1955 Flying Cloud Interior Walls

[Steph]

My husband and I are looking to refinish our new addition - 1955 Flying Cloud. The previous owners have painted the interior walls with what seems to be a white house paint. We would like to know how to remove this without damaging the aluminum underneath. My husband is very interested in keeping the walls as strictly aluminum - no paint etc. Has any one done this? If so what does it look like? Any thing we should know before tackling this job?

Thanks.

[InsideOut]

One thing you should know is...there is probably Zolotone under the "house paint". That too will have to be stripped if you want to go with the ploished aluminum look. Zolotone's tuff stuff...I'm not sure how to remove it, never tried. Maybe Aircraft Stripper will do it...

Below is a picture of an older Airstream that has exposed polished aluminum...pretty cool!

Shari

[misterbee]

My Flying Cloud is a wreck inside, I think it was once a meth lab. Someone painted over the Zolotone with a brush(!), and it looks like heck. My first thought was to cover the whole thing in fabric, but now I wondering about stripping it down to the bare aluminum and going from there, at least for the ceiling. Does anyone know how to do this? Chemicals, power tool, elbow grease? And then of course there is the polishing.....

[InsideOut]

Since my last post, I've confirmed that Kleen Strip Aircraft Stripper (found at Auto Zone, WalMart, etc) will remove the paint & Zolotone if milder chemicals won't. I haven't done it personally, but I've recently seen a trailer that had the interior Zolotone stripped....and it looked great! Be sure to follow all label instructions as this is nasty stuff...especially if used in areas with restricted airflow like the interior of a trailer!

There are several threads discussing the pros & cons of stripping clearcoat & paint...try a search using "stripping" & "Aircraft Stripper" as your keywords...

Good luck!

Shari

[flyfshr]

We stripped our Zolotone along with three other layers of house paint. For the Zolotone, we used Aircraft Stripper. This stuff is as nasty as it gets. You are to keep a fresh cut lemon or lime handy in case you get some of this in your eye. Squeeze in the citris to neutralize the stripper. Now that sounds like my kind of fun. Wear goggles and cover every bit of your skin. Open every window and vent and use a fan to draw out the fumes. Notice what it says in the red panel.

FF

[biggerbadbrad]

Yikes!!!

[InsideOut]

I used two gallons to strip the clearcoat from our 19' trailer. 1 gallon ought to be enough for the interior, unless you are removing all the cabinets...

Thanks Brad!

Shari