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Back to Day 24 - Mar. 22nd 2012
Today is sunny and clear, so I'm planing to do the aluminum siding. My wife's father, Ross, and my son Vlad are going to help.
First of all make sure the walls are perfectly flat and all the screws heads are countersunk.
You will need a gallon of contact cement
We applied the contact cement with a painting roller on the side of the trailer and on the "ugly side" of the aluminum sheet.
Wait for the contact cement to set (read the instructions on the can). Usually, after 20-30 minutes, when the surface is tacky (not sticky), you are ready to put the aluminum on.
I don't have pictures of the process, we were too busy and I forgot about the camera, but I'll try to describe how we did it.
We attached some pieces of 2x4 to the trailer frame at level with the trailer to hold the aluminum we can easily place it correctly (see bellow).
We cut some same size sticks/dowels (at least 36" long) to keep the glued aluminum away from the plywood before "Contact". We placed the sticks on the plywood vertically, at about 12 inches (or so) from each other so the aluminum doesn't touch the wall surface before is correctly aligned with the wall (I'll make a drawing on the above picture to show):
We placed the aluminum on the 2x4s and then when the aluminum was aligned with the front of the teardrop, we removed the center stick first and smoothed down with our hands as we removed the succeeding sticks.
We finished up by rolling it out with a rolling pin.
Now to cut the aluminum siding to shape (after it was glued to the plywood wall), we used a 2HP router with a 1/2" straight flush trim, bottom bearing bit.
One mistake we made, we didn't put some masking tape on the aluminum where the router slides and there are few small scratches... so my advice is to put some masking tape over the aluminum along the path that you are going to cut.
Cutting the back side. Make sure you have protection glasses on.
Ross is holding the piece that we are cutting out.
Done.
Front
The door opening: first I made a 1/2" hole for the router bit from the inside. Ross was counter pressing a piece of plywood on the other side the aluminum so we don't make a bulge in it when I press with the drill.
Cutting the door opening.
Ross getting ready to apply the contact cement on top and front of the teardrop
The aluminum in place over the roof. You'll need to weigh it down and I suggest straping it down from forward to aft with tow straps over sticks on the area of your spars.
DONE! I'll leave it like this for a day and then I'll have to cut out the opening for the vent and for the window.
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