Corner Repair and Rebuild

Something that merits some explanation or exploration is what I meant to say on the outside of the camper is this piece of trim right here. It was obviously added for some reason and caulked poorly. So, I'm gonna take all of this off. I wanna look underneath there, see what motivated somebody to put that on in the first place, and then just double check to make sure there aren't any still existing conditions under there that need to be corrected. Bottom line here, lots and lots of screws to take out, and, gonna be some caulk to pick at too.

Here we go. I've got all the screws out, there were about a bazillion of them. And now I'm working on this caulk, and the lesson out of this is slice don't pry. I am doing the work with a flat bar, but the key to this is to use it like that, to slice the caulk free. And I actually like this better than a putty knife.

You don't want anything sharp going against that aluminum skin 'cause there's a chance you could penetrate it and you're gonna create a bigger problem. So I need to just keep working my way up. And of course, on both sides. Get in there. There you go.

And once I've got that caulk sliced, then I'll be able to take this corner off and we'll see what's under there. You know, honestly, the work with the flat bar to get that caulk to let go wasn't too bad. So I've got this peeled to a point where this is ready to come off and look at inside there. Down here at the bottom, everything is solid as a rock. The wood corner that's inside there; up here, not so much.

So it's gonna take a little exploration maybe from inside in order to figure out exactly how to deal with this upper corner. Well, after opening things up on the outside of the trailer, what I came to realize is there's a bad framing member inside that corner. Remember, inside here, all of this floor got replaced, and what I came to figure out is that that was the problem. At one point, the camper had a leak coming in through there. Somebody tried to do some repairs, but the bottom line is I need to open this up in order to get that component fixed.

Have a couple of things going here already. One, I've marked on the wall where I wanna make cuts in order to open up this corner. And at this stage of the game, this is kind of like exploratory surgery. I wanna basically do as little as possible first just to see what's going on here. And then, if I need to open up the wall some more, I will, but I would rather not do that.

So I'm just maybe eight inches out from the corner in both directions. I marked that as a straight line because I'm gonna cut it straight as I can and that's gonna make it easier to patch back in. If you just jump in here with a jigsaw or a Sawzall or something and cut it willy-nilly, then I think it's gonna make it harder to get new panels put back into this. So I've got straight lines marked out on both walls. I'm gonna do as much of the cutting as I can with this tool.

It's a cordless saw and it allows me to set the depth to cut so I know I'm gonna just barely penetrate that paneling. So that's good. That's gonna stop me from cutting stuff I don't wanna cut on the other side of the wall. Of course the power is completely disconnected and shut off, so even if I do hit a wire, it's not gonna be hot. So I'll get as much cut as I can with this.

And then the multi-tool, swap arms here, with the multi-tool I'll be able to get in, especially when I run up into an inside corner where saw number one can only go so far, I'll be able to finish that corner out with the multi-tool. Then the other thing I have ready is my dust mask. Talked about this way back when with the floor. We don't know what we're gonna get at inside there. We know it's gross.

So, better to protect yourself and not be breathing that junk in as we go. So at this stage of the game, we can fire things up and, I don't know, start opening it up and see what's gotta happen next. Opened up and here's what we've got. The bad piece that we could see from the outside is actually behind here. So it's really nice to see that this framing here is still very solid.

We don't have any rot there. To make it a little bit easier to get to this and also just to get rid of this piece, I'm gonna cut this panel back a little bit more. And again, I'm gonna treat this like exploratory surgery. I'm gonna cut back a little bit, and a little bit and a little bit, basically, I'm looking for the component where this gets solid again much like when I did the floor, it was the same idea of, how far back do we have to take it to get to good stuff? So I'm gonna mess with that.

And then we'll come back and look at what needs to happen to get this corner rebuilt with new stuff. That additional cut, bringing this back, got me to where I found wood that's solid, so that's cool. And one of the things that's interesting out of this is, honestly, the framing of these trailers is really very simple. A lot of two by twos, two by threes. There's not a lot of complex stuff going on here.

So, in any case, what I'm gonna do next is, I'm gonna come in with a multi-tool and I'll strike a line here so I know I'm making a square cut, and then I'll come in with a multi-tool and cut this off, because if I cut here, I'm back to solid wood and that's the same, that's true all the way down. So the bottom line out of this is anything that looks hinky is about to come out of here and then come back and rebuild this with new framing stuff that'll let this corner go back together solidly. Now, when you do this, if you use a multi-toll, whatever you use to make these cuts you wanna be really careful. This of course is an aluminum skin, so as I'm coming through here, I wanna make sure I don't penetrate that skin at all. So you're just gonna have to be very, very careful as you go through to make sure you don't go through.

Go through the material, not go through the panel on the camper. I'm ready to cut this one and what I've done is used a square to mark that line. Now, I'm ready to come in here with the multi-tool and what I've done is I've inserted a flat bar here, and I'm not prying with that flat bar, I'm just using it to create a little bit of a gap. I can feel as I gently press that in, again, we're working hard here to not deform or definitely not pierce the metal. So, I can feel a little bit of pressure there and that's just enough to open that up and give me a gap between the back of the framing member and the face of that panel.

A plan that went on with the way I wanted it to. So that worked out really well and got that flush cut. It's ready to receive a new cross member in there and I'm gonna repeat that process and just, like I said, get all the old junk out of here. The rebuild on the corner here is going really well and nothing special about the lumber here. I'm just using standard, what's called SPF, spruce pine fir two by fours and ripping those down into two by twos.

You could alternatively just buy two by two as well. And, as I put everything together, as I've mentioned before, one of the things I'm doing because I can't get to the outside to bring screws from the outside in to the end grain of this piece, or here, I couldn't get in this way, so instead it's the corner irons that are making this work so that I can tie everything together. And of course those corner irons, angle irons, are readily available in home centers and hardware stores. This chunk of two by six lives right here and what it really does, is on the outside, this is the lower end of the brace that holds up the front awning. So this piece's purpose in life is to live right here and receive the screws on that brace.

And it's ready to go in. Screws I'm using are just standard inch and 5/8 wood screws and driving those with the charge driver. The impact wrench, impact driver, makes a really big deal on that and it makes stuff go a lot faster. So, from here on out, it's rinse and repeat, any other place that are blocks like this, put those in. And then on the inside here, this corner is gonna be done.

With the repairs done on the inside we're just about to a point where we can get new trim on the outside of the camper, but, before we can put new stuff on we gotta get old stuff off. There is a lot of residue here that's leftover from the trim that was on there. And there's no way that we're gonna be effectively able to effectively seal over that if we don't get that old junk off. Getting old caulk off, especially RV caulk, is not easy to do, but, I've got an approach for this using a multi-tool that makes this pretty straightforward, pretty simple. So first off, let's have a look at the multi-tool and what we need, that tip, not a cutter, but what kind of tip we need in that multi-tool to work on this.

It's not easy to get caulk off of this baby, I've mentioned that already, but we need to get it and we need to get all that residue off of there. And I have found that a multi-tool is a really, really good way to do this. You've seen me use the multi-tool in other spots on the camper, cutting wood out, cutting nails. Now, in this case, we don't wanna cut with it we wanna push with it. This becomes basically a putty knife on steroids.

It oscillates at a really, really high rate. So think of, if you could get a putty knife, if you did get a putty knife up against that caulk and you were pushing against it, but like a gazillion times a minute, that's what we're gonna do with this. So, for what we're doing, we don't want a saw blade on here. That's gonna mess up the aluminum. What we want is a tip that looks like a putty knife.

You can buy these any place that you buy the cutting tips, but if you're ready to go, if you're ready to do this step and you don't have the putty knife type tip available, we can make one. That's why I've got the belt sander here. What I'm gonna do is start by knocking the teeth off. Then I'm gonna make this slightly convex, and then I'm gonna sharpen it just a little, it doesn't have to be a knife edge, but just imagine what the tip of a putty knife looks like. That's all we want this to look like when we're done.

And that gives us the tip we need on this. So now we can go after that caulk. Now that we have the right tool for the job, we can start going after this caulk and part of the key to this is when you come in with a multi-tool, this is harder than the aluminum. So don't come in at a real steep angle. We wanna get under that caulk in order to work it loose.

And it's just gonna be a matter of finding the right angle, finding the right angle, and then slicing, slicing, slicing, until you get all of that residue off of there like this. Well, there you go, you get the picture, and for me, there's lots more of this to do, so thankfully, thank goodness it's as easy as it is with the multi-tool. Keep in mind, this works great on this aluminum. Be careful of your substrate. Make sure that the tool is not gonna damage the substrate when you're working on getting this caulk off here.

So I just gotta get back to it and got this whole corner to go. Our last step in cleaning up caulk residue and other junk here on the camper is to use a wire wheel and a drill. This really does a great job of scrubbing that surface. Now, again, like I've mentioned before, before you do this, make sure that whatever area you're cleaning up can withstand the rigors of a wire wheel being run over it. It works great on this aluminum skin.

Wouldn't be a great choice for any kind of a membrane, but basically we just wanna scrub here and it's gonna knock off this junk that didn't come off from the previous step, like this. And a little finger-picking helps. Really what we wanna do here is make sure that if you're using this keep it moving like that. Don't just hover in one spot 'cause we can get friction from this and we don't wanna burn the paint that's left on here. I've gotta a piece of trim and it's ready, but we're not actually installing the trim at this point.

We've got this curve up here on this outside corner of the camper. So what I'm gonna do is fasten this piece on temporarily. I'm gonna form the corner and then take it back off and we gotta get into a whole caulking step here. So, at this stage of the game, here's what this is gonna look like. I'm gonna get this in place like that.

And, with multiple hands and amazing dexterity, try to get this screwed in. And this is part of the reason, part of the reason I'm doing this now is because of this fumbling around, but when there's butyl tape on here and there's caulk on the molding and I don't wanna be doing this kind of messing around when that stuff is on here. So again, what I'm looking to do, I need these two screws in here to hold it. Then what I can do is manipulate this trim, doing a little bending out here, easing it over the corner. Easing is important.

Don't just grab and bend. You wanna convince this piece that it's gonna bend. And it's not difficult to do. It's made out of aluminum. So it's gonna make the bend, until this piece here starts to meet the face of the camper there, and, something like that.

That's actually looking pretty darn good. I think we're about ready to go. So again, what this does for me, is it's just gonna make the next step a whole lot easier to do and it's gonna, I'm not gonna be fighting the trim and working with wet caulk and all that other stuff when we get to the next step. I am dangerously close to being able to actually apply the trim to the outside of this camper. So in the world of prep, up to this point, you saw me put the bend in the trim.

The other thing I did in addition to the wire wheel and the putty knife, gizmo thing, is I ran solvent, I ran denatured alcohol over the outside of the skin here just to make sure any last little bit of residue was off of there. Wanna make sure that the caulk and this putty tape can stick sufficiently. So it's a cheap insurance policy to wipe everything down with denatured alcohol first. Now, the putty tape is just what it sounds like, it's tape made out of putty, very much like plumbers putty, and the way we'll use this is to stick it to the camper. I've already come down this far.

I cut that off. I'm gonna talk about cutting that in a second. And then get a layer on here, and as I go, part of the beauty of this stuff is it's gonna stick, or conform, to the irregular surface of the camper. I'm making sure that I have an edge out here that's coming out to the skin and I'll show you why in a sec. Now let's talk about cutting this.

You can grab this stuff and tear it. But if you do, sometimes it stretches out, and I wanna make sure that I maintain the full body of this putty. So, I don't wanna take any chance of stretching it. It takes a second to pull out a utility knife and cut it instead. Now it's protective cover can come off.

It's a lot like if you've used double-face tape for anything it's similar in this regard. Now with our trim, it's got a wide flange in this direction and a narrow flange in this direction. That's good to know because now I'm gonna come down this wall, and I don't need much putty going this way because the trim, the flange, the overlay, is narrow in that direction. And I'll show you why we want putty in this direction. And that is so that we can do this.

So this is cool because with this putty, it's conforming to the shape and now we're forming a corner here that's really gonna seal up where these two skins meet on the outside of the camper. And the other thing I should point out is that one of the things I did here is I went through with 4-Penny galvanized box nails, and I nailed the skin right at the edge to the two-bys that were rebuilt into this corner so that this stuff is already solid. The skin is already solid. Otherwise, if I hadn't done that, when I was doing this work right now, that aluminum would be flopping around like crazy. So, repeat this process, working your way, all the way down to the bottom of the camper.

And producing that overlay on the corner. Just like I have there. Finally, after a lot of prep, I am ready to put this trim on. I took the time before I got this far to put caulk on the back face of this piece. So as I seat this now it's going into the putty and a bed of RV caulk that I already put up there.

Now, at this stage of the game, I'm just gonna drive screws, but we're gonna talk about that in a little bit. These are screws with a neoprene washer. and there is a method in the madness. I'm gonna drill a little predrill right there. Wanna make sure that they get driven far enough but not overdriven 'cause that will nullify the effect of that nice washer.

But it'll be easier to show you that when we're a little further down. And then, just keep going down. The trim's got holes pre-drilled in it, but don't be afraid if you need to, in order to draw it in, don't be afraid to put additional holes in between the holes that it came with to make sure you get a good seal up against the camper. I told you I'd come back and we'd talk some more about these neoprene-headed screws, and it's important to understand the good, the bad and the ugly about these screws. The way they work is that right there, it's also white here, but underneath you can see where it's dark, that's a neoprene washer.

When I drive this against the trim or any other component on the camper for that matter, we want that neoprene to seat and it's important to not underdrive it or overdrive it. And it's important that we get this going in so that the head of this is gonna end up parallel to the face of what we're touching. If this gets really, really crooked and it's touching at the top, not the bottom, then we've got a gap under there that the neoprene washer probably isn't gonna make up. So we've got a couple of things going on here. You can use a cordless drill and by setting the clutch.

setting the clutch on that cordless drill that can help you control not overdriving. I would not do this with full power on that clutch 'cause it's gonna be too easy to overdrive it. And let's just get going here and then I'll talk about overdrive, underdrive. So again, we wanna end up with the head of this parallel to that face. So I'm double checking here to make sure the screw is running in perpendicular to this surface.

Then, make contact. Now in the case of this trim, we do want that screw to draw it in, but we also wanna make sure that we don't overdo it on that washer. So right there, the washers squoze out just a little bit. I'm gonna back that out, go again, sneak up on it a little more gently. Now this is where if I finesse the clutch on my drill, I can back that clutch off and experientially experimentally get to a point where that clutch engages and prevents me from overdriving.

I like the look of that right there. Underdrive would be in a case where we end up with gaps that the neoprene washer is not in fact touching the face of the metal. So big, big, important thing here. I think the easiest thing to accidentally do is overdrive it and what happens there is you squish that whole washer out and it doesn't have the opportunity to be effective. Make sure you're doing that right when you use these neoprene-washered screws.

I'm just about done caulking this outside corner, and I know I've already said it, but I'm gonna say it again. I'm so happy with how this looks. Now, to get to the point where I have done the caulking where I'm at right now, some work went into this. Remember that when I put the corner on, I used putty tape under it and especially on this side of the camper, the putty tape was sticking out past the corner? So the first thing I had to do was run a utility knife down the edge of the corner and slice it.

And again, I like to slice it rather than tear it so that I'd have a clean edge here. Once I had that slice, I was able to simply peel the putty tape off of the face of the aluminum. Once I had the putty tape removed, then I could grab a tube of good RV caulk and run it down the inside corner here, where the trim meets the skin of the camper. Make sure you get a good bead in that inside corner. And I've put in a lot of caulk, and I still the best way to smooth it out after I'm done with the caulk gun, is just run my finger down it in order to smooth out that bead.

Take your time with this step, do a good job, and you're gonna get a couple things. You're gonna get a good looking caulk seam between the corner and the skin and a nice weather-tight shell when this is done. I'm gonna say this one more time, I love how this looks. I'm really happy that I did this repair and we're ready to move on to something else.