1965 Shasta Travel Trailer Renovation

Also with sandblasting you may experience some deforming of the aluminum.

Thanks for the replies. I've passed the comments on to my son. I'll be visiting him in NE Georgia next month, and I'm sure this will be one of his "projects" for me...

GM

Don't sand blast it but if it has lots of bare aluminum showing then he should use an etching primer first.

Francesca has it right, there really isn't any need to blast or strip the paint off an aluminum sided trailer. Blasting should be totally out of the picture. No matter what media you blast with, there will be panel deforming.

If there are spots that the paint is showing bare aluminum, they should be primed. In fact, I primed all of the body of mine as I wanted good adhesion.

Here's the drill: Scuff sand siding, wash with a phosphoric acid based prepaint wash, rinse, mask, shoot with primer, shoot with topcoat, let cure, mask from areas needing accent colors, shoot accent colors.

I used Sherwin-Williams DTM industrial primer and standard latex siding paint for the body. Accent colors were from rattle cans.

The done deal:

Shasta did a beautiful job prepping/painting those old trailers- most of them just sort of fade rather than peel.

Unless this is an exception and the old paint is peeling your son would be wise to refrain from stripping down to bare aluminum by any means. Aluminum requires special prep for paint to adhere properly- why waste the work that Shasta already did?

If the paint that's still on that puppy is still well adhered, thorough cleaning and perhaps light wetsanding without breaking through the paint should provide an excellent bonding surface for a new topcoat.

Soda blasting possibly or use aircraft paint stripper, sand blasting you could go right through.