Method 2:
Mick would like me to start off this post by saying that this was his idea. Due to my gullibility from reading Airstream forums, I thought that stripping the panels in place would be far easier and faster. Luckily, I can admit when I’m wrong. I was totally wrong. I was convinced that the panels would not line up with the rivet holes and it would result in ugly, crooked, hole-y walls. This is not the case. You flip the wall panels and install them on the opposite side, so the cuts and holes do match up.
You begin by drilling out all of the rivets along the panel edges, there are usually anywhere from 20 to 1,497. Sometimes, the panels are also glued in place, an added bonus. After the panels are removed, you hammer down any remaining “nipples” created by the rivets.
Begin sanding with 150 grit sandpaper mounted on a finishing sander, not a palm sander. With a palm sander you would end up with the same spinny circles all over. The vibration of the finishing sander allows for straight invisible sanding lines. The 150 grit paper takes all of the paint off of the back surface and roughs it up for the next step: 400 grit. Wipe the whole surface down with acetone before continuing.
400 grit sandpaper smooths out the surface. Wipe down with acetone. The acetone allows for the imperfections to be more visible. Next, move to 600 grit. This is where the surface begins to smooth out. You could move on to the buffing process after this grit, but why stop there?
Mick used an 800 grit sandpaper, and is considering finishing the sanding process with 1200. He finished the panels off with a 4 micron buffing pad to polish the aluminum down to a mirror like finish.
Mick got slightly caught up in the Airstream forum as well. He went out and bought a kit for his angle grinder to bring out the original aluminium finish. These kits do NOT work. The idea doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if you stop and think about it. Aluminum is a fairly soft metal- an angle grinder spins at a wicked high rpm... Those two things don't mix. The end result is a surface with spinny circular “knots” all over it, or cut through aluminum. Mick tried the kit for a brief interval before pushing it aside for this method.
