Avion truck campers - Hundreds of photos
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...
Forum Discussion
Sorry, I am probably mistaken about the particle board, likely plywood. The same approach to refinish either way.
D1, the epoxy issue has been a major debate in my mind since the start of this restoration. My forum reading leads me to believe there are two schools of thought on this. All agree that despite out best efforts, these campers leak even if we are able to seal them temporarily. School 1 Sealing the entire panel with epoxy will do the best to keep water out of the wood. The argument against is that any water that finds its way in will have no chance of escape. My worry is water intrusion at the fasteners. On my sailboats, I employ the 'Don Casey' method of Oversizing each fastener hole, and filling with epoxy to isolate the fasteners from the core wood. I didn't think this would be too easy with plywood although in hindsight if I had marked each hole before installing the panel, might not have been too bad.
School 2 Leaving the panel raw it is susceptible to moisture but has at least some chance of drying. Avion did not coat the wood in my camper and it lasted 40+ years. I'm 35 so 40 years works for me. I still wanted to do better.
After watching the inside of my camper thru a few rains, I've noticed all my leaks stay to the very outside of the panels. I made the decision to only coat the perimeters and to try to let the unwanted water bypass the panels and drain somehow. This gives me the option of completely coating the panels later if I change my mind(hopefully before the water gets in). It also saves lots of money on epoxy. I use Total Boat 5:1.
When I started, I thought I was just doing wings and the bunk. If I had forseen total wood relpacment, I would have fired up the spool gun and done it .'Argo' style for sure.
D1, the epoxy issue has been a major debate in my mind since the start of this restoration. My forum reading leads me to believe there are two schools of thought on this. All agree that despite out best efforts, these campers leak even if we are able to seal them temporarily. School 1 Sealing the entire panel with epoxy will do the best to keep water out of the wood. The argument against is that any water that finds its way in will have no chance of escape. My worry is water intrusion at the fasteners. On my sailboats, I employ the 'Don Casey' method of Oversizing each fastener hole, and filling with epoxy to isolate the fasteners from the core wood. I didn't think this would be too easy with plywood although in hindsight if I had marked each hole before installing the panel, might not have been too bad.
School 2 Leaving the panel raw it is susceptible to moisture but has at least some chance of drying. Avion did not coat the wood in my camper and it lasted 40+ years. I'm 35 so 40 years works for me. I still wanted to do better.
After watching the inside of my camper thru a few rains, I've noticed all my leaks stay to the very outside of the panels. I made the decision to only coat the perimeters and to try to let the unwanted water bypass the panels and drain somehow. This gives me the option of completely coating the panels later if I change my mind(hopefully before the water gets in). It also saves lots of money on epoxy. I use Total Boat 5:1.
When I started, I thought I was just doing wings and the bunk. If I had forseen total wood relpacment, I would have fired up the spool gun and done it .'Argo' style for sure.
