Sanding….wait, what is that?!

I’m finally at the sanding stage of my Boler renovations!

I started by scraping all the loose chips off and I was happy to be able to get my scraper way under the layers of paint really easily. For once I was glad the people before me half-assed something. The layers and layers of paint on one side weren’t adhered at all and came off in big pieces. I thought I would be able to scrape the whole trailer and not have to sand off seven layers of paint.  Not so.

Working towards the back I came to a spot that was thick and definitely stuck to the body. Once I brought the sander to it I saw why; the back end had been smashed and repaired with some kind of filler. I have left it for now and will attend to it later.

I am a perfectionist, as I’ve said before, and want to get all the layers off in order to get the best paint job possible. A friend of a friend has offered to take it to his work and paint it professionally and even though he said I just need to scuff it up I can’t help but sand it down to the original gel coat. It’s a lot of work, and wear on the body, but once I switched from 100 grit to 60 and 80 grit for the first few layers it made a world of difference.

Layers on the bottom

Layers on the top

I won’t bore you with all the nitty gritty details of sanding but to give you an idea, it took me four hours to sand both sides of the door down to the gel coat.

I did find one cool thing under the layers though;  a  Certified Recreational Vehicle sticker. I think it has the original serial number on it too! It reads;
Certified Recreational Vehicle,
Complies with applicable vehicular plumbing, gas,
oil, electrical requirements of ? standard Z240
No 1834

I see many days of sanding in my future as I plan to scuff up the gel coat inside as well to repaint. I would love to get it our for a trip before the summer is over but I am learning things take a lot longer than you think when taking on a project like this.