Stripping

Stripping! and not the kind that requires single dollar bills. The walls of my Argosy are a vinyl clad aluminum and from what the forums at airstreamforums.com have proclaimed - it is a burdensome task. So of course I procrastinated, fearing the daunting obstacle before me but eyeing the prize at the end... a beautiful shiny aluminum interior.When I finally got around to it, I decided to try different strippers; I went to Home Depot and picked up Jasco Paint & Epoxy stripper and I already had Klean-Strip stripper. It's probably a good thing to mention this right at the beginning, if you ever plan on using this stuff seriously use gloves and long sleeves shirts... this stuff BURNS if it gets on your skin. The Jasco will burn temporarily and go away, the Klean-Strip however burns and burns and doesn't stop burning, even if you use soap and water - you will have to use a grease based remover. Needless to say I ended up only using the Jasco.

I removed the side cabinets/wall thing where the table is and tried the Jasco on a small square area. I used a razor to cut crisscross slits into the vinyl so the stripper could have an easier time penetrating it. I covered the area with plastic and waited... and waited. About 40 minutes later I removed the plastic and voila, off came the vinyl with little effort to expose the gorgeous aluminum. However, I then realize I've made a drastic mistake... I cut way too deep with the razor and ended up scratching the aluminum!!! Epic fail because there is no way to fix scratches much less the extremely deep ones I just graffiti-ed onto my Argosy. Sigh, luckily I was smart enough to do the test area behind where the cabinet wall was so no one can see it. I'm thinking of etching my name in there.

before

after

After the scratch mishap, I decided to use saw blade teeth to penetrate the top portion of the vinyl and that worked well, except every once in a while I would apply too much pressure and then end up scratching the aluminum. SO after hitting the ground running with this, I decided to stop using the covering plastic or any kind of tool to scratch the vinyl and just use copious amounts of stripper.... Copious. Amounts. That seemed to work fine as well.

before

after

This has been a 3-day process (mostly trial and error) and I should finish the stripping by the end of today. Then I can start the polish and buffing. 

This is Steve and his friend Brock, Steve works at Home Depot and helped me figure what stripper to get. I told him about my project and he was so excited about it he offered to come help out! Very cool guys.

Instagram: jeep_chica