Sunday, September 18, 2011

Tub woes and a few successes...

Today was a typical "airstreamin'" day.   Some ups, some downs but when the successes outnumber the failures I count it as a plus! 

First off  I have a new acronym for the bathtub;

SBT   - Stupid blasted tub          

or maybe this is just a chance to use one of my favorite acronyms of late:

AFLO - Another flipping learning opportunity   

That tub drain won't budge,  we gave it our best shot, but short of cutting a hole in the floor and lifting it out it's not surrendering ....  SBT and AFLO..... there ... I feel better!    I REALLY didn't want to damage the tub so I guess I'm leaving it for Colin Hyde to deal with!     I wanted to give it a good swift kick but you all will be happy to know I restrained myself.  Grrrrr   Its not really a big deal as I'm planning on having it professionally painted (aqua of course!) so it would have ended up at Colin's anyway.   

On to other tasks.... I removed the decals on the windows and the back of the trailer.   

I used this.  My sis had it and said it worked and it definitely did!  I used the regular blue rubber gloves...BAD idea... It dissolved the gloves and then proceeded to dissolve the plastic scraper too!   I'm pretty sure it took a bit of my skin and a few brain cells too.... nasty.


Unfortunately because the previous owner hadn't limited himself to the windows there's ghosting on the aluminum.  I'm hoping it will polish out but we'll see.






See the one in the center?  Guess what it covered?  Yep,  a big old dent ..... *sigh*



The airstream nameplates had to come off to be restored.  Restoring on the trailer was not an option, they were BURIED in various  sealants, The PO obviously believed  in the saying that "more is better".   As I had the interior out I figured it would be as easy as using a chisel, shearing off the buck rivets from the back and popping the nameplates off.      Well, popping was not the right terminology, it was more along the lines of " I'd have better luck prying the xbox controller out of my sons hands on the day Portal 2 released".

PS if you are too old to understand the context ...it was REALLY REALLY REALLY hard!   I think some dark magic was involved....

Before picture
   
Guess what was lurking behind the nameplate????  Dirt , mud, pine needles, bugs.... you name it!  No wonder the PO couldn't get it sealed.


I did clean it up with a spray of water from the hose and decided to use some more of the adhesive remover.  It was resisting so I used the scrubby side of a kitchen sponge and for cripe's sake ....
AFLO (see above)

 It scratched the aluminum  *sigh sigh sigh*


Hard to see in this picture but trust me it's there.  Hopefully it will polish out but geesh ...Is there anything you can use to remove crud that WON'T scratch aluminum????????

On a happy note the adhesive remover did a nice job on the first 2 numbers (at which point I realized I was scratching the aluminum.


Time to prime my sisters trailer..... http://1960airstreamtradewind.blogspot.com




More on restoring the nameplates soon I promise!!!

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