Without going into too much painful detail, we had a mishap several week-ends ago. While working with sand bag crews on the Mississippi River, the truck and camper fell into the flood waters as a road collapsed. Because of a number of issues dealing with the wrecker truck, we had to release the camper as the truck was reeled up over the bank. The good news is that the truck is as good as new after a thorough rinsing, inspection of brakes, etc. The bad news is that the camper was thoroughly drowned. A lot of people had far worse trouble than we did, so we consider ourselves lucky. The floods are ongoing as I write.
Our planned trip to Montana in June is called off. heh.
However, I have now convinced my dear Jane that its time to really update the TC. After drying for several days we pulled out the interior. Amazingly the Zolatone paint that I had applied last year is good as new after a cleaning.
Without burdening the TC family overmuch, I'd like to ask some advice other than don't park too near a flood :-).
My DW was overjoyed that I had a plan for the bathroom: a composting toilet developed by Nature's Head http://www.natureshead.net/. Our holding tank was practically unusable and there was no real grey water tank on the 67 Avion. Our plan is to rip out the bathroom and install one of these and converting the blackwater to a greywater tank. Any experience with this?
Finally, the roof. I admit that I have not really done the work I should have. Now, I need to remove the various sealants on the roof and repair it. We are also setting up for a solar installation. Any advice as to this?
Here's hoping I have posted the pictures correctly. And many thanks in advance for your advice.
Our planned trip to Montana in June is called off. heh.
However, I have now convinced my dear Jane that its time to really update the TC. After drying for several days we pulled out the interior. Amazingly the Zolatone paint that I had applied last year is good as new after a cleaning.
Without burdening the TC family overmuch, I'd like to ask some advice other than don't park too near a flood :-).
My DW was overjoyed that I had a plan for the bathroom: a composting toilet developed by Nature's Head http://www.natureshead.net/. Our holding tank was practically unusable and there was no real grey water tank on the 67 Avion. Our plan is to rip out the bathroom and install one of these and converting the blackwater to a greywater tank. Any experience with this?
Finally, the roof. I admit that I have not really done the work I should have. Now, I need to remove the various sealants on the roof and repair it. We are also setting up for a solar installation. Any advice as to this?
Here's hoping I have posted the pictures correctly. And many thanks in advance for your advice.
Today we really got down to polishing and deanodizing. We worked out a system where my father would deanodize in front of me and I would follow him around with the polisher. It took about 10 hours to get from the the left front corner to the right center section resulting in a pretty decent rough polish. The entire lower section of the camper is deanodized now.
Several people have asked me for some dierections or steps for doing this process. I am by no means the first person to do this and I have learned a lot from those who have but hereโs what we have come up with that works very well.
1. Clean the area to be worked on with soap and water. Remove any sealer that is on the surface of the aluminum. Use paint remover to get rid of any stickyness from stickers, sealers, paint tape etc..
2. Tape off areas that have already been polished, deanodized previously or that you do not want to get oven cleaner on.
3. Spray a thick coat of oven cleaner thoroughly on the surface to be deanodized. Wait 5 -10 minutes but not longer as it is a pain to get off once the anodizing/oven cleaner mud starts to dry. The Oven Cleaner will start to bubble and turn brown where it is actively removing the anodizing. After a while it will start to slide off on its own. It creates a pretty thick mud of Oven Cleaner and andoizing. Wash thoroughly with water and dry and clean completely with paper towels.
4. Spray a thick coat of oven cleaner again. Let it work for 5 minutes and then scrub well with green brillow pad. This time there wont be as much mud or brown stuff. With practice you will be able to see where there is anodizing left that you need to scrub. Once all the anodizing is gone, spray with water and clean just as in step 3.
5. Now you have bare aluminum. However, there is some oxidation that might have eaten through the anodizing over the long life of the camper that Oven Cleaner will not remove. We used Tunebrite, a product for cleaning pontoon boats, which we had on hand, and it works really well! It cleans up the aluminum and gets rid of any oxidizing that might be hiding on the surface or in pits or scratches. Scrub it in with a clean brillow pad and wash it with water and paper towels again. Now you have a very clean and corrosion free surface to polish. In fact, it looks pretty good at this point. If you didnโt want to polish it you could stop here and have a nice brushed aluminum look.
6. The first polishing process is to get a rough polish across the entire camper. You want to do this so that you can seal all the panels, install lights, fixtures or whatever and later come back for a final polish with a lighter compound. So, take a big finger full of Nuvite F7 and smear it on the panel to be polished. I use a Dewalt variable speed polisher set to 1400rpm with a wool buffing bonnet available at Lowes or Vintage Trailer Supply. I take the buffing pad (not turning) and smear the Nuvite all over the panel that I am going to polish and then turn on the polisher and start working. It will immediately turn everything very black and you just keep polishing from side to side or up and down in slow strokes until all the black is gone. After the first few minutes you will have a shine. At this point, once all the black is gone you may have found areas that you need to go back and deanodize again. You can do this with no problem but you will have to repolish the whole panel as the Oven Cleaner turns everything white again. It is best to make sure you have all the anodizing off before you start polishing but every once in a while it will happen regardless. If everything is good put on some more polish and do it all over again. I found that I needed to hit each panel 3 to 5 times to get a decent polish that got out most of the pitting and scratches.
7. The above polishing will get most of the panel looking nice. However, there are going to be places that the big buffing pad just wont get into like window frames or some rivet lines. I use a buffing wheel from Lowes on a drill. Put some Nuvite F7 on the places that need work and go to town. Repeat as many times as necessary. This buffer leaves big swirl marks so I try not to use it on the flat panels. Later you will come back and final polish these areas to remove the swirls.
8. After all the polishing for the panel is finished take a clean and dry terry cloth rag and clean up the black stuff left by the polish in places where it does not come off like around rivets and pane lines. If you havenโt deanodized the next section tape off the one you just did with masking tape and plastic. If you have deanodized the next panel then just put on some more polish and keep going. Itโs a good workout!
Some other notes:
-Buy two big 15 roll bags of papertowels. You need a lot of them.
-Buy a big box of rubber gloves for working on the deanodizing process. They only last for a few panels at a time before you will tear them or they get brittle.
-If you are worried about the surface under the camper put down a big plastic drop cloth to collect all the chemical mud that will come off the camper.
-Buy a case of Easy Off oven cleaner. Seems to work best. The stuff we got at the dollar store was not as good.
-Buy a case of brillow pads from Lowes. They get worn out after one or two panels.
-I will have used an entire pound of Nuvite in this first polishing process on just the bottom half of the camper. You will probably need two pounds of F7 and one of the lighter grade.
-We have used 4 buffing pads so far. You will need about 10 to do the whole thing. I havenโt cleaned them yet so I donโt know how well they work after that.
-Working as a team, this first polishing is going to take about 50 hours including the deanodizing. By yourself it would take more than twice as long. It is rewarding and fun work though.
-----
The first thing I did today was rework my antenna delete patches. I was never happy with the ones I did earlier
My trusty rivet shaver.
Here is a good example of one panel that has been polished 3 or 4 times on the right versus the one on the left which has only been polished once.
Here's the left corner after 3 passes of the polisher.
Yummy. I like polished rivets.
Here's the right corner after, deanodizing and Tunebriting but before polishing.
Here's the right corner in the process of the first polishing pass.
And here it is after the first polishing pass.
And now after the second pass.
Finally after the 3rd pass.
Don't know why but I love the patches.
The center section after one pass.
Here's a pic of the Oven Cleaner at work during the first application. Notice the bubbling and brown goop. That's means it's working.
This is the same section on the second application of Oven Cleaner.
Back to it tomorrow...
If you all would like more pics just go to the blog where I am keeping them: avioncamper.wordpress.com
Several people have asked me for some dierections or steps for doing this process. I am by no means the first person to do this and I have learned a lot from those who have but hereโs what we have come up with that works very well.
1. Clean the area to be worked on with soap and water. Remove any sealer that is on the surface of the aluminum. Use paint remover to get rid of any stickyness from stickers, sealers, paint tape etc..
2. Tape off areas that have already been polished, deanodized previously or that you do not want to get oven cleaner on.
3. Spray a thick coat of oven cleaner thoroughly on the surface to be deanodized. Wait 5 -10 minutes but not longer as it is a pain to get off once the anodizing/oven cleaner mud starts to dry. The Oven Cleaner will start to bubble and turn brown where it is actively removing the anodizing. After a while it will start to slide off on its own. It creates a pretty thick mud of Oven Cleaner and andoizing. Wash thoroughly with water and dry and clean completely with paper towels.
4. Spray a thick coat of oven cleaner again. Let it work for 5 minutes and then scrub well with green brillow pad. This time there wont be as much mud or brown stuff. With practice you will be able to see where there is anodizing left that you need to scrub. Once all the anodizing is gone, spray with water and clean just as in step 3.
5. Now you have bare aluminum. However, there is some oxidation that might have eaten through the anodizing over the long life of the camper that Oven Cleaner will not remove. We used Tunebrite, a product for cleaning pontoon boats, which we had on hand, and it works really well! It cleans up the aluminum and gets rid of any oxidizing that might be hiding on the surface or in pits or scratches. Scrub it in with a clean brillow pad and wash it with water and paper towels again. Now you have a very clean and corrosion free surface to polish. In fact, it looks pretty good at this point. If you didnโt want to polish it you could stop here and have a nice brushed aluminum look.
6. The first polishing process is to get a rough polish across the entire camper. You want to do this so that you can seal all the panels, install lights, fixtures or whatever and later come back for a final polish with a lighter compound. So, take a big finger full of Nuvite F7 and smear it on the panel to be polished. I use a Dewalt variable speed polisher set to 1400rpm with a wool buffing bonnet available at Lowes or Vintage Trailer Supply. I take the buffing pad (not turning) and smear the Nuvite all over the panel that I am going to polish and then turn on the polisher and start working. It will immediately turn everything very black and you just keep polishing from side to side or up and down in slow strokes until all the black is gone. After the first few minutes you will have a shine. At this point, once all the black is gone you may have found areas that you need to go back and deanodize again. You can do this with no problem but you will have to repolish the whole panel as the Oven Cleaner turns everything white again. It is best to make sure you have all the anodizing off before you start polishing but every once in a while it will happen regardless. If everything is good put on some more polish and do it all over again. I found that I needed to hit each panel 3 to 5 times to get a decent polish that got out most of the pitting and scratches.
7. The above polishing will get most of the panel looking nice. However, there are going to be places that the big buffing pad just wont get into like window frames or some rivet lines. I use a buffing wheel from Lowes on a drill. Put some Nuvite F7 on the places that need work and go to town. Repeat as many times as necessary. This buffer leaves big swirl marks so I try not to use it on the flat panels. Later you will come back and final polish these areas to remove the swirls.
8. After all the polishing for the panel is finished take a clean and dry terry cloth rag and clean up the black stuff left by the polish in places where it does not come off like around rivets and pane lines. If you havenโt deanodized the next section tape off the one you just did with masking tape and plastic. If you have deanodized the next panel then just put on some more polish and keep going. Itโs a good workout!
Some other notes:
-Buy two big 15 roll bags of papertowels. You need a lot of them.
-Buy a big box of rubber gloves for working on the deanodizing process. They only last for a few panels at a time before you will tear them or they get brittle.
-If you are worried about the surface under the camper put down a big plastic drop cloth to collect all the chemical mud that will come off the camper.
-Buy a case of Easy Off oven cleaner. Seems to work best. The stuff we got at the dollar store was not as good.
-Buy a case of brillow pads from Lowes. They get worn out after one or two panels.
-I will have used an entire pound of Nuvite in this first polishing process on just the bottom half of the camper. You will probably need two pounds of F7 and one of the lighter grade.
-We have used 4 buffing pads so far. You will need about 10 to do the whole thing. I havenโt cleaned them yet so I donโt know how well they work after that.
-Working as a team, this first polishing is going to take about 50 hours including the deanodizing. By yourself it would take more than twice as long. It is rewarding and fun work though.
-----
The first thing I did today was rework my antenna delete patches. I was never happy with the ones I did earlier
My trusty rivet shaver.
Here is a good example of one panel that has been polished 3 or 4 times on the right versus the one on the left which has only been polished once.
Here's the left corner after 3 passes of the polisher.
Yummy. I like polished rivets.
Here's the right corner after, deanodizing and Tunebriting but before polishing.
Here's the right corner in the process of the first polishing pass.
And here it is after the first polishing pass.
And now after the second pass.
Finally after the 3rd pass.
Don't know why but I love the patches.
The center section after one pass.
Here's a pic of the Oven Cleaner at work during the first application. Notice the bubbling and brown goop. That's means it's working.
This is the same section on the second application of Oven Cleaner.
Back to it tomorrow...
If you all would like more pics just go to the blog where I am keeping them: avioncamper.wordpress.com
Well the big project just got a lot bigger! Polishingโฆ
I thought long and hard before undertaking this step. My camper is very oxidized, pitted, off colored and just kind of rough looking. I read and tried many of the tricks and techniques used by Avion people to make it look good in various places on the camper and it became clear to me that it was never going to look like I wanted. I realize a lot of people would think I am crazy for doing this but after reading everything under the sun and talking to several people who have done similar things successfully I decided to undertake a polishing job.
Before I started I tested the technique of deanodizing and polishing on a piece of skin that I had from where I repaired the right wing jack mount. I was a little apprehensive about what this would do to my camper. I mean after all, putting oven cleaner all over my camper, removing layers of material and creating a toxic mess sounded like it could go very wrong. However, after working with my test piece all my fears were gone and I was surprised how easy it was, how hard it was to mess up and how well it worked.
Let me also say that having done a bit of this now that if you have an anodized camper where the anodizing is in relatively good shape that you should absolutely not try this. I have a brand new aluminum anodized sheet that I tested and it was much more difficult to deanodize and polish. I have come across areas under tail lights and other places on my camper where the anodizing was protected and it is a lot more work to polish. Doable but a lot more labor intensive. The oxidized layer of anodizing is so thin on mine that you have to struggle to see where it has been removed and where it still exists.
---
This is the first actual piece I did on the camper. If you have paint or sticky stuff from stickers on the camper you definitely want to remove that with paint remover first. Lesson learned. I thought the oven cleaner would do it.
This is the same technique that Hueytownalss used on his Silver Streal: http://www.airforums.com/forums/f441/my-anodized-aluminum-silver-streak-polishing-project-78246.html
After the oven cleaner had been on for three minutes scrub it with green brillow pad and rinse thoroughly with water. This is what deanodized skin looks like.
I then hit it with a wool buffing bonnet and Nuvite F7 and presto bango there is the first hint of shine. It blows me away at how easy this is. Lots of work but not rocket science.
Hey this is the first picture of me on this thread. My father gets all the glory shots cause I am the camera guy. Notice a big smile!
Step two, invite your buddies over and put them to work with promise of camping trips. Thanks Tim! Each of my friends will get their very own section to deanodize and polish! Dewalt variable speed polisher between 1000-1500rpm.
Also notice that you can and should tape off areas that you have either already polished or deanodized. It is harder to polish an area that had already been polished or deanodized that you late get the oven spray on. Harder but still doable. I started on lower skins because that's all I can reach. I will make a lower stand to get the tops. I will then tape off all the areas I already did.
Tim did a great job! Keep in mind this is just the first rough polish. After it is all done and sealed up I will go back with a finer polish to make it pretty. I find it takes about two or three polishing sessions per panel to get out most of the pitting.
Continuing the process aft. This pic shows most of the rear corner deanodized up to the lights. It also shows where I went back to deanodize a little more around the fridge access door and remove those pesky pinstripes.
I put this pic in here to show what the deanodized area around the backup light looks like in comparison to the still anodized area. Not a big difference.
Here's an example of an area with good anodizing under the tail light. Much harder to remove.
And here is another leak location, the antenna mount. Somebody put stickers all over this thing once and somebody tried to remove them with a knife or something. You can see some of the scratches I have to deal with.
The leak that rotted the door frame wood.
Ok, polishing louvers is a pain. The best tool I have found so far is a polishing wheel from lowes on a drill. Then a dremel polishing bit to really get inside the louvers.
This is what the corner looked like after one pass with the polisher.
Another good photo demonstrating where the deanodized area stops. Also shows how much pitting remains after the first pass with the polisher.
It's rewarding to look at! So, now that I have done this and kinda know what I am doing with the process I can say that from deanodizing to rough polish like you see here was about 16 hours of work. That'll delay my first trip for sure but hey it's all in the name of fun right.
I thought long and hard before undertaking this step. My camper is very oxidized, pitted, off colored and just kind of rough looking. I read and tried many of the tricks and techniques used by Avion people to make it look good in various places on the camper and it became clear to me that it was never going to look like I wanted. I realize a lot of people would think I am crazy for doing this but after reading everything under the sun and talking to several people who have done similar things successfully I decided to undertake a polishing job.
Before I started I tested the technique of deanodizing and polishing on a piece of skin that I had from where I repaired the right wing jack mount. I was a little apprehensive about what this would do to my camper. I mean after all, putting oven cleaner all over my camper, removing layers of material and creating a toxic mess sounded like it could go very wrong. However, after working with my test piece all my fears were gone and I was surprised how easy it was, how hard it was to mess up and how well it worked.
Let me also say that having done a bit of this now that if you have an anodized camper where the anodizing is in relatively good shape that you should absolutely not try this. I have a brand new aluminum anodized sheet that I tested and it was much more difficult to deanodize and polish. I have come across areas under tail lights and other places on my camper where the anodizing was protected and it is a lot more work to polish. Doable but a lot more labor intensive. The oxidized layer of anodizing is so thin on mine that you have to struggle to see where it has been removed and where it still exists.
---
This is the first actual piece I did on the camper. If you have paint or sticky stuff from stickers on the camper you definitely want to remove that with paint remover first. Lesson learned. I thought the oven cleaner would do it.
This is the same technique that Hueytownalss used on his Silver Streal: http://www.airforums.com/forums/f441/my-anodized-aluminum-silver-streak-polishing-project-78246.html
After the oven cleaner had been on for three minutes scrub it with green brillow pad and rinse thoroughly with water. This is what deanodized skin looks like.
I then hit it with a wool buffing bonnet and Nuvite F7 and presto bango there is the first hint of shine. It blows me away at how easy this is. Lots of work but not rocket science.
Hey this is the first picture of me on this thread. My father gets all the glory shots cause I am the camera guy. Notice a big smile!
Step two, invite your buddies over and put them to work with promise of camping trips. Thanks Tim! Each of my friends will get their very own section to deanodize and polish! Dewalt variable speed polisher between 1000-1500rpm.
Also notice that you can and should tape off areas that you have either already polished or deanodized. It is harder to polish an area that had already been polished or deanodized that you late get the oven spray on. Harder but still doable. I started on lower skins because that's all I can reach. I will make a lower stand to get the tops. I will then tape off all the areas I already did.
Tim did a great job! Keep in mind this is just the first rough polish. After it is all done and sealed up I will go back with a finer polish to make it pretty. I find it takes about two or three polishing sessions per panel to get out most of the pitting.
Continuing the process aft. This pic shows most of the rear corner deanodized up to the lights. It also shows where I went back to deanodize a little more around the fridge access door and remove those pesky pinstripes.
I put this pic in here to show what the deanodized area around the backup light looks like in comparison to the still anodized area. Not a big difference.
Here's an example of an area with good anodizing under the tail light. Much harder to remove.
And here is another leak location, the antenna mount. Somebody put stickers all over this thing once and somebody tried to remove them with a knife or something. You can see some of the scratches I have to deal with.
The leak that rotted the door frame wood.
Ok, polishing louvers is a pain. The best tool I have found so far is a polishing wheel from lowes on a drill. Then a dremel polishing bit to really get inside the louvers.
This is what the corner looked like after one pass with the polisher.
Another good photo demonstrating where the deanodized area stops. Also shows how much pitting remains after the first pass with the polisher.
It's rewarding to look at! So, now that I have done this and kinda know what I am doing with the process I can say that from deanodizing to rough polish like you see here was about 16 hours of work. That'll delay my first trip for sure but hey it's all in the name of fun right.
Over the Christmas and New Years holidays my father and I finished up some of the details of the wings, floor and bunk.
In the rear of the wings we experienced some leaks during a big rain and that got us looking closely at the end caps to the wings. The leak we found was coming from where the aluminum skin coping area along the wing meets up with the end caps to the wings right behind the left jack mount and the water heater opening on the right side. We also discovered that the first rib behind the wing on the right side was unsupported in any way and just floating in space attached by one little tab that had been tack welded to an upper section of rib. We tied all of that together by adding some wood to the existing wing ends and anchored the ribs to that on both sides. In the process we filled and plugged the leak area.
Some of you may remember the piece of aluminum I used to cover up a cut I accidentally made through the skin at the rear of the wing. I was never very happy with the way that turned out and since the aluminum in that area on the other side was a little funky too I decided to make some new pieces to laminate onto the existing skin. It also tied in the repairs we made above to the ends of the wing.
We also finished sealing the floor and wings with epoxy, leveled the joint between the old floor and new floor and started work on the outside (next post).
In the image below where the rib looks like it has been cut was that way from the factory to get the rib to conform to the curve in the skin. You can see day light from one of our leak sources.
This was also an opportunity to take care of our last bit of rot.
On the right side the rib was a good 1/2" from the wing so we added a spacer of ply to tie it all together.
Here is the piece I made to cover up the cut I made through the skin and also to tie into the piece I just added to the wing.
On the left side I did the same thing. The aluminum there where it anchored to the tub and floor was a little wonky from when we removed the tub and this straightened it right up.
In the rear of the wings we experienced some leaks during a big rain and that got us looking closely at the end caps to the wings. The leak we found was coming from where the aluminum skin coping area along the wing meets up with the end caps to the wings right behind the left jack mount and the water heater opening on the right side. We also discovered that the first rib behind the wing on the right side was unsupported in any way and just floating in space attached by one little tab that had been tack welded to an upper section of rib. We tied all of that together by adding some wood to the existing wing ends and anchored the ribs to that on both sides. In the process we filled and plugged the leak area.
Some of you may remember the piece of aluminum I used to cover up a cut I accidentally made through the skin at the rear of the wing. I was never very happy with the way that turned out and since the aluminum in that area on the other side was a little funky too I decided to make some new pieces to laminate onto the existing skin. It also tied in the repairs we made above to the ends of the wing.
We also finished sealing the floor and wings with epoxy, leveled the joint between the old floor and new floor and started work on the outside (next post).
In the image below where the rib looks like it has been cut was that way from the factory to get the rib to conform to the curve in the skin. You can see day light from one of our leak sources.
This was also an opportunity to take care of our last bit of rot.
On the right side the rib was a good 1/2" from the wing so we added a spacer of ply to tie it all together.
Here is the piece I made to cover up the cut I made through the skin and also to tie into the piece I just added to the wing.
On the left side I did the same thing. The aluminum there where it anchored to the tub and floor was a little wonky from when we removed the tub and this straightened it right up.
