Sides going up on the new floor of our Scotty; new dinette, cabinet installation, Gaucho bed building next up!

Each of the two trailer sides is made from one full sheet of 4X10 1/2inch AC plywood and a partial 4X10 sheet, bonded with Tightbond waterproof glue and Simpson Strong-tie fasteners.  We let these joints cure for a couple days before cutting the actual side cuts (using the old aluminum skins as templates; and allowing for the future roof joists that would have to be covered by the side skins).

Here we have clamped the two sides together, and are belt sanding the edges so each side is a perfect twin to the other, and, that the top edges are exactly cut at 90 degrees.

Building the sides: as Scotty Sportsman rebuilders will know, the trailer body is 10 feet long, and less than 6 feet tall. We looked at rebuilds which used 4 x 8 sheets, glued and strapped vertically – we decided that 4x10 by 1/2 A-C plywood, glued then strapped horizontally, would make stronger sides with less joints. So we special ordered three sheets of 4 x 10 by 1/2 AC plywood through Home Depot, picking it up at the Boise Cascade yard a few miles south of town.

We glued the sheets together with Tightbond glue and Simpson Strongtie steel strapping, let cure for a day or two, then cut the two sides using the old aluminum trailer side panels as templates – (and carefully allowing for the roof beams). 

We then clamped the two sides together, and sanded the edges with a belt sander to make sure they were exactly the same size and the edges were a perfect 90°. You'll see the result in one of the pictures.

Using those aluminum side pieces as templates, we also scribed the two side windows and location for the door on the right side, as well as the cargo door on the rear, right side.

This is the new floor and sub-structure that we mounted the new sides to.

When we moved to mount the two sides to the trailer's new floor panels, we used the marks for the door location to line up with the step-down in the floor – as to the exact placement of the right side.

We mounted the right side first, aligning the scribed door opening with the floor's step-down area; then we mounted the left side to match the location of the right side.  We used two 1x3's as temporary bracing.

This shows detail and location of the left side, at front, mounted to the floor structure.  Note we have thoroughly undercoated both the new floor structure, and both sides of the new wall along the bottom foot or so - to prevent future water intrusion.

Then, we mounted the left side to match the right. Before mounting the two side panels, we thoroughly under coated the bottom foot of each panel, both sides, which was the area that the original panels had dry-rotted from moisture coming up from the bottom.

This photo shows the wheel well crimped, stapled and screwed to the new left side panel, and the serious undercoating applied to the rebuilt area.

Once the sides were mounted, it was easy to attach/crimp down the wheel wells, undercoat that area, and then thoroughly re-undercoat the bottom edge and outside edge of the two newly remounted side pieces.

You'll see we used a couple of 1x3s to temporarily stabilize the sides, as we begin work on the cabinets, dinette, rear gaucho/bed and installation of the cabinets.

When the two floor-mounted cabinets are installed, they also help stabilize the two sides.

Here is beginning of work on new dinette, with the new kitchen cabinet already installed.

From this point, we can now finished the front dinette, install the two new floor-mount cabinets and finish the rear Gaucho/bed area, then begin to install the roof panels. It won't be too long before this is looking like a Scotty again!

For more insight into this rebuild, connect with rebuilder Tim at his Email, follow his Scotty-rebuild blog and check the web site for the National Serro Scotty Organization, nationalserroscotty.org, offering a huge resource to Scotty trailer owners and rebuilders!

Footnote: I am also the travel writer for the Stockton, CA, Record newspaper.  To read more about our travels, most of them with our Scotty teardrop, read Tim Viall's travel blog, follow him on Facebook or Twitter. Happy travels in your world!