I have spent several hours this week stripping the old “Tour of America” graphics off our Airstream. This is something I really should have done long ago, perhaps even in 2008 when we officially ended our full-time travels and settled into a house without wheels, but for sentimental and laziness reasons I kept putting the job off.
We loved the graphics. They made our Airstream unique and a reminder of the 1,000 happy days we spent traveling America. People would ask us where we got them, or if they indicated that our trailer was a rental (apparently confusing Airstream and U-Haul). Many others would say nothing but take pictures when they spotted it. Emma confessed that while attending rallies as a small child she would use the decals as a way to find her home among dozens of other Airstreams.
The graphics were custom-designed by Brad Cornelius for us when we launched in 2005, and at the time I expected they would be on the Airstream for less than a year. The people who applied them assumed the same, and so I have nobody to blame but myself for the fact that ten years later the decals had fused to the Airstream’s clearcoat in a very stubborn way. The final impetus to remove them came last year, when the two decals that faced south began to crack and peel off like a bad sunburn.
I knew that getting them off would be a problem, because I had removed the largest decal back in 2010 and it took several days. Back then I was going the chemical approach, using all kinds of nasty carcinogenic goop, none of which worked particularly well. I tried a heat gun and plastic scrapers and all sorts of things, but it was still a huge hassle—and in the process I managed to scrape off the Airstream’s clear coat in two places.
This time I tried a 3M Adhesive Eraser Wheel, and it was a huge difference. It’s basically a polyurethane grinding wheel that you put on a drill. The wheel cost me $32.99 locally, which turned out to be money well spent. The wheel strips off the vinyl and the underlying adhesive without damaging the clear coat at all. You can see how this works in my short YouTube video. Then I followed up with a few applications of Goo Gone to clear up the remainder.
Unfortunately, you can also see how the graphic in the video demo is leaving behind a “ghost” image of itself. That particular bit of vinyl was facing southwest while the Airstream was in storage, and it got the most sun damage. The vinyl actually embedded into the clear coat and caused permanent damage. If I had removed it a couple of years ago it would have been fine—I just waited too long.
Oh well. Now that I’ve got the entire graphic off and cleaned up the surface, it actually looks kind of cool. From some angles it’s like a silver image cast into the aluminum. I may eventually have that panel stripped and re-coated by P&S Trailers the next time we are passing through Ohio, or maybe we’ll just design a new vinyl graphic to cover up that spot. One other graphic also left a mark. The others (which were in shade during storage) came off cleanly.
It’s hardly “stealth” with AIRSTREAMLIFE.COM still emblazoned on either side and the rear, but the Airstream is much more subtle now. I think we’ll operate like this for a while, until we decide what personalization we might like next.
Fiddling with the graphics is a prelude to much bigger things. For weeks I have been amassing equipment for a minor renovation and upgrade inside the Airstream. Since I’ve got to head to Florida soon for Alumaflamingo, I might start the project in the next few days but won’t finish until probably late March. The list includes:
- replacement of the refrigerator cooling unit, with a rebuilt one
- replacement of the Intellipower charger with a Xantrex that can handle our AGM batteries
- replacement of the kitchen countertop
- installation of a water filtration system including two cartridge filters and UV sterilization
- installation of a NuTone food center
- various other small tweaks
It’s a lot of stuff, but it looks like we will continue to use our Airstream heavily for many more years, so I’m glad to make the investment. If you’re interested in upgrade stuff, stay tuned. Every time the UPS truck pulls up at my door, another project will begin …