Removing paint from my Airstream

[Blackjack]

Hello everyone...this is my first attempt to post on this forum so please bear with me. I recently bought a '69 Airstream Land Yacht which appears to be in reasonably good condition but it will need lots of work to get it into road-worthy condition. For some reason, one of the prior two or three owners, used aluminum paint on some areas of the exterior. I have no idea why one would do this but I need some advice as to how I get the stuff off. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, David

[InsideOut]

Hmmm...I'm curious what's under the paint, bondo?

The problem you may have, is anything that would remove the paint will also remove the clearcoat, if it hasn't been stripped &/or polished earlier. That's no biggie if you are prepared to strip the entire trailer in preparation for polishing, but otherwise you will remove the paint & clear coat leaving the newly exposed aluminum to oxidize at a different rate than the area with clearcoat remaining. Over a couple of years (or quicker depending on your climate) it'll darken where the clearcoat was removed.

That being said, there are lots of different opinions on stripping & products to do so, I have found Kleen Strip's Aircraft Stripper (available @ WalMart, Pep Boys, Auto Zone, etc) to work very well. You can perform a search using the keywords "stripping clearcoat" and get lots of info on different products others have used.

If you use the Aircraft Stripper, be sure to wear gloves & follow all label instructions & warnings...it's nasty stuff!

Shari

[Blackjack]

Thank you for the speedy reply. I had not considered that there might be bondo underneath but I would not be surprised. The seller (your proverbial good guy, grandpa) stretched the truth in several areas. Still, I think it is a good project and that I will get lots of enjoyment from it. David