Bondo Sanding

Sanding Bondo is not fun, but it's not as bad as I expected.  I'm about 1/3 of the way done with the rough sanding.  Going to use the rest of this week/weekend to finish it off, slap some primer down, and be ready to paint early next week.

Also got the new LED rear lights mounted, still have to test the wiring, but the car wasn't in a convenient place to be hooked up right now.

Progress is happening!  Will be thrilled to get a coat of paint in there.

Bondo Day 1

Today I finally started working with the Bondo.  Here are a few things I learned:

1.  I hate Bondo.

2.  It takes at least 2 gallons of Bondo to refinish the inside of a 1970s horse trailer.

3.  The horrible caulk crap I scraped off the inside of the trailer was NOT Bondo.

4.  I hate Bondo.


So this stuff essentially smells like paint thinner, dries in about 72 seconds, and is harder to sand down than cement.  It's impossible to apply it smoothly because it starts getting crusty almost instantly.  So I was left with no option but to glop it on as best as I could to fill the gaps, and hope like I hell I can figure out a way to sand it down again.

After day 1, the lower half of the trailer is mostly done with the application (still have a few small touch-ups to do).  I need to buy a second gallon to do the top half, and then sand, sand, and sand some more.  It's going to take a lot longer than I was hoping to get through the Bondo process, but on the bright side, I think it's going to be very effective in sealing all the seams, and covering up the rust spots.

Stage 1 Sanding Completed

All pre-Bondo sanding is now finished.  After finishing the Bondo applications I will of course have to sand again, at which point I'll hit any rough patches I missed the first time around in addition to smoothing out the Bondo seams.

I ended up pulling out that last piece of wood shelf, I decided it was pointless to leave it in.

After finishing the sanding, I applied rust converter spray onto all heavily rusted areas.  It now has to set for 24 hours before I can put anything over it.

You'll also notice I threw a coat of silver metallic spray paint over the divider board; the naked wood was starting to bother me.  It probably needs another coat, but at least it has some sort of a finished look now.  It's interesting that you can see the wood grain so much in the photo, because the metallic glitter makes it almost unnoticeable in person.

I also did one round of wood putty.  When it finishes drying I'll go back and apply some more to certain areas.  The worst damage should be hidden when I put up the new cushion strips anyway, but I figured I would patch, sand, and stain it thoroughly before putting the cushions up.  As a finishing touch I'm going to apply baseboards on both sides like I did in the red trailer, probably in black to contrast the walls and hide dirt.  

One of the rear running lights went out, so we bought 2 new LED ones to replace both back running lights (so they'll match).  We may look at rewiring the entire thing at some point.  I'm also pricing out a new set of tires, as that will eventually be needed, and I'm hoping we can replace the interior light and get that working as well.  

If all goes well, I should be able to start painting and staining in the next 7-10 days.  I'd like to move quickly and get this done before the weather cools off too much, and also before any of my major trips in October.  

The current progress doesn't really show through on pictures well, but it's all adding up to an awesome final reveal!

Sanding Progress & Unexpected Renovations

Spent another day and got most of the interior rough sanded.  I'd like to get back in for one more day and get everything as smooth and bare as I can manage before I start in with the Bondo.  Meanwhile, Major decided to add his own special touch to the trailer renovations.

So here's the nose of the trailer after I finished my second round of sanding.

  Just as a reminder, here was the before shot:

A great deal of the metal surface is now down to at least primer, with much bare metal starting to show through.  So that's great.  Meanwhile, here's the image AFTER Major's "contributions":

If you can't see it right away, try scrolling back up.  Find it?  Yes, the majority of the wooden shelf in the nose is now missing.  Major decided to yank it out when I tied him to the rings attached to it.  I suppose in the end, it's probably better- I couldn't sand behind the shelf and it was probably housing spiders.  Also it took up head room, and we all know my gigantic horse needs lots of headroom.  So, no shelf it is apparently.  Now there's another section of black paint I need to attack with the sander.  I'll do that section when I go back to touch up the rest, and then I'll get to work on my patching.  

Sigh.  

Round 1

Sanding is going to be a little harder and more time consuming than I thought, but, I'm confident it will get done.  I took the rotary sander after one side of the interior today, with reasonable results.  I need to go back with a detail sander and then the Dremel to get into the nooks and crannies that a round sander just couldn't do.  But I found some bare metal!  I think this is going to shine up real nice when I'm all finished.

A quick before and after of the sanding.

The Beginning

Meet Big Blue.

Big Blue is a 1971 steel horse trailer.  I purchased her in Delaware after Major decided the the trailer I had previously purchased was too short for him.  I will not go into great detail about the absurdity of having to buy a Thoroughbred height trailer for a ranch-style Quarter Horse, but horse-folks, feel free to point and laugh at my stupid horse.

Meanwhile, Big Blue is due for a major overhaul, so I wanted a blog to show the progress of my renovations.

Primarily, the entire interior and exterior need to be sanded down, patched, and then repainted.  I've purchased wood filler and a number of Bondo products to make this happen.  I'm also purchasing a paint-sprayer to make sure I get full coverage.  I'll be using white tractor/implement paint, as I'm told this is the best way to go for trailers.

I plan to start with the interior, sand and scrape it fully, patch it, and paint it.  We're also pulling out the home-made divider they installed, because it is too wide for my taste, and also it's not removable.  We will be building our own to replace it.  The cushions/bumper pads are coming off as well and being replaced with new black ones.  They are all torn, plus they're an ugly shade of brown.  Also the one on the right hand side is missing entirely.  The final color for the interior will be a light metallic silver- I'm going to start with a good coat of the white tractor paint, to make sure it's fully covered and sealed, and then go back over it with spray paint to add a little color and shine.  The wood, to include the side panels, divider, and that homemade shelf in the nose, which is actually quite handy and I plan to keep, will all be stained with white deck stain.  The floor is fine and the rubber mats are good, so I will not be doing anything except possibly throwing a coat of stain down to help waterproof it, and washing the mats well.  I also plan to take some tubing to cover up and protect the wiring.

When the interior is completely finished, I'll go back and start the exterior.  There are two holes in the nose being covered up by those white weather strips; I'm going to remove the strips and use metal patching to fill them in.  All other holes/rust spots will be sanded, patched, and filled.  The lighting is good, I think there is one bulb that needs to be replaced, but the system is fairly new.  When everything is patched and sanded down, the exterior will be painted solid white.  I will probably try to preserve the silver trim for some nice contrast, but I don't know what kind of control I'll have with the sprayer.  At least the large lower sections of silver will be easy to keep.  

I may try to see if I can find replacement windows, as the current ones are green tinted and one is missing.  Barring that I may just remove the windows entirely and perhaps put a screen or some bars over the hole.  I also plan to start saving for a new set of tires, and replace the tow chains.  I may look at installing a break-away brake as well, because it doesn't currently have one.  The tires and brake would be long-range goals however.  

She has a long way to go, but she has definite potential.  I'm actually glad to have the extra height, because many of the SAR team horses are taller, and most people have much larger rigs than mine, so I can see the usefulness of being able to take my smaller rig into tight spots while on searches.  There's storage space in the nose as well, which is definitely handy for searches when I have so much gear to bring with me (like his entire portable paddock).  

So this week, the first goal will be sanding the interior and starting to patch the wood and metal.