Destruction Day #12 (Testing Stripping Inner Skins)

I have been dreading this day for awhile as I knew this task would either be a walk in the park, or more likely a nightmare that I would never forget. The ’67 has the vinyl clad aluminum walls, which basically means it has vinyl wall paper on top of the aluminum inner walls (aka skins). This stuff is notorious for being impossible to remove as the bonding process they used was very effective.I decided to give the process a try under the first front street side window.

I have done a lot of reading and researching on various experiences and finally found a couple that found a product that they claimed “worked like a dream”. I went to our local Lowes and found the product (9 years after the account I read about), which was amazing that the product was still available. I then also followed another couple’s advice that said that applying the stripper and then placing plastic wrap over the stripper would help the vinyl absorb more of the stripper. I was very skeptical.

I brushed on a few coats of the Jasco Premium Paint and Epoxy Remover. I then applied the plastic wrap and left it sitting for 20 minutes. The stripper didn’t have much of a smell to it at all, but I do have the windows removed and some good airflow. Finally it was time to see if the stripper would work so I got out a plastic scraper and poked at the test area…

It worked! This worked way better than I even imagined and I think I could remove all of the vinyl from this 30′ in less than 8 hours easy. The test area pulled off all in one piece like a big latex balloon. It was pretty amazing how it would not even budge around the areas that had no stripper applied to them yet. There wasn’t even much adhesive residue left and I am sure some mineral spirits will have that all cleaned up in no time. This is by far the easiest task I have worked on so far with this restoration!

Here is the link to the forum thread where I found all of this very useful information: http://www.airforums.com/forums/f39/stripping-interior-vinyl-covered-walls-2625.html.