Painting Tambour Doors

[Airstrm Drm]

Just took delivery of the 1973 Safari 23' AS I bought on Ebay from North Carolina. Had it delivered here to Washington. Thanks to my new AS friends Jim and Lynn for telling me about the Forum.

Love, love, love the Safari but want to lighten up the inside with paint. Found some good tips here on the forum for painting the vinyl covered walls but what about painting the tambours - and cabinets? Has anyone done this successfully? I'd love to see photos.

Thanks, I look forward to my new adventures.

Karen - who's never been camping in her life!

[HowieE]

I have not done it but if I were I would surely consider spraying them as apposed to using a brush. In either case lightly sand them with fine sandpaper and clean them well with a solvent to remove sanding dust and grease.

Maybe someone will chime in on how to remove them but if not mask them off in place with painters tape and lots of newspaper and give then a shot.

[Lumatic]

Removing the overhead storage tambours is easy. Just unscrew the screws which hold the plastic guides. The other tambours are a bit more challenging to remove, some disassembly of the cabinetry may be indicacted. A service manual would help a lot.

[Jim & Susan]

Here's what I did just a couple of weeks ago. It worked out well for the tambours. Take a look at this post and the next few after it. Good luck on your project.

Jim

[wannaroam]

I painted the tambour doors in my unit. I scrubbed them several times, and then primed them with two coats of oil based kilz. Then I painted them with regular latex house paint and I did this all with them in place.

The only thing that you have to be sure of is to move them as they begin to dry so that they don't dry shut and be stuck.
Clearly, it would be easier if you removed them.

[Aage]

Originally Posted by Airstrm Drm

Just took delivery of the 1973 Safari 23' AS I bought on Ebay from North Carolina. Had it delivered here to Washington. Thanks to my new AS friends Jim and Lynn for telling me about the Forum.

Love, love, love the Safari but want to lighten up the inside with paint. Found some good tips here on the forum for painting the vinyl covered walls but what about painting the tambours - and cabinets? Has anyone done this successfully? I'd love to see photos.

Thanks, I look forward to my new adventures.

Karen - who's never been camping in her life!

Welcome to the forum, Karen!

There is a series of short videos on YouTube about a TV series that re-did an older AS. There are two parts you might enjoy.

This one

is about the wall painting, and shows their solution for it.

This one

is about replacing the tambour with new tambour material, and they do it in and interesting finish: silver!

[Airstrm Drm]

Thank you for all the info. Jim said this forum would be a great asset, and he was right. I've also had fun searching other threads to help answer questions I have.

I really loved the You Tube links. I discovered there were lots more and watched them all. I need that guy!

Karen