Aluminum or Copper Siding? What am I looking at here?

It is anodized, an oxidation process that hardens the surface to resist scratching (aluminum is very soft, aluminum oxides very hard) while coloring. The finish might not be stripped off in that area, rather stained over it.

It is going to take a pretty good abrasive to cut through the anodized surface, and once through, that will start rubbing away aluminum very quickly.

If not anodized, or protected with a coating, aluminum can corrode very quickly to either a duller gray (which may be stable), a black, or a white, depending which chemicals are attacking it.

johnnylawless wrote:
sounds like I need to strip or paint over ? replacing is probably not doable.

If the rest of the "copper" finish is in good shape, my advice would be to just hide the part where the finish has been stripped off. Put a propane tank in front of it, or a decal over it.

And enjoy the rest of your truly vintage-finished trailer!

sounds like I need to strip or paint over ? replacing is probably not doable.

The gold is most likely anodized aluminum. Good luck on finding it in the pattern and anodized. This trim has not been used for years. You might try a few RV salvage yards.

Ken

It's color-anodized aluminum, a process more like dying than painting. Combines anti-corrosionizing with coloring. Same thing used on those purty aluminum drinking glasses from the fifties. Since the process is so specialized, I doubt you could duplicate the look with a do-it-yourself product.

It looks like the color loss was due to some chemical washing across it....if it's uniformity you're looking for I s'pose you could strip it off the rest of the trailer, too. That would likely lead to more oxidizing of the type you're already seeing where the color's gone, though.

westend wrote:
Yup, painted aluminum, and that is a nice finish detail.

Or, maybe anodized. Probably cheaper than painting it, and the builders like cheap.

Yup, painted aluminum, and that is a nice finish detail.

FWIW, I painted my old rig and used metallic type of can spray paint for a few trim areas. The paint is holding up well.