Hail Damaged

[buster]

G Day All, My 1970 compact(?) Has lived her life in the heart of strom ravaged Kansas. The skins all need to be replaced due to abuse and hail damage. Is there any modern skin material that would make skin changes easier and better weather proof? Looks like a major hassel to aquire and change skins. Only a little water damage around skylight but beat to crap. Anyone walked down this path? Any suggestions? Thanks Dave

[offspringin]

I believe Hamlet on here has been re-skinned but from what i remember it certainly wasn't cheap. If you do the work yourself and use the current skins as templates i wouldn't imagine it would be a super hard swap out (though i have never actually done a full skin off, only peeled the skins back)

I dont know of anything "better" to cover them with.

Are you still in Kansas and looking for something that will not be damaged with hail or just looking to see what your options are?

[cowcharge]

Well, you can re-skin them with literally anything you want or have expertise with. I believe the trickiest part of new aluminum, assuming you buy them with the creases in them already, is cutting them accurately to fit (especially if there are frame repairs needed that may alter the measurements), folding the edges properly, and moving them around without creasing or tearing them.

[buster]

Thanks all, Yes still in kansas...but just thinking out the diffaculty in re-creating a skin match that does not leak and affordable. The design is kinda "soft" if you ask me. Iv owned 1 week and the workmanship is....well....kinda skaky...its no wonder they all dont leak.

[becinala]

mine has hail damage also, but I can't do anything about it. the new paint job helped some. But be for real, Anything as old as we are working with will not be perfect, so I call it "Character" LOL

[skipandwendy]

i have just started a hail dent repair saga, alot of folks said leave it since the trailer is so old but i hate seeing it so yesterday i started the long task of using bondo to fix the hundreds of dings in the side, the work so far took the better part of a day only got me an area about 5 foot long and 10 inches tall.
Since i planned on a paint job in the future i couldnt see leaving the dents and finding skin was a pain and i have more time than money i whipped out the bondo, primer, laquer thinner, 80 grit sand paper, 180 grit sand paper and some white spray paint and started the task.

[Hamlet]

Yup, Hamlet needed all new skin. If we had done it ourselves, skin for the whole trailer would have run around $1200, so it was very pricey. Also, given how many hours and dollars we had already spent, it was worth every penny to us. We'd have lost another entire camping season if we'd done it ourselves (we are very slow).