RE: [VACList] Belly pan repair

["Keith and Jean Williams" <kandjwilliams@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jim,

On our Argosy we had this done as part of a project to refinish the entire
trailer.  The shop drilled out enough of the pop rivets holding these panels
(banana skins) enough to get behind and work out the dents with hammer and
dolly.  They used filler for final smoothing and shaping, primed with an
etching primer and finished with single stage (no clear coat) automobile
paint.  Looks good after 18 months.  So the method seems to work.

I am a do-it-yourselfer (stripped the original finish off of the trailer
myself and have done Bondo type of work on cars over the years) but let the
shop do this one.  They were all set up
to remove a number of other small dents in the course of priming the trailer
and I had them do these skins as well.

After watching some of the work I'm glad I did.  Gosh, but they are good at
that sort of thing.  They did in a couple of hours what would have been a
full day or two for me.  But if you are inclined to do it yourself, I saw
nothing especially tough about what they did.  The big differences from what
I would have done was a better job of pre-working the dents, use of air
powered sanders and frequent (very frequent) changes of the sand paper
through ever finer grades.

Keith W.
'74 Argosy 22
Moline, Illinois