Screen Door Rehab...

Having a job is great when you need to pay a few bills but it doesn't facilitate a lot of trailer restoration. Soooo... It has been slow going. I have off a few days in the next month so perhaps it will speed up around here. Lets get to it...

Here is the screen door still mounted in the trailer. At first glance it doesn't look too shabby but looks can be deceiving...

The door was pulled not long after getting the trailer and stripped of all the crap. There was broken plastic bits, leather straps, and odd brackets screwed into it...

I'm not sure what happened here. I'm not sure if they pulled it or if the wind ripped it off. It was removed at one point and put back on with more holes. Hopefully this doesn't cause problems down the road when I have to reinstall it...

I did a quick wet sand and tried to even out the surface. The frame was pretty scratched and banged up. When you polish that it just points out the flaws. The frame did need the attention. The surface was gritty which means that it is starting to oxidize. Let it go and it will start to pit. Most of the scratches came out. The dents remain. There is no way to fix that on a frame like this. All of the extra holes will get some attention also. The door frame got a polish which was a huge pain. I struggled to get it done on the 6" buffer and a bit of polishing with the drill. After I also wanted to add some pieces to the door to add some stiffness and dress it up a bit. The door had a too much flex in it. This may work. It may not. I used flat stock aluminum from Menards that I trimmed to size. I put three cross pieces near the slider and one on each end. I drilled a few "speed holes" in the 3 near the slider just for some style. It is a hot rod trick thing that I really dig. I think it looks cool on aluminum. After I polished them up very quickly and I then riveted it to the frame. I then installed new aluminum screen and splines. Sorry, I really don't have pictures of this process but here is the end result...

And here are the cross pieces with the holes drilled in...

There was a bracket here that was removed and filled the holes with stainless screws and finish washers...

Here are my favorites...before and afters...

I added a chrome dished cabinet knob on the inside. There was a hole there anyway so what the heck. You can see that I filled a few smaller holes here and there with aluminum pop rivets. It looks a lot better than a empty hole...

I am sure that the polish will make this a scratch and fingerprint magnet for a while until the finish dulls. I am fairly happy with the way it turned out. It is JUST a screen door. This may seem silly to post piece after piece when I get them done. However, in this case the trailer as a whole may be measured by the sum of it's parts. Ok, that was lame but it is true. I hope that the attention to detail will pay off in the end. More to come...