Tambour Removal

[DilmoreFarms]

I have been searching the threads, but unable to find directions how to remove the Tambours? Has anyone had success removing them, painting, and re-installing them?
Thanks in advance.

[duckdave]

Yes, that's what I'm looking for too. I need to remove the tambour from my microwave cabinet/hutch ('79 AS Sovereign, 31' center bath). This one has horizontal tambours and just slides in a track into the overhead area, it does not have a spiral. I also need to remove the tambour from the credenza. Here the tambours are vertical, the door is approximately 48" wide, maybe 30" tall. The door slides sideways in a curvy track and spirals into a box at the end. Pretty sure there are plastic spiral guides in there.

I'll keep looking for the directions for disassembly...

[dbj216]

Hi: Horizontal operating, vertical slats tambour door assemblies are rather difficult to remove. They are built with two "spirals" located in a thin aluminum box at the end of the opening. There is a 2x2 between the spirals to hold them apart. I think Airstream installed them early on while building a cabinet. Here is a photo of my galley sink horizontal tambour box and spiral.

And here is a photo of the bath vanity horizontal tambour door assembly. I took this one out while renovating the bath in my 75 Overlander.

I have not yet taken a vertical tambour door out, but they are built similarly. The spirals are molded into a plastic track and mounted on each side of the overhead cabinet.

It's a fair piece of work to disassemble a tambour door from a cabinet.

David



David

[duckdave]

Thanks very much for your reply. It is helpful to see what's inside the box at the end of the tracks.

I've read a lot of threads on tambour and they cover a lot of ground. But, I haven't read any about how to remove this type (vertical slats, horizontal slide) of tambour door. I've studied my particular problem a bit more, lying on my back and using a flashlight. It seems the best approach will be to remove the credenza top. It appears to be held in place mainly by screws to aluminum L-brackets, or screws directly into the wall. There may be a couple of rivets in there as well. I think if I remove all the fasteners, and the credenza top, I should gain access to the tambour roll.

As for the horizontal slats/vertical roll in the microwave/hutch cabinet. That one does not have spirals like all the rest of my vertical slide cabinets. It just has an L-shaped track on each side and the tambour slides out of the way into the cabinet top. There is a piece of plywood up there that partly covers it. At the back of the tracks on top there are two screws that look like they are there to prevent the tambour from sliding out the back. I plan to remove these two screws and see if I can just slide the door out the back. That one should be easy—if it works.

I'm just in the "mulling it over, making plans stage" right now. I am in the middle of replacing all the blue plastic rub rail inserts on the outside (and around the AC on the roof!). Pretty much just and R & R job. But man, it's amazing how much dirt and grime can get into things in 40 years!

If anyone else has any comments/advice on my tambour project, it will be much appreciated. I haven't torn anything up beyond repair—yet.

[duckdave]

I ran across another suggestion for removing the tambour from the horizontal opening tambour door under my credenza. This is a similar conformation described and pictured by dbj216 in response to my earlier post. I'd have to dig back to find the original suggestion (I'll do that when I get a chance, and post here). The suggestion was: use a dremel tool to cut out about 1" of the inside track, top and bottom, near where the track intercepts the box/spiral. Then pull out the tambour, through the cut, rolling it up as you go, to remove it. I'm paraphrasing what I understood from the post, hope I understood correctly. I presume inserting the new tambour would be approximately opposite.

Not sure this would be more or less work than removing the credenza top, given the tight quarters to work in.

I'm hoping these posts will stimulate someone to comment "yes, that's what I did, and it worked great!", or "No, no, no you don't want to do that..."

Thanks y'all.

Thanks for the read, comments appreciated.

[duckdave]

I know I could just yank the old stuff out, but I want to remove it pretty much intact so I could get measurements for the replacement tambour. You know: length x height x thickness. There seems to be several options for replacement tambour out there, and even options for "build your own", but dimensions are critical.

[constructor]

Did you do this project? I want the hubby to replace ours.

[duckdave]

I am sorry, I have not tackled the tambour project yet! Our '79 Sovereign has been sidelined by some serious structural problems (rear end separation). The estimates for repair are almost beyond what I can rationalize, and we are having too much fun camping in our new-to-us Globetrotter and our good ol' Interstate to take time off to work for the time being. Project on hold for now.