of the built-up caulking on all of the aluminum and metal pieces. That’s right…every wall, ceiling, window frame, fender, door … you name it, we scraped it. We used the heat gun to soften the caulking and chisels to painstakingly scrape the caulking off so we would have a smooth surface to work with. This is super important when it comes time to fit all of the pieces back together again. Whoever had Dewey in her past life, was definitely under the impression that caulking solves everything. But trust me, it definitely does not. We’ll be taking a lot of extra precautions to ensure that we water seal our teardrop the right way, to make sure that she lasts us a lot of years down the line. The entire scraping process took us both Saturday and Sunday, but it was made a little bit better with the help from our friend Lola, who was visiting over the weekend from Washington! We took our respective spots on the driveway out in the sun, turned on some music, and talked about different shows or movies we’ve seen, our plans for the upcoming months, and our dogs (naturally). It really made the time fly. Mark this down as my least favorite Dewey task thus far, but I’m happy to report that it’s finished!
We gave all of the aluminum pieces a quick wipe down with some Simple Green and the hose and called it a day on Sunday afternoon. In the meantime, we ordered all of our aluminum for the inside walls as well as a new belly pan, and all of that has already arrived! This is definitely the biggest expense when renovating a trailer, and I suggest over-budgeting rather than under-budgeting for this when it comes time to plan out your project. We’re hoping to bring home some sub flooring this week and will squeeze in as many smaller tasks as we can in the midst of a busy weekend up ahead!
Special shoutout to Lola for being the first set of outside hands on this project of ours! We’re excited to have our Design Mastermind, Rachael, visit in two weekends to really get the ball rolling on our re-build! Ahhh! It’s really happening!!!
thanks for stopping by!
xo!
LAUREN LIVES 