Steps to Take When Restoring a Vintage Airstream Part 3

Now that we have tackled the grunge work and most of the tedious work, we can now move on to the beauty work. You will be working on the interior of your vintage Airstream, replacing and repairing areas of the interior. This is where your vintage Airstream is going to really start to come alive.

We are going to start this section with the walls. Depending on the year your Airstream was produced and the way previous owners have left it, there are some things you will have to do and something that will not pertain to you. I am just going to walk you through different scenarios and things that in each scenario you can do to your walls.

Let's say that your Airstream was produced in 1952 to around the mid 1960s. In this case your walls are going to be covered in a textured paint surface known as Zolatone. Zolatone is just a two-step durable auto body type of paint. Good news is that even though Airstream stopped using Zolatone, it is still made today. So this will make redoing your walls a lot easier.

You can repair your Zolatone finish by going to the Zolatone website and following their instruction on how to use Zolatone. Their website www.zolatoneaim.com offers you advice and techniques for achieving the look you are wanting.

If the only problem with your zolatone finish is just dirt and grime you can clean this up using a citrus based cleaner such as Orange Super Strength Multi Purpose Cleaner and Degreaser. This will also work to remove nasty cigarette smoke off the walls and other surfaces.

Now let's say that some stupid idiot had painted over the zolatone with regular wall paint. Don't panic just yet, you can still fix this little problem. If the pain was latex all you should have to do is use a lacquer thinner and pull it off in chunks. If the paint was oil based you should be able to remove it with a paint stripper. After you have what ever paint was used removed, just repaint the walls using zolatone.

Another scenario is that your vintage Airstream was made after around 1965 when Airstream started using vinyl wall coverings. Depending on the extent of the damage you can glue peeled up sections of this back down and then spray on a good automotive fiberglass paint.

If you need to remove the covering to replace it then you must remove the cabinets and such. If you already removed them for the repairing of the floors then great, if not get busy removing them now. After you have removed everything that is in your way, you can replace the vinyl finish with a modern automotive or marine vinyl wall covering and adhesive.

Ok we have addressed wall issues and now those cabinets that you more than likely have removed need to be looked at. Take a look at your cabinets and see if they need a full overhaul basically or do they just need some touching up to restore them to their original grandeur. Here are some of the things that you can do to restore your cabinets.

If they just need a touch up, you can use Formby's Furniture Restorer and re-flow the existing finish. Make sure to remove all the damage flaking and fading from your cabinets. Afterwards just apply a few coats of satin lacquer. A good satin lacquer can be picked up from Mohawk Finishing at their website www.mohawk-finishing.com. If the lacquer is faded only, then you can re-flow with a premier gloss flow-out lacquer and JET lacquer blush remover.

For cabinets that must be fully stripped then you should strip all the finish off of them and repair all damages. Then use a heavy-bodied sanding sealer on the cabinets to fill in all open pores. Follow this by spraying on good 2-3 coats of satin lacquer.

If your cabinets are the vinyl covered cabinets you should be able to restore them by just cleaning them with a detergent and water. A citrus based cleaner such as Orange Super Strength All Purpose Cleaner and Degreaser should work if they are oily or heavily soiled.

Once you get the cabinets restored you can place them back in place inside your vintage Airstream. At this point you should be able to see your vintage Airstream coming alive.

Product Contact Information

Zolatone
http://www.zolatoneaim.com
1-800-360-7744

Mohawk-Finishing
http://www.mohawk-finishing.com
1-800-545-0047