Kansafornia
Advanced Member
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2020
- Messages
- 60
At long last I'm almost finished with the upper portion of my 58's "complete rebuild'. (Can you hear the trumpets in the distance...?)
I plan to hang wiring over the holidays, test everything through on both battery & shore power and then cover the unit with a vapor barrier and 3mm roll foil insulation. Which means I'm now pondering the skin.
Question 1: What's best practice for painting aluminum camper skin?
I've cleaned the skin to the point where, in places, the original paint is now completely gone revealing the aluminum; so it should be ready to go. What type of paint? Is automotive primer and paint the call? Should that be thinned? If so, at what rate? Or... is something else better altogether?
Although I've never painted a car I do have a construction company and shop space/equipment to shoot just about anything, so I'm really looking for insights on the prep and paint. What's best?
Question 2: What's the best way to reattach the skin?
I'm planning to do so using an 18 gauge staple gun but have read several dissenting opinions about galvanized staples on the aluminum given galvanic corrosion. I assume that this is a significant enough issue to NOT use galvanized staples, so... What are the other options? I'm finding it less than easy to find 1/2" SS staples (anything longer may show through to the interior of my bulkheads) so it got me wondering what others are doing/have done to reattach aluminum skins? Are there aluminum staples out there to be had? Some other preferred means to attach? Lmk your thoughts/insights.
______
An aside... I'm a little over 5 months into the lower and upper rebuild and have taken - quite literally - hundreds of pics. At some point I'll sort through all of those and figure out how to post something that may be helpful to others starting down that path.
-Thomas
I plan to hang wiring over the holidays, test everything through on both battery & shore power and then cover the unit with a vapor barrier and 3mm roll foil insulation. Which means I'm now pondering the skin.
Question 1: What's best practice for painting aluminum camper skin?
I've cleaned the skin to the point where, in places, the original paint is now completely gone revealing the aluminum; so it should be ready to go. What type of paint? Is automotive primer and paint the call? Should that be thinned? If so, at what rate? Or... is something else better altogether?
Although I've never painted a car I do have a construction company and shop space/equipment to shoot just about anything, so I'm really looking for insights on the prep and paint. What's best?
Question 2: What's the best way to reattach the skin?
I'm planning to do so using an 18 gauge staple gun but have read several dissenting opinions about galvanized staples on the aluminum given galvanic corrosion. I assume that this is a significant enough issue to NOT use galvanized staples, so... What are the other options? I'm finding it less than easy to find 1/2" SS staples (anything longer may show through to the interior of my bulkheads) so it got me wondering what others are doing/have done to reattach aluminum skins? Are there aluminum staples out there to be had? Some other preferred means to attach? Lmk your thoughts/insights.
______
An aside... I'm a little over 5 months into the lower and upper rebuild and have taken - quite literally - hundreds of pics. At some point I'll sort through all of those and figure out how to post something that may be helpful to others starting down that path.
-Thomas