Since my last post I’ve been pretty busy.  I removed the old floor exposing some rusty frame.  Luckily the main frame rails and even the cross member were in pretty good shape.  Only a very limited amount of welding was required to strengthen the cross member in a couple of spots.  A good friend brought over his welder and fixed those spots.

I cleaned the exposed frame with the wire brush wheel on the angle grinder that my step-father gave me and then painted the metal with POR-15.  I neglected to wear gloves while painting.  That was a mistake.  POR-15 bonds to skin just as well as it bonds to metal.  The only way to get it off was basically to scrape my skin off.  It took about 3 days worth of scrubbing and scraping to remove it from my hands.  I can only hope that it will stick to the frame at least as well as it stuck to me.

Next I used the old floor as a template for cutting new wood.  The original plywood was somewhere between 5/8″ and 3/4″.  I chose to use 3/4″ marine grade plywood which was just a little bit too thick to fit under the C-channel around the edges.  So I used my grandfather’s trusty router to remove a 1/16″ or so around the edges.  I then sealed the edge that goes against the outer walls with Marine-tex epoxy resin.  That stuff costs $55 per quart!  I had better not see any rot for at least the next 25 years!

And finally I painted the top and bottom with oil based primer.

And now it’s time for the new floor to go in.  Expect more pictures very soon.