Painting the Metalwork

Well, I bought a few cheap tools and paint and went to work on my Casita Freedom Deluxe travel trailer.

As my faithful readers will recall, there was a problem with the bumper. It's hollow and is the storage area for the sewage hose that one uses to drain the black water and gray water tanks. Since there is always some moisture (ewwww!) left over when you put it back into the hollow bumper, there is a tendency for rust to form inside that bumper.

When I installed a bike rack on the bumper that, coupled with the weight of the two bikes, caused a rust spot to break completely through and forced the bumper to twist. This was a problem.

Not simply because it looked like crap, but because it made it almost impossible to retrieve and replace the sewer hose when needed. Thus, my pal RL Helms came to the rescue and welded a new bumper onto my Casita. However, this left me with the possibility that the new bumper would run into a similar problem as the old one:

rust.

RL suggested that I paint the inside of the bumper with the same type of rustoleum paint that he'd used on the outside of the bumper. So I bought a very small 2-inch roller and a paint handle extension, plus a can of rustoleum paint.

Over the course of a leisurely day off, the sun bright and the air warm and dry, I put down about five or six (I lost count) layers of rustoleum paint on the inside of the hollow bumper. I also scraped the rust off of the metal tongue of the trailer and repainted that with the same black rustoleum gloss paint. It looks great, and, I'm wagering, will extend the life of that problematic bumper design.

On Sunday I'm hoping to go back to the trailer and, crawling under it, repaint the entire metal undercarriage of the trailer.

While waiting for one of the coats to dry, I have Chinese in my trailer. The first meal eaten in it since the minor accident that caused the door to stick.