? repaint the Argosy

[77 R GO C MH]

This may sound crazy but has any Argosy owner ever considered just removing all the paint and polishing the aluminum rather than repainting at $150 per foot?

[Ghost Rider]

Sorry, but the outer shell on an Argosy, unless I'm mistaken, is not entirely made using aluminum.

ghost

[gvanman]

When I bought my Argosy Minuet, the PO had already removed the paint. It is all aluminum except for the 2 endcaps which are painted to match. My intention was to polish the skin, but I got side-tracked with a new to me AS Sovereign last year. I will probably do the polishing when the weather improves and then put it up for sale as I don't need 2 trailers! If you want to see what an Argosy looks like without its paint, go to my website and look on the 'Other' page for the pictures
Dave's Web
Cheers.

[Happycampers]

Hello .. We will be repainting our Argosy.. cream or white on the top half and a burgundy colour on the bottom.. same color as our Tow vehicle.. very nice.. but have to put tires on first and get it all checked out ..systems.. and do some floor repair.. Annie

[Midamrail]

My husband's passenger railroad car shop repainted my dad's 1977 28' Argosy, and they stripped the entire trailer before painting it with Imron. I don't think most Argosy trailers would polish well based on that trailer; as noted earlier, the end caps are steel, and the aluminum body panels had a fairly large amount of factory "bondo" in them. That, along with a discussion my father had with some people who worked at the Argosy plant in Versailles, would substantiate the belief that Airstream's slightly damaged panels were put to use on Argosy trailers.

I'm sometimes envious of his Argosy versus our Airstreams. Now that it's in Imron, which is one of the most durable paints made, it looks uniformly spectacular and is very easy to maintain.

[InsideOut]

If you want the "Airstream-look" for your Argosy, how about painting it metallic silver?

Shari

[thenewkid64]

I went through the research on having one painted. To do it right it has to prepped correctly. In a normal body shop that would mean sanding. The rivets have to be avoided, you do not want to sand them flat. I had ballpark quotes on doing our 76. they ran from 4-8K. I have recently heard of a place here in FL that is an Airplane painter. I was told they will do a complete strip down, using baking soda (?) , aniline prime and paint with a base coat clear coat paint. The $$ cost I was told is under 5K.

These things are big, painting them is expensive unless you can DIY.

I never got around to painting the 76, we bought our 78 that is not in dire need of paint

[cooperhawk]

Visited the Airstream Factory last year. They were servicing an Argosy motorhome that was painted similiar to the original color of a airstream motorhome. Even up close it looked just like the aluminum body and it had the airstream logos attached. If they wouldn't have told me it was an argosy I would not have known.