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Originally Posted by Jay D.
I LIKE IT, thinking about doing the same thing. I just replaced the filon on my slide and I really like it without the faded stripes. you must tell us how you removed the decals.
Jay D.
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Looks good and clean but maybe a little colour would give a bit of an 'uplift' to her/ his dispositiion......now that it is 'clean' you have the choice to 'decorate' your way with your choice of colours.......
Our 33' Class A 2009 Damon Daybreak had decals and they typically cracked, peeled, shrank and otherwise started to look pretty bad. I first just wanted to remove them but then the idea about the possibilty of 'repainting' where the decals had been crept to mind without going to body shop for the 'professional ' job ( lots of bucks). I also checked with Thor about replacement decals ( they had a 5 year warranty but of course our rig was beyond that threshold - and the per decal cost was way up there as well- would have probably cost 2 or 3 grand for all the decals not to mention the work to get the old ones off, prep and 'restick' the new decals ( which would have probably been a bit of a nightmare to make sure they ended up in the right place, no wrinkles, no rips etc.) .....
To get them off was the first problem and wasn't sure how to go about this, So I started with least noticeable ones and experimented with various means of getting them off. Long story short, if you can get a putty knife with a bit of a sharp edge under the decal at a start point, apply a low setting of a heat gun or hair dryer (trial and error) and the decal often just peeled back by pulling on it, glue and all. That was the best case senario; sometimes the glue would remain which took rags and solvent ( paint thinner, varsol, etc.) to remove ( wear a mask). The glue tends to 'ball up' as you rub it one way and with enough solvent infused into the glue, can be 'scooped' off with the putty knife ( all a bit of trial and error until you get it right).
I decided to repaint ( found matches for our colours - 'antique brass' and 'oil rubbed bronze' pretty much matched our original decals- with regular Tremclad type spray rust paint - there's some very good spray cans out there) but here's where due diligence is required- surface prep - make sure all the glue is off, tape the areas off with GOOD masking type ( the blue one works really well - 'Frog' tape was not good) ( taping the convex curves is fairly easy as a good masking tape has some 'stretchibility' to it as you go around the curve - concave curves are best made with short segments of tape to best approximate the curve without being too noticeable to the eye) and sand the filon or FG with good 400 grit auto body type sandpaper, wipe the surface clean with compatable paint solvent. Also, of course, go beyond the blue tape with regular masking tape and lots of newspaper ( or that brown roll paint paper) - a good distance beyond where you are going to spray ( you'd be surprised how far the overspray goes...). This part is probably the most time consuming as it takes only a few minutes to rip it all off to admire your work ( but well worth the rewards if you have done a thorough masking and taping job..).
You'll need nice dry warm calm weather to do the spraying ( or if your lucky enough to have an indoor space available to fit your rig with room to move around it) - around 65 degrees and up- but it lets you recoat in 5 - 10 minutes and minimize runs... again all a bit of trial and error - and you can always resand the 'dribble' once it's dry and recoat.
Got most of it done; a few more not so noticeable decals but will eventually do them all. And the repainted areas still look good, 3 years down the road - proper prep is the secret....and the rewards of keeping the cost down and your own accomplishment is well worth it. Sounds like a lot of work but then again, I side with many of you who wrote about the 'oldy goldy's and the pleasure one takes in looking after them.....especially when your retired and neediing someting to do...but then my wife and I are from the 'no children' - no grand children etc. etc. species......
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