'70s Plastic Cabinets

[JillyBean63]

Can these be painted or do I need to replace them. My new, old 77 has plastic cabinets and upper bins and they are ugly! What about interior walls, can they be painted? I assume it's some sort of plastic as well? Complete newbie and trying to figure it all out. Thank you!

Jill

[overlander63]

What upper bins are you talking about/ AFAIK, the only "bins" are the old brown plastic bins that go in the lower storage areas under the beds and gaucho.
Oh, and those brown bins will crumble to dust if you give them a hard look.

[c_lewis77]

I painted the interior walls and upper storage cabinets in my 82. It turned out great. Tape up well and take your time.

[Aage]

Originally Posted by c_lewis77

I painted the interior walls and upper storage cabinets in my 82. It turned out great. Tape up well and take your time.

Assuming you have tambour doors in your upper lockers, did you paint that too?

If so, photos would be great...

[JillyBean63]

Wow, C_Lewis, your walls and upper storage with the roll doors look great. It looks like you painted the upper storage as well? Are the slide up fronts on that storage called the tambour doors? Brand new!

[idroba]

Here are a couple of photos of my 74 Argosy tambour doors over the front, after painting with Krylon Fusion satin white paint. The upper end caps were also painted. The trim insert is countertop plastic laminate, cut into strips and butt jointed.

[c_lewis77]

I painted the overhead bins and the tambour roll up doors with krylon satin spray paint. The walls I painted with a brush and small smooth roller. I will post some pics soon

[SmokelessJoe]

Barry, a member in Florida who goes under the forum name Sneakinup, did an absolutely astonishing renovation of a 1970's trailer mostly using spray paint.

He has been an inspiration to many on this site.

- Photo Gallery

Sergei
Sent from my iPad

[c_lewis77]

Originally Posted by Aage

Assuming you have tambour doors in your upper lockers, did you paint that too?

If so, photos would be great...

Here are the pics of the upper lockers with the tambour doors. I painted the lockers over the kitchen counter, dinette, and over the front couch. The spray paint is a must to get in all the nooks.

[Aage]

VERY nice work. I like it a lot.

Did you remove the tambour doors from the cabinets to paint them?

[c_lewis77]

I actually painted them in place. It took longer to tape them up than to actually paint them. They were a yellowish color when I started. The repaint made a big difference.

[idroba]

And I removed mine and painted the tambour outside, where I could see it easier. Then the end cap was painted, with everything removed from it, so masking was less of an issue. Still, when painting inside, wear a mask, do it on a nice warm and dry day, and use a big box fan exhaust the air and overspray paint dust.

[c_lewis77]

Originally Posted by idroba

And I removed mine and painted the tambour outside, where I could see it easier. Then the end cap was painted, with everything removed from it, so masking was less of an issue. Still, when painting inside, wear a mask, do it on a nice warm and dry day, and use a big box fan exhaust the air and overspray paint dust.

That is exactly right. Masks and ventilation is a must if painting inside....good call!

[Aage]

Thanks for all the great info!

[JillyBean63]

Yes thank you for the great info! Fabulous. Mine are sort of yellow in color as well. Yellow, gold and avocado green seem to be the original colors. I pulled off covers and the original upholstery was in place.

[idroba]

JillyBean:

The original plastics were a slightly off white, but they turn what I call "Old Banana Yellow" with time, even when out of the light. If you look at your vinyl coated metal interior skin you will see what is close to the original white color of the yellowed plastics such as the refrigerator vent and AC cover and some of the early end caps. Somewhere in the mid 70's AS started to use a different plastic on the end caps which did not yellow the same way, so if your end caps are quite white, they are not the same as mine were. The white Tambour doors most all yellowed to some degree, no matter when made.

The only yellow that I know of used on original units was similar to the plastic laminate countertop on my '71 Caravel. It was (and is) a very light yellow, but not that old banana yellow the plastic and White Tambour ages to.

The photos I posted look very nice, and honestly, the actual interior job looks as good in person as the photos. It is easy to be fooled by photos of re painted interiors, but in this case the Krylon Fusion makes the plastic look literally like new. Just do it carefully, using lots of light coats, don't try to put one heavy one on. If you do you will not be happy at all.

In the later 70's the grim Avocado Green was used extensively on countertops, fabrics, carpets, and even stoves and sinks. The only thing to do with that is to replace it. Now, I am opinionated, I hate that color.

[Granz57]

Idroba, how are the painted tambours holding up? I want to paint mine but am worried that it will have to been done every year or two. Is there any issues that you can see up to now? Thanks so much.

[Woods_Family]

Ok, My 1978 Argosy 24 was missing the 6 storage bins in the storage area across from the Full Size Bed.

There are now 6 BRAND NEW bins that fit perfectly into the sliders. They measure 15 x 20 x 5 and JUST clear the door with no trimming required. THE BINS ARE GRAY AND ARE NOT ORIGINAL. The bins are extremely heavy duty, very rigid plastic tote bins used in the restaurant business made by Rubbermaid.

Here's the best part: they cost $6.88 each!

Rubbermaid 3349-92 Plastic Bus Box Gray 20" x 15" x 5" (FG334992)

Enjoy!

Paul

[Carolinda]

No photos yet (I'll post soon--in AZ with daughter now), but we painted the whole interior, cabinets and all, in our Argosy. Used Kilz as primer over the dreadful vinyl contact "paper" after a good cleaning and some light scuffing up with sandpaper. If you have curling vinyl, a hair dryer works well to soften brittle vinyl so it can be peeled if removal is necessary. When we did this to the bathroom closet door, we found we could sand it and finish--has a very contemporary, Danish look now.

Some of our panels were in unsightly shape with the peeled vinyl having pulled off large splinters of the luan 1/4" paneling (before we figured out to soften with hair dryer), so we replaced them with 1/4" birch that I finished in amber shellac. That process involved removing many rivets and re-riveting the cabinet structural pieces back onto trailer walls.

A high quality latex enamel (which can be had in a low gloss version) goes over the Kilz. Also, we didn't mask. We paint cabinet panels in place carefully and remove NEWLY dried over paint off of the aluminum with fingernails (works best) or when finger nails can't or won't do the job, use an orange stick like manicurists use to scrap off from aluminum.

The interior endcaps had already been painted when we acquired our Argosy with cheaper latex paint, but no sign of an problems even so after 4 years (time span per FO). However, we are left with visible brush stroke marks under our own re-painting. Moral: use high quality paint when painting.

I did leave one original vinyl panel in the interior of an overhead bin to remind me of just how the Argosy looked "before"...

If we ever are so lucky as to re-furbish another Argosy of early 70's vintage, we plan ro remove all the panels and replace with birch. The virtues of doing this are 1) much improved looks and 2) by re-riveting the whole interior is more stable. We were surprised at how the original rivets had, in the main, loosened over time.