Fixing Vinyl, Paint and Fiberglass Paint Scratches or Chips on Trailer, RV, Bikes or Cars

As you know, I have been working hard at fixing up the trailer. I am so close to finishing it and have about one more days work to finish it but it hasn't been the best of weather and the one day we did have nice weather, my human barometer head (see that post here) wouldn't allow me much ability to work on the trailer that day. 

I tried to take some good before and after pictures of each of these three project areas so you could see the difference that the paint touch up did. 

On each area, I did some polishing as well but I want to post all that in the next post so I am not writing today about the polish but am talking about the paint touch ups. 

On the front of my trailer, there is a fiberglass window cover which keeps the rocks from the rear tires of the truck from cracking the front windows. 

Mine was VERY faded and as you can see, the fiberglass threads are showing through the paint as it has taken many years of sun and UV damage.


The door is the same on the trailer. It has some vinyl stripes across the door that match the paint job on the trailer. I am not sure why they didn't paint the door as well but since the door is fiberglass, they used the vinyl which over time has cracked and flaked due to sun and weather damage. 

They vinyl lettering on the trailer names has also had some cracking and peeling but not as much on the metal side as the door. If you click on the pictures, they will enlarge and you will be able to see the cracks better than in these small sizes. The "Nomad" was very cracked and you can see the white trailer under it. I wanted to make it look better so I took a dark brown Sharpie and started filling in the white cracked areas on the name with the Sharpie. 

It wasn't as dark as I would have liked so I actually ended up taking the black Sharpie and filling in the scratches and cracks with the black Sharpie. You can see the results. If the pictures are too small, just click on them and they will enlarge so you can clearly see how the Sharpie covered them up. 

From a few feet away, you can't tell that I filled in the cracks and scratches at all. Below the photo shows it all polished up and with the cracks all filled in and it looks so much better. You can do this on cars, boats, bikes, RVs and Trailers. You can use fingernail polish on thicker painted items such as bikes, cars and motorcycles but for the thinner painted trailer fiberglass and vinyl, I would stick with the Sharpie. 
 
On the door you can see below, I used the dark brown Sharpie and at first, I just filled in the holes and cracks but then I decided the vinyl had faded and the dark brown Sharpie matched the sides of the trailer better than the faded vinyl so I actually used the Sharpie on the entire two strips of vinyl on the door. 

You can see at first how I am just coloring over the white scratches but then I actually color the entire stripe as the dots were darker than the stripe. I went to EVERY store in town looking for the lighter tan versions of Sharpie but being a small town, they all only sold the variety packs and not the individual colors of Sharpie and only one store had a brown in the pack.
 
So, for the lighter brown strips, I will have to wait until I can get to a larger town with a Staples, or an Office Max to purchase the individual browns and tan colors I will need to fill in those areas. 

I know they sell them as I have purchased them for my mothers history but they are all in bins at my sisters so I will purchase a few of the colors this next week or two and then fill in the rest of the areas. 
 
You can see on the top photos, that I did the same thing on the front window cover. I used the dark brown Sharpie to fill in the white cracks but didn't take the time to color the entire dark brown area. 

Just polishing the fiberglass made a HUGE difference but I will share that with you later. 

 I think the tan Sharpie will really help the peeling vinyl you can see in these bottom pictures. 

You can see in the bottom picture of the door how well the dark brown Sharpie made the dark brown stripe look. I am excited to see how the rest will look once I fill them in with the marker as well. 

I am not standing that far back from the door but you can't tell even in the bottom two pictures that I painted them with the Sharpie marker. It is the best way I have found to spruce up old paint jobs. 

If you notice on the top pictures of the metal support bar across the center of the fiberglass window that the paint has come off the aluminum in that area. I think I may just use some spray paint sprayed onto a small art paint brush to cover that area. Acrylic paint won't stand up against the weather and I don't think I have ever seen a cream fingernail polish of that color so spraying some spray paint on a cheap craft brush would probably be the best bet.

It was funny. I was at Bunko with my girl friends the other night and I was saying how long this trailer is taking me to finish and my friend said something like, "I hate that trailer!" talking about how many posts I have on it and how many months I have been working on it. She knows how tired I have been and getting it finished has taken me MUCH longer than I ever expected but I can see the finish line and am VERY much excited to be reaching that goal and hopefully making the trailer last longer and be more enjoyable for us for the next few years!

On this Thanksgiving weekend. I am thankful and grateful for Sharpie Markers. I have almost one of every color (except the browns apparently) and I use them ALL the time for all sorts of projects. It may be odd to give gratitude for that but when you need one, it is nice to have!