10-4 Magazine - For Today's Trucker

JULY 2005 SHOW & TELL
TIRED IRON GETS UNIQUE CEILING
By Roving Reporter Suzanne Stempinski

Things are really looking up for Randy and Jona Rebillard. Their award-winning 2002 dark blue Peterbilt 379 with pale blue fenders and accents has been earning them trophies and recognition across North America. It’s been a labor of love for the Rebillards, from Gimli, Manitoba, Canada, who first brought their truck to the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, KY in 2002 and won... nothing. But they had fun and made a couple of new friends and brought their truck to another show and cleaned and polished and learned a few things and won... nothing. But that didn’t slow them down and they kept learning and cleaning and polishing and enhancing, and then they went to a show and brought home a trophy to go with all the compliments they were already receiving.

After their first couple of shows, they had made friends and were having a wonderful time, so they just kept coming back and competing in more shows and thinking of more things to do to beautify their hard-working truck. Currently, their truck has more than 521,000 miles on it and has won a few more trophies to recognize the couple’s efforts. Jona, who works as a nurse, traveled with Randy to the truck shows – taking her vacation time to clean and polish and letter tires and scrub some more – and absolutely loved it! Last year in Reno at TruckerFest, the awards were being given out and they were pleased with how well they had done, so they sat patiently, waiting for someone else’s name to be announced for Best of Show honors. Suddenly, they were on top of the world! Their truck, named Tired Iron because of Randy’s passion for old steam engines, was the Champion!

But that was far from the end of their desire to dress up their truck. On the way home from Reno, they stopped at a truck stop in Fargo, ND – one of those old timey kind of places – that kind of reflected some of the ideas they had about their truck. Jona sat back and took a few minutes to reflect on her day, and as she looked up at the imitation tin suspended ceiling she thought, “That would look great in the truck.” So when she got home, she traveled the Internet, searching for dealers for tin ceiling panels. Eventually, she found Brian Greer Tin Ceilings in Brampton, Ontario. She looked at hundreds of styles and patterns and learned that the panels come in a variety of sizes and finishes, from small to large, plain to painted or finished with special coatings.

Figuring out which pattern would work best in a small space and how to do the installation was only the beginning of the project. She called and spoke with Greer – he had never heard of anyone wanting to install a custom tin ceiling in a truck! But he gave Rebillard directions on how to handle the tin, what they would need to cut it, and some suggestions for installation.

The panels they chose came in two-foot square pieces, with a pattern that repeated every 12 inches. The tin itself is very soft and pliable – easy to bend and easy to damage. They ordered six sheets and laid it out on their kitchen floor. They asked a carpenter friend for some help. Wayne and Pat Isseld showed up to lend a hand and a little expertise.

On a Saturday morning, Randy and Wayne removed the existing headliner, and blocked it on the ground to retain its shape. Then, they spent roughly 2-3 hours figuring out where to set the first piece of tin. Just like putting in a tile floor, the first piece is critical, and everything else fans out from that placement. Ultimately, they placed two full panels in the center of the ceiling, and three other panels were cut to fit at the sides. Using the headliner as the foundation, they fastened the tin with glue and tiny screws that were almost invisible. They filled sandwich bags with sand and gently laid them on the panels until the glue set up. The bags of sand held the panels firmly in place and didn’t cause any damage to the fragile tin. That first day they spent about nine hours – from beginning to the end of set-up to dry.

Sunday morning they were ready to put the headliner and its new coat back into the truck. Each panel weighs less than a pound, so they weren’t too concerned about the additional weight, but because the tin panels are so thin and easily dented, they were extra careful as they went back up. They made a couple of changes to their lighting configuration. Instead of reaching up to turn on the overhead light, Rebillard installed a switch on the dash. He also adapted a household fixture to fit over the standard Peterbilt light, that he puts up for shows. “It’s a glass fixture, and although I could leave it up, I’d be afraid that it would break or rattle going down the road,” Rebillard explained.

And the final result? “It turned out every bit as good as I could have hoped for and immeasurably better than I expected,” said Randy. And Jona just beamed with delight. Next stop on their remodeling tour? Well, they’re thinking about... something else wonderful and unique. You can see their truck up close and personal in Reno this year at TruckerFest at Hot August Nights, August 5-6 at the Alamo Petro Truck Stop in Sparks, NV.