Mounting Pictures and Mirrors in TC

mkirsch wrote:

Personally I am VERY gunshy about drilling holes unless I can see both sides of the material being drilled through.

x2 I've also found a stud finder with the ability to detect metal to be invaluable for mounting things in my TC, especially to the outer walls.

sleepy wrote:
I have had Lance email shematics, diagrams, and drawings of the stuctural members over the years to keep me from hitting the wires,,,

Of course that ASSUMES that the camper was built to the schematics, diagrams, and drawings... Off by an inch one way or another, and you make the same expensive mistake.

Personally I am VERY gunshy about drilling holes unless I can see both sides of the material being drilled through.

I use small wood screws but not just the screws. First, I start out screwing in the screw where it's gonna be needed. Then I remove the screw and fill the hole with a toothpick dipped in wood glue, snapping off the toothpick where it is flush with the wall. Then I mount the item with the screw again. The toothpick fills the void and makes things very tight. I've never had to worry about over tightening a screw using this method. The glue keeps the screw from backing out. Many of my camper's hinge screws were constantly coming loose from the road vibrations until I removed the screw, stuffed a glue infused toothpick in and reassembled. So, this works on existing screws as well as anything new you are adding.

I just used some short wood screws. Nothing has fallen down yet. My rig is an old Coachmen with the wood panel interior so the screws have plenty of purchase. Having pictures, old license plates, and souvenir signs etc. really do make it "homey" inside especially the reminders of trips we've taken in the past. We also painted a couple of steel sheets that we then mounted on the walls in the "kitchen" area for small souvenir magnets.

Whatever works best for you.

Thanks to everyone for their excellent recommendations.

Are there any double sided tape types that stick and remain better than others?

Bruce

Lance campers often have electrical wiring in the walls... sometimes for the campers rumming lights... sometimes for lights at the head of the bed... wiring including speaker wires, etc.

I have had Lance email shematics, diagrams, and drawings of the stuctural members over the years to keep me from hitting the wires,,,

When people drill and screw they often make expensive mistakes... the worst on is when people add bump stops to the front of their campers bulkhead... I've seen lag screws driven into the water tank. (That was at the Lance Customer service center... the very slow leak rotted out the base of the camper that sits in the trucks bed befor the owner knew they had a problem... it is a very expensive, major repair.

Phone lance for the free diagram before you screw up or drill.

Other manufacturers should send you the drawings too...

sleepy

We have several large pictures 2'X 2' and few smaller ones attached with double sided tape that have been in place for 11 years with no problems. Be sure to clean both surfaces with alcohol before mounting.

We also have 3 wooden boxes 4"X 6"X 2" also attached with dbl sided tape.

We use the clips. We had a large 18" by 30" mirror mounted to the wardrobe door for 13 years in our Lance. We didn't use anything special or mount it into joists. The door actually fell off once but the mirror and clips stayed intact. I think the fact that we used a lot of them distributed the weight and kept it solid. we had 8 total clips, two on each side.

One of the 3m adhesive hook products is removable and it sticks quite well.
The hook has a tab the hangs out from under the hook.
The tab is visibly hanging just under the hook when mounted.
Of course the mirror or frame covers it.

But the trick of it is, that when one wishes to remove it, they grasp the tab and pull . . .which stretches the adhesive tab until it no longer maintains it stickiness and the hook will come loose.
It actually works.

Don't apply over any wood grain surfaces. . .it might pull the surface faux grain off.

Been there, done that, and adhesives, generally, aren't a good idea. The heat build up in the camper when not in use usually ends up with it letting lose and stuff falling down everywhere. That being said, there are adhesives that won't have that problem out there. The clips are good when you can actually find framing behind the wall to nail or screw into so the fastenings don't work lose over time with normal wall movement no matter how minimal. Just my experience.