My Dad had an expression whenever he talked about his appearance. He liked to say he just wanted to be “clean and well mended”

Truth was he was kind of a snappy fellow with a strong sense of style, but the message still came through for me.

I’m shooting for “clean and well mended” on the Vagabond. It’s headed to get the brakes repaired soon so I finished up working on the one window that I took out. I don’t think this trailer will ever be one of those super perfect glossy restores that you see at rallies, but I’ll do what I can to make it comfortable, safe and stable.

The body metal is still rusted, but I went ahead and reinstalled the window so it can go to the mechanic. I’m not loving the screws. The heads are too big and all the nay sayers were right. Phillips head is the way to go. I’ll switch them out when I pull it again. I might also try to flatten out the areas at the corners where it’s dented in – and smooth out the areas where a previous owner used a grinder or power sander or something?!

I did not lubricate anything but it seems to work smoother as well as look better. I am not set up for riveting yet, so this window has the original glass gasket. Some are bad tho, I’ll have to get up to speed on how to drill out the rivets and replace the gaskets on the other windows. I did have enough of the perimeter gasket to replace it. Gaskets for the Woodlin Windows are available at www.vintagetrailergaskets.com

I’m a dropper, so when the time came to put it all back together I laid it out on the bed so I would not lose the many tiny screws.