When the owner and president of Germaine’s RV Sales and RV Renovators, Monte Germaine, came to our coach on Monday morning, he explained why he changed the repair plan. He told me the original thought of installing wood studs was made by the crew before they understood the construction of our Alpine Coach. They were thinking of some entry level trailers and coaches that come from the factory with wood construction. He knew an Alpine and other coaches that have all metal framing should be repaired with metal, not wood.

The guys spent Monday morning cleaning up remnants of plywood and grinding the surface of the aluminum structure. They inlaid more rectangular aluminum tubing to support the seams of the new exterior skin.

All cleaned up

Additional tubing in place

At noon another worker named James came over to TIG weld the new sections of tubing. He first disconnected the power supply and batteries to avoid damage to electrical components from the arc welder.

New tubing welded

Izzy then ground the welds flat.

Welds ground flat

The heat from the welder melted some of the foam insulation blocks, creating voids. Izzy filled these voids with urethane.

Voids filled

Clean and ready for the next step

After some more cleaning of the aluminum and the channels in the trim, it was time to add adhesive. They used black urethane adhesive made by Dow called Betaseal U-418HV. This urethane is commonly used to bond windshields on automobiles. It creates a high-strength waterproof bond that remains flexible.

Urethane adhesive for the first panel

Getting the first panel in place was problematic. They got it inside the lower trim without too much trouble, but had issues trying to seat it under the front edge trim. They decided to remove the front edge trim so they could ensure the panel was properly aligned.

Once they had the panel placed properly, they installed temporary screws and added aluminum angle channels in places to apply pressure against the underlying framework. These temporary screws and lengths of channel were mostly placed in areas where the fiberglass skin will either be cut out – such as the window openings – or ground along seams before the seams are filled.

Inside the living room they placed a 3/4″ x 1-1/4″ hardwood beam across the window opening and used long screws to pull the fiberglass against the window opening. They added aluminum angle across the bottom of the window opening to hold it tight against the lower opening.

Pulling the skin tight against the living room window opening

They added a second section of fiberglass composite skin above the window opening. At the end of the day, the front half of the slide-out had fiberglass skin. They used a forklift against a 4″ x 4″ beam and a section of plywood to apply additional pressure against the skin overnight.

First half of the new skin in place

The fiberglass has a thin plastic protective sheet over the outer surface. The black smears and hand prints will disappear once this sheet is peeled off and paint prep begins.

I had a visitor in the morning, Jim Haxby. He’s a fellow Alpine Coach owner and saw my posts about the work being performed. He lives here in Mesa and came by to see how the work is progressing. We talked for a while as I observed the work.

Later, Donna and I rode the Spyder over to Mike Hall’s place and I got her bicycle out of our trailer. She went for a ride while I went to Lucky Lou’s for a cold one with the guys. It was a beautiful day for a ride – the temperature was in the upper 70s and there wasn’t any wind to speak of. Today we expect another cloudless, sunny day with the temperature reaching the mid-70s. Perfect for bonding the new skin on the coach.