Riveting Vivian

As I’ve mentioned several times before, Mick travels for work.  His company, Lumalaser, created the laser light show on the Grand Coulee Dam, among other high profile shows.  Mick had to take a work trip to run some maintenance on the Coulee Dam show, and on this rare occasion, I got to go with.  Myself, along with my partner Joel, recently opened an Etsy shop to sell our vast collection of vintage clothing and housewares (www.etsy.com/shop/queenmakervintage).

I chose to take this much needed break from reality to scour vintage stores for inventory, while Mick slaved away all hours of the night and day to bring one of the most beloved laser light shows in the country to the public.  

On our way back to Eugene, we decided to head to the Olympic Peninsula.  I had never been, and had been hearing wonderful things about Port Townsend. With no real plan in mind, we took the scenic route from Grand Coulee.  We stopped in Leavenworth, WA, a weird little tourist trap of a town that someone in the 60s decided should be built to look like a Bavarian village.  Whoever that was, was brilliant. The place was crawling with tourists! Men in Bavarian lederhosen were playing tubas in the square, and lines were out the door at almost every shop.  We managed to squeeze ourselves into a “Danish Bakery” hoping for actual Danish pastries, but were sorely disappointed by the selection. I’m not sure anyone in that bakery has ever been to Denmark. We made it to Port Townsend by dusk, and quickly realized we had nowhere to stay.  Mick and I both have friends that live in town, but locals tend to escape the influx of summer tourists and go on fishing excursions in Alaska… both of our friends included.  We finally gave up all hope of finding shelter... echoing a phrase that I hear often when I travel, “it’s never like this.” I am the Eeyore of travel.

The entire peninsula was out of rooms, and its campgrounds filled to the brim- it was jazz fest in Port Townsend. Eventually living up to its reputation as the most beautiful phrase in the English language, we ended up at The Cellar Door. Unbeknownst to us, our weekend fate was about to be sealed. 

Mick and I decided that if we were to get drunk enough, sleeping in our rented Prius could be tolerable... at best.  Two drinks into our plan, a woman approached me and asked to roll a cigarette. I told her, “sure, you can roll a cigarette… if you have a couch?”  She did have a couch. And a guest room. And an empty cabin on her land.  Her name is Yvonne, and she ended up knowing Mick’s friend, and since we were on a roll, I asked her about mine. She began to laugh, and explained that the empty cabin in which we were about to stay for two nights, used to be the home of my friend, Bailey. The world is truly amazing sometimes. 

With our newfound kinship, we parted ways for a little while. Mick and I needed to eat now that we could ditch our plan of copious amounts of alcohol on empty stomachs. We ate seafood at this swanky restaurant that served late night food. They sat us in the back, away from all eyes. I believe I was wearing sweatpants.  After our meal, we headed out to Yvonne’s place.  The property was immensely beautiful. We met Yvonne’s husband, Ryan, and their two children.  They are such a lovely family.  That night we had a fire, we got acquainted with one another, and howled at the moon. The next day, the hunt was on for cool boat parts to install in Vivian! 

Port Townsend used to have a ship wrecking yard, which we were sad to find out that it had closed. We checked around the local junk shops, and Mick fell in love. With a sink. We purchased a beautiful cast iron sink with a high backsplash. It may end up being too heavy for Vivian, but we are certainly going to try to balance it out.  We also found an old ship’s porthole that we plan to install in the bathroom.  Our final purchase was some incredible old Deco hat hooks. They look as if they were once part of a hall tree, now to be a part of our closet.  Overall, it was a productive hunt, but we didn’t stop there... 

Ryan and Yvonne knew of a sweet dumpster diving spot.  Before we embarked to said dumpster, I had a bit of a mishap with a rope swing. Heights not being my adrenaline rush of choice, against my better judgement I climbed onto the rope. Mick had just bet me $5 that he would be the one to hurt himself, after he was safely back on the ground, I should have taken the hint from the universe. Barely hanging on, Mick pushed me higher, and higher. Fight or Flight kicked in, and I freaked out, planting my feet into the ground as I made the 8 ft swoops to the ground. My right leg planted with a twist, and I felt a pop. I knew this was not going to end well. After Mick finally helped me stop the swing, without any grace whatsoever, I launched myself off of the swing. After a few steps I knew I had seriously injured myself.  I pushed on, and we took the hike to Ryan’s dumpster spot. 

Our efforts were mostly fruitless, less a new cord for Mick’s angle grinder, but the experience was worth it.  We ended our outing with a couple of beers at the local tavern. A hole in the wall place, similar to what an American Legion looks like, clientele and all. Mick and Ryan shot some pool, while Yvonne and I chatted at the bar. The bartender was making beef stroganoff for dinner, or something of that nature. By the end of the night, I couldn’t walk. My right knee had swollen up to the size of a grapefruit, with nice bright purple bruising on the side.  Again, we sat by the fire while Ryan serenaded us until the wee hours of the morning.  Monday morning we said our goodbyes, and headed off to Eugene… or so we thought. We ended up back in Grand Coulee for another couple of days, but other than my knee, I wasn’t complaining. 

Method 2:

Mick would like me to start off this post by saying that this was his idea. Due to my gullibility from reading Airstream forums, I thought that stripping the panels in place would be far easier and faster.  Luckily, I can admit when I’m wrong. I was totally wrong. I was convinced that the panels would not line up with the rivet holes and it would result in ugly, crooked, hole-y walls.  This is not the case. You flip the wall panels and install them on the opposite side, so the cuts and holes do match up.

You begin by drilling out all of the rivets along the panel edges, there are usually anywhere from 20 to 1,497. Sometimes, the panels are also glued in place, an added bonus. After the panels are removed, you hammer down any remaining “nipples” created by the rivets.  

Begin sanding with 150 grit sandpaper mounted on a finishing sander, not a palm sander. With a palm sander you would end up with the same spinny circles all over. The vibration of the finishing sander allows for straight invisible sanding lines.  The 150 grit paper takes all of the paint off of the back surface and roughs it up for the next step: 400 grit.  Wipe the whole surface down with acetone before continuing.

400 grit sandpaper smooths out the surface. Wipe down with acetone. The acetone allows for the imperfections to be more visible. Next, move to 600 grit. This is where the surface begins to smooth out.  You could move on to the buffing process after this grit, but why stop there?

Mick used an 800 grit sandpaper, and is considering finishing the sanding process with 1200. He finished the panels off with a 4 micron buffing pad to polish the aluminum down to a mirror like finish.

Method 1:

I used to restore vintage furniture. Something I have always had fun doing, and sometimes I even made a profit.  So, I had a surplus of Citristip left over from these projects.  First, I applied the Citristrip to a part of the interior skin that had already been exposed to the aluminium in hopes that it would help the strip soak into the vinyl.  Citristip does not work for this. Don’t even bother. Seriously.  Nothing happened, it just dries up into this crusty peach colored spooge (I warned you I will have no verbal eloquence). Also, being a dummy, I poured the Citristrip into a styrofoam cup, and walked away from it. Needless to say, it melted into a sticky, stinky pile of orange goo all over the trailer floor.  Use metal containers for these products.

I then purchased a container of Klean Strip Premium Stripper.  The baddest stripper that you can purchase at your local hardware store.  She’s a bad bitch, but not bad enough.  To keep safety involved in this whole thing: please, wear a respirator and rubber gloves if you are going to use these chemical products.  I wore shorts the first day of this and got two little droplets on my legs, it will burn you.  It hurts, and wiping it off with a rag will not alleviate the pain, you need to wash it off.

I applied the Klean Strip to the vinyl wall, working my way from the base of the wall upwards. If you read the can, it urges you to do it this way so the fumes don’t pool near the floor. It does work.  The vinyl bubbles up and you can wedge a 5-in-one tool under the bubble and lift up the vinyl… until you can't anymore.  This happens over and over.  You get so excited, because an area of about two inches starts to lift and stretch like a deflated balloon, and almost as quickly as it starts, it stops.  A big fuck you. Apply more strip to the area and wait the elapsed 15 minutes.  Do not let the strip dry on you either.  It will mimic the wet product and bubble, but forget about pulling any of it off. It must stay moist for any progress to happen.  There is a trick to make all of this easier, as read online.  Apply the strip, cover the area in plastic wrap, wait 15-20 minutes, apply again and wait.  Once 20 minutes has gone by, remove the plastic and it should peel right off.  Admittedly, this does work better.  I even took it one step further. I lightly scored the area with a utility knife and applied the stip.  I wish I would have began with this method and I might not be writing this so passionately against this method. We didn't even finish the two panels we attempted this method on, ate through an entire $10 can of Klean Strip, and when you are done removing the vinyl, you still have to remove the adhesive that lies underneath.  It can be removed rather easily with the Klean Strip, or mineral spirits.

In conclusion:

I am completely perplexed. I read a lot about Airstream renovation.  I'll read anything, personal blogs, Pinterest articles, forums… anythingairstreamallthetime. The simplest of tasks on these forums are painted as these nightmarish, painstaking, impossible feats, and then it comes to interior vinyl removal.  A complete conundrum. These people who I've been complaining about all along yarn over the fact that vinyl removal is simple, often the easiest part of airstream renovation. I have no verbal eloquence when it comes to this: it f-u-c-k-i-n-g sucks. It sucks, and I'm writing this with crippled up hands from trying to execute this process properly.

We've even gone as far as using this terrible process as an experiment, hopefully to teach people the ugly truth of interior vinyl removal.  We have attempted two methods for the removal: 

1) Using the recommended products for stripping the vinyl with a variety of tried-and-true “tips and tricks.”

2) Removing the interior skins, flipping them over and removing, by way of sanding, the opposing coated side of the vinyl.  

I blazed through removal of the kitchen pantry shelving with very minor cursing. We decided to leave the refrigerator in place for now. Again, a single, hidden rivet got the best of me in a near curse free pantry eviction.  Streams of obscenities flowed through my mouth like smoke through a chimney as I wrenched on the top panel.  Luckily, one of the first things we ever removed from Vivian was the overhead compartment above the pantry shelves.  Otherwise, it surely could've been worse.

My dad came over to help me take down the closets.  There were 3 closet doors, and an overhead, 3 door compartment.  One of the simple truths of working on an airstream is that the heads of the rivets get stuck on your drill bit, no matter how hard you try to avoid it. My way to remedy the situation is to put the drill in reverse and use pliers to remove the rivet heads… onto the floor.  I used to try to remove them with my fingers, but often they are hot, and I got tired of having little tiny, deep, papercut like slashes all over my fingers.  My dad immediately scolded me for this action.  “What I would do, is put all of those rivet heads in a wastepaper basket, or something. What if you are walking around barefoot in here? It’s better to have a clean work area.”