Painting Prep

Before we could go to town painting the roof and hatch there was a lot of prep work we had to finish up.  The first thing to get done was to install a liquid-tight PVC connector for the wiring coming out of the front of the trailer.  Darrell was able to get two of these right angle connectors at work but a similar one is available on-line here.  The reason we had to do this first and before painting, was because the connector actually goes through the exterior skin and is then tightened from the back side of the plywood.  We basically unscrewed the bottom two rows of screws attaching the skin to the spars so that we could reach our hand up behind the plywood to feed the cables though and tighten down the connector.

With the connector secured we could re-attach the plywood skin and get to work filling in all of the screw holes with wood filler (there were a lot of holes!) and the seam on the top of the roof where the two pieces of plywood we used met.  This required a couple of applications before it filled in.  After everything was cured the roof and hatch were sanded down with 250 grit sandpaper until everything was smooth.

Before even beginning painting we also moved the trailer back into the garage so that the drying paint would be completely protected from the weather and any wind blow dirt/dust.  We then carefully taped over the exposed edges of the okoume with blue painters tape as well as the bottom front edges of the trailer frame and exposed wiring.  The side walls were protected with a plastic tarp and we also made sure to cover up the vent opening with plastic too.  We didn’t want any paint getting into the cabin!

Now we were ready for the time consuming process of painting!!