Cool McCool's Garage

Some people want a condo in Chicago, an apartment in Miami, a home in Italy, and a ski lodge in Utah.  Not us, nope.  All we need is a pole barn, some power tools and a 12′ long “Tini-Home” away from  home.  That vacation home, ski-lodge, Florida home, and portable man-cave got one step closer to completion today with the siding officially DONE!

I was worried about how I’d get the roof skin on, but that turned out to be simple, if a little time-consuming.  If I’d had the camera with me, instead of leaving it on the hall tree when I left this morning, I could show how I got the 25′ long piece of Filon up on the roof of the trailer, then  unrolled it, anchored the front over the tongue, and then with the ceiling crane in the shop, lifted the Filon as tight as a drum head over the front of the trailer, screwing it down as I went. 

Stretching the Filon over the rear was a little trickier, but I turned that trick by attaching a 2×4 to the very back-end, which was under the trailer about a foot, then screwing a lift strap to the 2×4, and using a come-a-long to pull the Filon taut around the body of the trailer.   I had to “encourage” it to stretch by pulling the trailer out in sun, and whacking the 2×4, under pressure, with a maul, but the Filon is TIGHT around the roof/ends of the trailer. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can’t see the lift strap underneath the trailer being pulled by the winch, but it’s there, and believe me, there was considerable pressure used to pull the skin around tightly!  With the winch still tight, I drilled and countersunk holes on the roof a foot apart and used deck screws to attach the skin.  I could hardly wait to pull the transparent film, but I had to use the router and trim the edges before that…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the edges were trimmed ( I had to buy a new bit, as the bearing had seized in my old one) I peeled off the protective film, and for the first time in almost 60 years, this little trailer gleamed silver in the sun!  It’ll never need polishing, never need painting,  there are NO seams in the roof or sides, it should be good now for another 58 years, maybe even a hundred.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, now it’s all downhill!  Get three coats of polyurethane on the interior, get the windows in (permanently), run the wiring to the new tailights and running lights, and we have our third vacation home ready and waiting to go!  Don’t want to give too much away, but there’s an outing planned just a couple of weeks away! 

Looks like a hundred dollars worth now, wouldn’t you say?