Bringing a 50s/60s Wooden Van Back to Glory
Oct 9, 2021 14:40:47 GMT 10
Don Ricardo, aussieute, and 1 more like this
Post by karavaninkallista on Oct 9, 2021 14:40:47 GMT 10
It's been a while, and the poor old caravan joined me in the funk of winter+lockdown. But spring is here, and the world looks a brighter place.
The entire caravan is skinned with plywood and it looked rather nice. Unfortunately the carport in which I worked has a crappy flat metal roof. On cold days the underside was subject to condensation and the slow rain over the plywood led to quite a bit of mould growing. Some cheap black plastic tacked to the underside of the carport limited the worst of the later winter cool weather, but it still took quite some time to scrub the wood with hypochlorite based mould killer then a round of basic mould-resisting undercoat.
(Note to self. If I ever do this again, find a place with a solid flat concrete floor and fixed weather-shielding walls and roof. I already sense I'll take a crack at another one, sometime.)
So, to adding the calico skin. I've dreaded this job due to the number of things that may go wrong and difficulties in hiding any errors.
Over it went yesterday. A spot of packing tape to hold the stuff in place.
With all of the advice I've received in how to do calico I didn't pre-shrink the calico, but when straight into applying a white, water-based acrylic paint. Nearly four litres on a single coat! This morning I came out, trimmed off the excess on the sides to leave a 2 cm tab and gave another coat, this coat chugging down about 1.5 litres of paint.
The calico treated yesterday is nice and tight over the top, and for the calico on the side folds I smeared by hand more paint to ensure it was good and wet, and to tuck in any of the excess trim. Once this coat was touch dry I trimmed out the front window.
It's not perfect though. The paint shrunk the calico to make a nice tight fit but did not adhere as well as I hoped, so the lowest parts, where the paint needs to adhere 'upwards' against gravity, tends to peel away. Some Sika spray adhesive behind the painted calico holds it to the ply substrate, and when the edging goes on that will aid in holding. (I did a couple of test goes with a glue treatment before paint. That does not work; I think any adhesive will need to be thin and slow setting. Perhaps a dilute PVA may be an option; for this the sole adhesive is the paint.)
The biggest error I made was on the rear. I cut the window space out too early, before the calico had an opportunity to fully cease shrinking, so there is a bit of bubbling. Some can be hidden when I place the numberplate back and in the architraves around the window but it's no small disappointment. I have enough calico to recover the entire back and hide the bubbles under a second layer of calico. Not sure which way to go.
Finally, the skylight is cut out - the calico can remain there for a few more coats to stop paint flicking inside and keep the roof taught.
The entire caravan is skinned with plywood and it looked rather nice. Unfortunately the carport in which I worked has a crappy flat metal roof. On cold days the underside was subject to condensation and the slow rain over the plywood led to quite a bit of mould growing. Some cheap black plastic tacked to the underside of the carport limited the worst of the later winter cool weather, but it still took quite some time to scrub the wood with hypochlorite based mould killer then a round of basic mould-resisting undercoat.
(Note to self. If I ever do this again, find a place with a solid flat concrete floor and fixed weather-shielding walls and roof. I already sense I'll take a crack at another one, sometime.)
So, to adding the calico skin. I've dreaded this job due to the number of things that may go wrong and difficulties in hiding any errors.
Over it went yesterday. A spot of packing tape to hold the stuff in place.
With all of the advice I've received in how to do calico I didn't pre-shrink the calico, but when straight into applying a white, water-based acrylic paint. Nearly four litres on a single coat! This morning I came out, trimmed off the excess on the sides to leave a 2 cm tab and gave another coat, this coat chugging down about 1.5 litres of paint.
The calico treated yesterday is nice and tight over the top, and for the calico on the side folds I smeared by hand more paint to ensure it was good and wet, and to tuck in any of the excess trim. Once this coat was touch dry I trimmed out the front window.
It's not perfect though. The paint shrunk the calico to make a nice tight fit but did not adhere as well as I hoped, so the lowest parts, where the paint needs to adhere 'upwards' against gravity, tends to peel away. Some Sika spray adhesive behind the painted calico holds it to the ply substrate, and when the edging goes on that will aid in holding. (I did a couple of test goes with a glue treatment before paint. That does not work; I think any adhesive will need to be thin and slow setting. Perhaps a dilute PVA may be an option; for this the sole adhesive is the paint.)
The biggest error I made was on the rear. I cut the window space out too early, before the calico had an opportunity to fully cease shrinking, so there is a bit of bubbling. Some can be hidden when I place the numberplate back and in the architraves around the window but it's no small disappointment. I have enough calico to recover the entire back and hide the bubbles under a second layer of calico. Not sure which way to go.
Finally, the skylight is cut out - the calico can remain there for a few more coats to stop paint flicking inside and keep the roof taught.
