Bondwood Fabric reseal info??

[Little Atom]

G Day to all from Sunny Cairns..
For the last 4 years I have owned a Little Atom Bondwood 8' (yes just 8' long and 5'10 wide and its towed behind Horrie the Holdlen (58 Van)
My little van needs resealing...the bondwood is covered in a fabric, not unlike a thin canvas and was obviously sealed on with a glue...however..
some parts of the fabric have lifted, got water damaged or simply just aged (the van is 1964 vintage) and has some rips etc exposing areas of wood.
most of the surface is good..
Has anyone resealed this type of surface.
What is best to use..perhaps a marine sealant..the damaged areas could be built up with a filler and sealed/??

Any suggestions are welcome.

Will post a photo soon.

Greg
What is best to use for a waterproof, durable seal

[beetlesbailey]

Weve had great success with coating all the exterior of the Highway palace and my green teardrop and another teardrop with surfboard fibreglass and using bote-coat marine glue. It otally seals and protects the ply on ours.
I think you may have to remove the canvas but someone else may know better.

[DC3Td]

Hi LittleAtom. Go to Members Photos - Page 3 -"Elvis has left the caravan". Forum member Minicamper has some great info & pics that might interest you. Cheers gordon

[Don Ricardo]

G'day Little Atom,

An 8' caravan built in 1964 and skinned in canvas over bondwood! Now that's a very interesting little van. I'm sure I'm not the only one who will look forward to seeing some pics.

I'm interested that your van was built in the 60's but is covered in canvas. Using canvas to waterproof the ply generally speaking wasn't used much past the early 50's as far as I am aware. There were still some vans being clad in bondwood/ply in '64, but most manufacturers had moved to aluminium or fibreglass by then. So that's why your van is so intriguing.

Best of luck with your repairs.

Don Ricardo

[minicamper]

G'day Greg,

If you care to PM me, I can talk you through what I have done, both in recovering Elvis, who is now Olive (yup, sex change n all!) as well as patching a small damaged section that was in the canvas on Alby's roof.

Cheers
Chris

[Franklin1]

Hi Little Atom, it just dawned on me what your caravan is. (D'uhhh...I've slowed down a bit these days ). How do you know it's an Atom? From the information you've given, it matches the Supalite Atom, 8ft long x 6ft wide, weighs 4cwt. In the early-to-mid 1960s, Supalite were offering the choice of either aluminium skin or plywood skin on their range of vans.

When I did a search of the archives just now of 'Supalite Atom', another caravan came back in the search results (not a Supalite) that was described as "plywood skin with aircraft fabric covering". Somebody on this forum knows about old aircraft and fabric (...fess up, whoever you are ...) so they might be able to give us some clues on how it was stuck to aircraft frames. Maybe aircraft fabric was commonly used on vans in those days?? Dunno...need more info from whoever knows about this stuff.

cheers,
Al

[Suzann and Matt (Schultzy)]

Gday Franklin,

While i dont claim to be an expert, i have been around the vintage aircraft seen my whole life, and have been involved with quite a few restorations.

Traditionally the fabric would either be irish linen or cotton and this would be doped/glued to the surface using an acetate butyrate type dope as well as the fabric being stitched or stapled to the rib/wing surface and then ironed to tauten up the fabric, Stits make a modern polyfibre for some applications but some restorers prefer the traditional finish.

After the application has been completed it is then sealed and painted/cleared.

Our teardrop was originally canvas covered but it was in reasonable condition so i just primered and repainted the whole roof.

Hope this sheds some light on the subject.

Cheers Schultzy.