How the hell to polish the interior walls?

[gaylonlee200]

SOS!!!!!!!!!!!!! HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have been working on the interior walls of our 1959 and let me say, I am about to give up and paint. However, working so hard on removing the paint, I am definitely not going to do that unless there is absolutely no one in our community that has any advice for me.

We stripped all the paint and are now attempting to polish. The problem we are running into is that there is residue left behind from the paint and little divots left behind? So no matter how hard we polish, it still does not get this stuff out.

Any advice is welcomed!!!!!! PLEASE

[pbearsailor]

It just isn't easy. I did it on my Caravanner.

If you have paint left on it, you need to keep stripping. I used "Aircraft Paint Remover" and it's nasty stuff. You'll probably want to do some light wet sanding as well.

Mine still has some pitting, but I'm happy with it. I'm even happier that it's done.

Look through my thread linked below for some pics of the stripping I did.

Welcome to the forums too. You've got a great model.


-steve

[toastie]

see post #72 and post #861

toastie

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f36/...t-38289-6.html

[Melody Ranch]

It is cheaper, faster, easier, better results over all to replace the interior aluminum with new

[MattB]

Having spent about 80 hours so far on mine, 120 or so if I count the cabinets, a couple or observations:

Take all the flat panels out that you can. And yes, I am replacing most of my flat pieces. But it is way easier to polish when they are out and lying flat on the floor.

Based on my experiments so far, light sanding gradually working up from about 600 grit to 1500 grit helps. I am going to try a small hand held vibratory or rotary sander next.

- For the interior of the end caps, I have been using a 8" sisal wheel at about 1200 rpm with a drill. This allows good pressure and is slow enough to hood about the right amount of compound in the working surface of the wheel to cut. At least two passes with black compound bar. Then a couple more passes with a spiral down wheel on my polisher at a higher rpm with brown tripoli. The treated wheels from Caswell are by far the best, and less expensive. Then the finish polish with invite or loose cotton buff wheel.

It's a huge mess, so lay down lots of drop cloth even if you are replacing the floor.

[putback]

Did the inside of my door that had been painted. After general stripping. Heat lamp, alum-a-gel [naval gel for alum] and wool bats. Cotton bats also worked. When the paint in the divits was softened with the lamp the wool/gel cleaned it up well. The down side is hand scrubbing w/bats was much more efficient than disc or edge wheels, even worked well around the rivet heads. All said and done you're gonna earn it!!

[cdmagda]

I stripped my '55 FC and ended up putting Zolatone back on. I know, it was a huge waste of time just to paint it again, but I didn't like the aluminum interior...cold feeling to it, reflections and mirroring, etc.. The new Zolatone looked great afterwards...warm feeling to it, hard as nails (added the hardener to the paint, well worth it). It also hides some nasty imperfections quite well, saving the hassle and expense of replacement. Kind of technical to apply, but I'm a fine finisher by trade, so I was as to apply the Zolatone myself with original results. Price for materials came to just under $800 for a 22' FC. The color selection is huge, as you can mix and match colors to your desire (colors do not mix, but are spattered on as individual specks). I had the trailer totally gutted to paint, and was able to start my spray pattern from floor to ceiling, back to floor on opposite side, then back, and so on...all the way to the opposite end of the trailer without stoping ( I have a big pot for my conventional HVLP spray gun).