Sooner or Later?

Since bringing the Captain home, we have been cleaning her up and inspecting the structure, systems and components. We plugged the Captain into shore power this week and found the 110 system working well. The vent fans hummed and the lights all worked great. Each light fixture is wired for both 110 volt shore power and 12 volt battery power. The fans also have a switch to run from "City Power" or "Battery Power." Here is the Captain all lit up at night.






One very disappointing discovery early on, although quite minor in the overall scheme of things (see below), was that someone had removed the street side International Badge. These are the round badges that label the trailer as an "International" model.

Airstream only used this style of badge for a few years before changing to a simpler square badge without all the cool graphics. The badges on the Captain are round aluminum patches in the form of a globe with all the continents, a set of latitude and longitude lines, and a banner with the word "International" across the center of the globe . The outline of the continents as well as the latitude and longitude lines and the label are actually etched into the badge, so this would not be a simple badge to recreate.

We found the street side badge had been removed and, from the fresh tool marks in the rivets, it looked like it had been done fairly recently. Being a cynical type, I began to suspect the PO had taken it as a souvenir after our not so happy sales negotiations. Luckily though, while Ryan and I were looking through the gaucho drawers Saturday night, he found the missing badge sitting in one of the drawers.

The discovery of this badge was a moment of joy, as I really like these badges and figured I was going to spend several months or years trying to find one on eBay or Craigslist.

After finding the cool badge, we had to turn to more serious matters. Our hope in buying this trailer was that we could camp in it a couple years before we had to start a full restoration. Even with that goal in mind, however, we set our sights low and did not plan on making our first trip until Memorial Day weekend 2010. Before camping, we knew there were many things to clean, repair and replace. The most obvious problem was the original floor tiles. They were in horrible shape.

All old trailers leak and all old trailers have some amount of rot in the floor. Because this trailer lived in the desert for the last 50 years, I was hopeful that there would be less rot than average and that we could nurse it along for a few years before replacing the entire subfloor. Ironically, the floor tiles in the Captain were in bad shape not so much because of water damage, but because of sun damage. They were bleached, dried up and generally filthy beyond any hope of repair or reuse. Yet, in 95 percent of the trailer (including compartments and under cabinets and beds), the tiles were still firmly glued down and the floor was actually quite solid.

I began my floor inspection by pulling up some of the tiles that were already coming off. These tiles are almost certainly vinyl asbestos tiles. So, I only pulled up tiles that were already nearly 90 percent loose (you do not want to be breaking these things up and creating a bunch of dust out of them). I had learned from the Webers and others that the common problem areas are near the door and at the corners of the gauchos as well as under the beds and in the bathroom areas. This was precisely where some of our tiles were loose. I found loose tiles at both corners of the gaucho and under the beds as well as under the bathroom cabinet. Upon pulling those tiles I found varying amounts of rot but nothing too alarming. In general the rot was only on the surface of the plywood and looked like it could be repaired with Rot Doctor or some other form of epoxy wood repair.

If all I found was water damage or dry rot, I would have been pretty satisfied with just patching things up, putting down some new vinyl tiles and getting the Captain ready to camp. But obviously, that was not all I found or I would not have spent the last three paragraphs beating around the bush. Termites.

There, I said it, bugs. Yucky, wood eating insects. I hate bugs almost as much as I love camping. Especially bugs that want to eat all that beautiful woodwork in my Airstream. Frankly, termites were not on my list of things to worry about. Termites are not a huge concern in Seattle and I figured they would have a difficult time getting into a trailer absent some fool who carries firewood in the trailer. I've since read that a fool and his firewood are not the only way termites can get into a trailer. So, change of plans.

We knew that sooner or later we would have to engage in a full restoration of the Captain. Although I was hoping for later, the termite discovery has change the plan to sooner. The only way to really get rid of termites is to get rid of the wood they are inhabiting. Since they appear to be inhabiting several areas of our floor, that means pulling the shell off and replacing the floor.

After getting over the initial shock of discovering nasty bugs eating our trailer, we consulted with trailer restorer extraordinaire, Ryan Weber, author of Our 59' Flying Cloud. Ryan is about two thirds through the restoration of their trailer and has been talking about taking on other restoration jobs part time. His work is truly amazing and he has more energy and patience than anyone I know. I've worked with Ryan on some plumbing, electrical and construction projects and I've always been amazed at his ability to just push through all but the most obnoxious obstacles to get a project done.

Although he can't start right away, that works well with our budget and schedule. Ryan can start sometime in the late summer or early fall. In the meantime, we will start stripping the interior of the trailer in preparation for taking the shell off. When we tow the trailer down to Ryan's shop, she will be completely gutted with no cabinetry or interior skins. This summer we will also complete as much planing and purchasing of supplies as possible so the project can progress smoothly once we are in full swing.

We plan to have Ryan work on the major portions of the project at his shop including removing the shell, repairing any frame damage, installing new axles, installing new gray and black tanks, installing new floors and belly pan and re-attaching the shell to the frame. I'll help out whenever and where ever possible to cut down on time and expense and when the shell is back on, the Captain will come home for me to finish out the plumbing, electrical and rebuilding of the interior.

I'm disappointed that we can't go camping sooner, but realistically, we were not even planning on buying our tow vehicle until next January. Plus, we are going to have an essentially brand new trailer when this is all said and done. Time to get to work.