Moving into a new Wordpress Blog about RV Restoration called RVHobby.com

I (Jeff) am officially moving all my how to’s, repairs, restoration and road bumps about my RV and popup tent trailer over to my own blog.  I am calling it RVHobby (www.RVHobby.com).  I have invaded my wonderful wife’s Home School Blog too much and have too many people visiting this blog wanting to learn or read about motorhome updates and upgrades and the like.

My new site has multiple contributing authors who own an renovate their own RV’s (motorhomes), pull trailers, tent trailers and anything else you can camp, travel or vacation in.  I will continue to post my progress and updates on the current projects like the 1984 Coleman pop-up tent trailer and the 1982 Class C Fleetwood Jamboree Motorhome.

This will be my last RV post here on HomeSchoolFamily and I hope all you homeschool moms and dads enjoy our HomeSchool Family website.  Oh, and if you are at all remotely interesting in RVing, come on over to RVHobby.com and pick up a few tips and tricks. 

See you around.

Grand Canyon part 1

On our way to the Grand Canyon we started our first lapbook ever. Here ‘s our first projects (used “In the Hands of a Child” pack). -

We made the vocabulary pocket and started with some of the first vocabulary words: 

( my hand writing is awful because the ride was very bumpy )

Then we talked about Noah and the flood and how it was the cause of the Grand Canyon,  then they did their LB project:

 Ark opens up and has this inside:

The first place we visited late that Friday afternoon was the Desert View Tower at the easternmost end of the National Park. It was a very windy and cold day but the view was still wonderful. The girls enjoyed climbing to the top of the tower.

Girls on the lookout deck of tower:

Jeff and the kids:

Girls and I:

Rain’s a comin’:

When it started to look stormy and the shops were closing we had a race back to the RV, ( the girls won ). We warmed up with some hot coco then ate our Mac & Cheese dinner  ( end of the first day).

First Tooth

P lost her first tooth! She couldn’t wait to get her picture taken without it. The one right next to it will be following soon. My first born baby is growing up so fast . Sometimes I wish I could make time stand still. I do enjoy every age so much though, and love to see them maturing. Does anyone know of a way I can have both?

Fixing the Screen Door magnetic metal latches on my RV Entry Door

On the RV - My screen door just flopped around because the metal magnetic latches were broken.  I decided that this was the easiest and quickest fix and a good place to start with my rv restoration process on this 1982 Fleetwood Jamboree.

1. First I removed the broken latches with a handheld screw driver.
    
    
2. Then I took the broken part over to Al’s RV (a motorhome and trailer parts store in Arizona) to match it up with a new part.  I purchased 2 latches (one for the top of the door and one for the bottom).  This is what one package looked like:
   
    
3. After getting the latches back to my house, I took the original screws and manually screwed them into the door frame with the new latches in place.  Here is the finished piece.
   

In total I spent $7 for the new magnetic latches - and I am very happy with the result

I am in the process of writing a series of step by step articles (with pictures!) about my restoration process. If you would like to be notified about that series then tell me your email address:

On Our Way to the Grand Canyon

We decided to break up the drive so we made a few stops along the way to the Grand Canyon (remember we live in a small town were it takes about 10 min. to get from one side to the other so we are not used to long drives ). On Wednesday, we drove for awhile then pulled off to the side of the road in the RV, ate and then went to sleep.

Thursday morning we headed to Flagstaff picked up a few things at Safeway and Savers, which was right next store( I can’t pass up a good thrift store, or garage sale), while Jeff did some work in the RV. From there we headed onto Sunset Crater, camped at the Bonito Campground, and checked out the surroundings. That afternoon we visited the Crater. P fell twice on the slippery rocks and badly scraped her knee, however she was still up for and asking us to read all the info at each station along the trail. She picked up a big Basalt rock and wanted to bring it home, but she couldn’t . She did however  later find a smaller rock at our camp sight that she could take. We sat in the Crater parking lot the rest of the day Jeff worked, kids played, and I read. Come evening, back at the campground I made dinner, While Jeff and the girls made a fire and roasted some mellows. That’s right we let them have dessert before dinner, all’s fair on vacation .

Here is our Bonito campsite:

Girls and I outside the visitors center :

Jeff and the kids next to a Spatter Cone (where lava used to explode out of the ground) :

Friday we drove to Wupatki National Monument ruins (very cool):

Girl in the ruins game arena:

Lunch in the RV:

Later Friday we headed to the Grand Canyon! I’ll write about it in the next post. I hope you have the stamina to hear about our whole trip. I’ll break it up into segments. This might take a while .

Painting a Popup Tent Camping Trailer

As I decided to rebuild my pop-up tent trailer for family camping, I thought I should go ahead and paint it as well. I did not want to take it to Maaco or have a professional paint it because I did not want to spend that kind of money. I figured I could do this all myself for a whole lot cheaper. Here is what I did.

First I removed all the canvas off the tent trailer. Since a tent trailer is designed to have the canvas removed, this was a rather simple task. You will also need to decide if you are going to paint the inside of the trailer too. In my case, I did - in fact I tore out the inside completely cause I was planning on doing a complete restore. 

Canvas removal and body preparation

Outside: In order for the paint to look nice and adhere well, you need to remove all the decals, pin-striping etc. After all the decals are removed, you should give the outside a nice light sanding with about 120 grit sandpaper. 

After sanding, give the trailer a nice power wash. This will get all the loose dirt and sandpaper residue (for the original paint & sanding) off. 

Now it is time to mask off the areas of the trailer you don’t want to get painted. I masked off:

• Tires
• Door handle / latch
• Side lights
• Rear lights
• Trailer Tongue

For the parts I didn’t mask off AND didn’t want painted, I removed. for example, I removed the outside freshwater supply inlet and the land line power inlet.

Freshwater Supply Inlet

The Tongue on my Trailer was rusted and a very brownish color - I used this spray I got from Wal-mart that turns rust into black primer. Came out looking real nice.

Ok- now before you go any further, you will need a few items for the painting. Here is what you will need:

•  an HVLP Paint sprayer (I purchased this at Harbor Freight on sale for $17)
• An air compressor (the bigger the better as far as gallons go - but at least a 2 gallon)
• Vaseline
• 1 to 2 Gallons of Oil Based Paint for painting steel (I used BAR-OX Gloss enamel white paint. It is made by Devoe Paint)
• Paint Thinner

Now it is time to paint. First, make sure you are out in the open so the paint fumes and over spray don’t get on anything you care about. Now start your air compressor going to fill up the air tank. To get the paint ready, fill your HVLP sprayer about 3/4 of the way with the Paint. Now add paint thinner in small doses to make the paint more like water in thickness. This is so you don’t clog up your sprayer. Attach your Paint Hopper to the HVLP sprayer and then attach the sprayer to the Air hose.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  Take that Vaseline that I told you to have handy and smear it on all parts of your body that is exposed to the air - Face, hands, ears, neck etc. WHY? Because you are going to get overspray and oil based paint doesn’t come off very easily. Having Vaseline on your skin allows you to just wipe off all the over spray that gets on your body. It is like wearing a paint suit, only cheaper

To spray, start at one end of the trailer and spray about 12 inches away from the surface of the trailer. Continue horizontally about your arms reach. Then let go of the sprayer trigger. And repeat this process back to where you started from. You want even spray stokes back and forth. Do this a total of two times before moving lower on the body. Then move to the area you haven’t painted on that side of the trailer and repeat this process over and over until the whole trailer is painted.

Painted popup trailer

When you are done painting, let it dry for at least 24 hours - then use a buffer and buff your new paint job

I am in the process of writing a series of step by step articles (with pictures!) about my restoration process. If you would like to be notified about that series then tell me your email address: