delaminated skin

[badsix]

I know this has probably been beaten to death, but I have a question. has anyone remove the fiber glass skin, like on a slide out. my T/T is a Fleetwood Pegasus 2005 its in perfect condition was stored inside except for last year. the slid has some bubbles and I would like to pull the skin off and fix it. I don't want to just shoot glue in there I want to fix what caused it. so has anyone had any experience with removing the skin and how difficult was it. I don't think there is much holding my skin on. I should be able to pull the trim around the outside then the 2 windows and 2 storage compartment doors and it should almost fall off. only there are some spots that are still attached with glue that's the spots I'm wondering about removing I don't want to damage the skin.
THANKS Jay D.

[SidecarFlip]

Could be simple but could be very complex (time wise) depending on what you encounter.

One thing to keep in mind and that is, if it's wet under the filon and rotting and moldy, wear a dust mask when removing the bad sections, the mold that accompanies the rot can be toxic.

[badsix]

^^^^ THANKS for your information it gives me some insight to what i'm up against. i'm an old auto body man and have been restoring old cars and hot rod for people the last 20 or so years. so it shouldn't be a real problem but we can all use some advice now and then. most of the delam seams to be just the filon delaming from the wood when you push on it its very flexible. but who knows i'll just have to get it off this winter.
Jay D.

[Joe417]

I re-laminated the front cap and a few feet of both sides of the nose of our previous TC.

I found a 1/8 inch sheet of plywood door skin at a local lumber store that was just the right thickness. The TC was mostly aluminum framed.

The front cap was laminated to a very heavy card board which allowed it to bend. It was fastened to the camper only around the outer perimeter. Removed and laid it out on the shop floor. Scraped and sanded the residue off without damaging the filon. Probably 2 hours of sanding.

The sides were laminated to plywood. What I found was that the delamination was the separation and swelling of the plywood layers. One layer of the plywood was still solidly bonded to the filon, which I suspect will be the same with yours.

I carefully pulled the skin back and removed all the wet plywood. This left about a 1/16 inch layer of the plywood on the filon. It took 3 or 4 days with skin pulled back to allow the remaining plywood to dry.

When dry, I gently sanded the ply of wood still on the filon, cut the 1/8 door skin to fit the shape of the void and glued it in.

When bonded to the wood already on the filon it was very near the same thickness of the original plywood.

In your case you'll need to lay the filon out on a flat surface and gently remove any double ply layers. As long as you don't have any high spots the actual difference in plywood thickness won't matter since you'll be doing the complete slide wall.

I used polyurethane adhesive (gorilla glue) which is what the manufacturer had used originally. It is moisture cured and reacts fairly quickly.

I used 3/4 inch particle board to make "pressure plates" to hold the filon flat while the glue cures which only take a short time. When polyurethane starts to cure it foams up and will separate the materials if you don't compress it. I used 6 tires and wheels laying on top of the 4 x 8 foot sheet of particle board. Not sure how much weight that was but it worked well.

Take it easy and don't get too aggressive with the scraper and sander and you shouldn't have too much problem getting it off.

Oh, did I tell you it was a lot of sanding? I was lucky I had a very good "automatic" hand sander, called a wife.

Good luck.

[SidecarFlip]

badsix wrote:

SidecarFlip wrote:
Filon don't delaminate for just any reason. Usually it's a water intrusion issue with a soaked frame and / or insulation. I'd be looking at the cause first.

thanks

that's why I want to take it off so I can see what the problem is and correct it. my walls are foam with wood laminated to both sides. it its delaminated about 16 in. in from both vertical edges top to bottom and a few smaller spots out in the middle.
Jay D.

Different manufacturers do different things with how they bond the outer skin and a lot of what you need to do will depend on who built it, when it was built and the maker of the skin itself. Every one is different (builders).

You can ascertain if it is indeed a water issue from the inside without tearing anything up. Use a thermal imageing gun or a n IR non contact thermometer and 'shoot the areas inside where the delam appears on the outside. get a base reading from an inside wall where there is no delam. If the issue is water intrusion causing the delam, the areas on the inside that you 'shoot' where the delam is, will be warmee that the 'base' reading from the non delam wall.

Water causes decay in the frame and decay causes heat (and mold) so the wall cavity between the inner wall and the outer skin will be slightly warmer. It always is.

Another way (and something I recommend when buying a used RV), is, look along the bottom of the floor, where the vertical walls intersect the floor (especially behind drawers and inside cabinets. if you see any discoloration of the wall paneling at that juncture, it's water. Additionally, feel along the upper joint between the ceiling and the wall woth your finger for a spongy surface. dead give away it's water.

Filon separates from the substrate for a reason. Might as well eliminate the water issue right away.

[badsix]

brulaz wrote:
Unclear to me as to whether the OP is talking about whether the thin outer fibreglas has separated from the underlying plywood, IOW the filon itself has separated, or if the whole filon sheet has come unglued from the underlying support.

Some filon walls are just "hung" and spot glued to framing. Others are laminated/glued to an underlying foam+structural core.

The hung walls might be easy to repair. Anything else seems more difficult to me.

no real way to tell what's going on under the outer skin until I get it off, then I can fix and reinstall the skin. I just want to know if anyone has done this and how hard it is to get the skin off were the glue is good.
Jay D.

[badsix]

SidecarFlip wrote:
Filon don't delaminate for just any reason. Usually it's a water intrusion issue with a soaked frame and / or insulation. I'd be looking at the cause first.

thanks

that's why I want to take it off so I can see what the problem is and correct it. my walls are foam with wood laminated to both sides. it its delaminated about 16 in. in from both vertical edges top to bottom and a few smaller spots out in the middle.
Jay D.

[brulaz]

Unclear to me as to whether the OP is talking about whether the thin outer fibreglas has separated from the underlying plywood, IOW the filon itself has separated, or if the whole filon sheet has come unglued from the underlying support.

Some filon walls are just "hung" and spot glued to framing. Others are laminated/glued to an underlying foam+structural core.

The hung walls might be easy to repair. Anything else seems more difficult to me.

[SidecarFlip]

Filon don't delaminate for just any reason. Usually it's a water intrusion issue with a soaked frame and / or insulation. I'd be looking at the cause first.

[SidecarFlip]

You need to ascertain the cause before doing the cure....

[imgoin4it]

I have no experience doing this but saw and independent RV tech who was doing exactly that with a pretty large side in a 5th wheel. Looked to me like he was basically rebuilding the slide even though it was still in the 5er, so I know it can be done.