Removing RTV
Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2012 4:01 amI bought a mini-teardop camper recently as I've mentioned in a couple of threads on this forum. The guy I bought it from had himself bought it from the builder. Just before I road my Goldwing trike out to see the trailer, the guy slathered each nail/bolt and seam on the roof/front/back with thick globs of RTV and then painted the roof with Killz. I remember thinking - geezsch, this thing sure does look homemade, but it looked sturdy and well-built with no rust and had a decent RV door on it and plenty of room inside. This weekend was the first time i could spend with it as i thought about what to do about the roof. i hated looking at it with the globs of RTV covered by Killz. So, I experimented with how to remove all that crap. Do I yank the roof off and start over (am still debating whether or not i should and get some aluminum instead). I finally came across what seems a winning formula after trying 3M caulk remover and another brand.
After some Internet research, I bought a quart of Citristrip - great smelling, supposedly environmentally friendly paint stripper (though I found out later how caustic that stuff really is when i chemically burned a fingertip or two). I painted it on and after some experimentation removing it, finally settled on a stiff nylon scrub brush. Well, the patin came off and revealed a nice gloss on the underlying FRP (pebble side up). The globs of RTV finally gave way and wiht some pulling and brushing, came off revealing a nice job by the builder where he used little white snap-on nail/bolt covers to waterproof and hide the nails. I was surprised to find that the Citristrip loosened the RTV enough for me to get it off when all the other products did squat. I was so encouraged by this, I ordered a couple of drill bit stiff nylon brushes to do the other 3/4 of the roof with this weekend. The only problem is that the nylong scrub brush gets clogged up fast with the paint that sloughs off. I did resoirt to a medium metal pot/pan brush and that worked great until it, too, clogged up. I'm hopeful that the drill bit brushes will overcome this issue with sheer centrifual force.
The guy who sold it to me thought he was doing a good thing, i guess, but just made a decent looking trailer look like it was slapped together. I have sort of adopted this trailer as my first refurb project but didn't want to mess with it unless i could make that roof look right. And now, it appears I can do that. So, after I do that, I plan to add some woodgrain stripping to the outside edges and lower front/back to dress it up some. If successful,I'll move to the inside and refurb that with some lighting, floor covering, and lightweight wall paneling.
I've got to keep the weight down, so I'm toying with removing the rear of the teardrop and just squaring it off and maybe put a peice of diamond plate in the trailer that would be exposed to carry luggage or whatever. I jsut hope i don't get so far into this that I nevfer get my money back out of it
Greg
After some Internet research, I bought a quart of Citristrip - great smelling, supposedly environmentally friendly paint stripper (though I found out later how caustic that stuff really is when i chemically burned a fingertip or two). I painted it on and after some experimentation removing it, finally settled on a stiff nylon scrub brush. Well, the patin came off and revealed a nice gloss on the underlying FRP (pebble side up). The globs of RTV finally gave way and wiht some pulling and brushing, came off revealing a nice job by the builder where he used little white snap-on nail/bolt covers to waterproof and hide the nails. I was surprised to find that the Citristrip loosened the RTV enough for me to get it off when all the other products did squat. I was so encouraged by this, I ordered a couple of drill bit stiff nylon brushes to do the other 3/4 of the roof with this weekend. The only problem is that the nylong scrub brush gets clogged up fast with the paint that sloughs off. I did resoirt to a medium metal pot/pan brush and that worked great until it, too, clogged up. I'm hopeful that the drill bit brushes will overcome this issue with sheer centrifual force.
The guy who sold it to me thought he was doing a good thing, i guess, but just made a decent looking trailer look like it was slapped together. I have sort of adopted this trailer as my first refurb project but didn't want to mess with it unless i could make that roof look right. And now, it appears I can do that. So, after I do that, I plan to add some woodgrain stripping to the outside edges and lower front/back to dress it up some. If successful,I'll move to the inside and refurb that with some lighting, floor covering, and lightweight wall paneling.
I've got to keep the weight down, so I'm toying with removing the rear of the teardrop and just squaring it off and maybe put a peice of diamond plate in the trailer that would be exposed to carry luggage or whatever. I jsut hope i don't get so far into this that I nevfer get my money back out of it
Greg
