Finishing up the Trim... Finally

     Due to a ridiculously relentless onslaught of winter weather, the need to make progress on some other side projects, the usual things like work and bedtime stories, and the fact that I generally dislike the finishing parts of any project, the most recent step in "The Little Trailer Project" has taken what seems like forever to come to fruition.  The good news is that it is finally done; glued and screwed.  In "Trimming up the Trim" we discussed building the trims and left off at the point of putting a stain and finish on them.  After doing a final sanding and addressing any defects, I applied two coats of oil based black stain.  The black will give a sharp contrast to the natural wood color and match the other exterior components and trailer frame.

  

     This is how the finishing process began.  I cleaned up the shop, laid the trims out and stained them.  Next I brushed on the first coat of polyurethane...  I thought I could get away with doing it all in my shop with a brush.  I'm certain that some people can, but I am equally certain that I can't.  On that first coat I had drips and sags all over the place, so I decided to turn  them over and do all the back sealing coats with a brush and take them to work to spray the final coats on the fronts.  After some tedious scraping and sanding, I got the drips and sags smoothed out.  The finish coats went on uneventfully enough, but I did manage to get a few four letter words in there before it was over with.  The finish room is pretty cold this time of year, thus polyurethane takes longer than usual to dry.  Knowing this, I carefully touched one of the trims the day after I had sprayed on the final coat and found it dry.  Immediately thereafter, I walked across the room (to where air circulation was a little less) to the other piece and dragged my fingers across the surface leaving two nice hazy streaks right at what will be eye level on the camper.  Insert your favorite foul language here.  The shakers built furniture that was deliberately flawed because only God made things that were perfect and to try to do the same was above their station.  I have yet to build something that required the deliberate introduction of a flaw.  Hopefully, I'll be able to buff it out a bit.  In any case, The flawed trim belongs to the passenger side, so I have decided that that will be Kat's side of the bed.  

    Flawed or not, the trim is ready to install.  Before finishing, the trims were fit and biscuit slots were cut in the forward section to join them to the camper where I would be unable to get a screw in.  I had Kat help me with the actual installation as there is a fair amount to juggle and it's always good to have a hand when glue is involved.  After the trims were clamped in place and pilot holes were made, we took it all apart and started gluing.  

The first step was to fill the gutter between the camper side and the trailer frame with black silicone.

Next, a bead of glue is laid along the camper side about the height of the center of the trim piece.  

The same process is repeated for the rear trim.

Screws are driven through the inside of the camper wall, just above the floor, into the lower trims.

The lower trims are installed and a bead of glue has been laid for the curved upper trim.

Here you can see the biscuits in the lower trim and camper side.  The blue tape is just a guide for the glue placement.

Screws behind the forward cabinet

In the galley opening, I nailed the trim from the inside, and will fill the holes with color putty.  The tape allows me to mark where I want to shoot the nails.

I look pretty serious here, don't I?

Remember all those screw holes along the floor of the cabin?  A molding runs around the bottom edge of the wall to cover them.

Me and my lovely assistant sitting in our newly trimmed trailer.

   Cute couple, huh?  I think the trailer is looking pretty snappy, too.  Although it is has a long way to go, the trims definitely give it a cleaner and more finished off look.  Now that the trims are on, I can get to work on insulating and closing in the roof.  It seems like an awfully short post for something that was so long in coming.