Re: Patina & Walbernizing
Betsey's 2001 "natural patina" picture is encouraging. It's a look I can live with.
I had at one point been planning to post a narrative of my trip from California via Albuquerque to Necedah and back to pick up my 560 in August, but never really found the time. But this brings up the one item I thought really important to cover: corrosion.
My 560 has (had!) the alcan cover option, and it looked beautiful when I picked it up -- A stunning maroon-red that almost perfectly matches my 4Runner's salsa red paint. The thought I had in including it in my original order was to protect the front of the trailer from stone dings, etc. BIG Mistake (Capital-BIG and Capital-M).
The alcan cover, and the new aluminum trailer finish, were perfect sitting there in the CI nest. Then it rained off and on on the way home. When I removed the alcan cover eight days or so and 2,500 miles later in California, what a shock! Almost the entire front surface of the storage box where the alcan cover had been was horribly corroded (at least to my eye, used to looking at and admiring the beautiful new aluminum of the rest of the trailer). Part had a heavy, thick white film on it that I never did figure out whether it was corrosion on the aluminum or part of the white inside foam layer of the alcan cover that had stuck to the aluminum. Other parts had turned either black or dark gray, although there were also some areas unaffected as well.
So out came the Walbernize. Wow, four hours of really hard scrubbing later (mind you, this was just on the front surface of the storage box) the aluminum had lost its initial luster and brushed aluminum look, and appeared more like what Betsey has posted above. It was really depressing, because now it doesn't match the remainder of the trailer's new finish. I suppose someday the entire trailer will look that way, and that's OK, but I had thought I had a year or more before that would happen.
So, my bottom line is that the alcan cover did far, far more harm than good by trapping water against the aluminum for days. From now on I'll only use it when I'm likely to encounter gravel roads and there is no chance of water getting behind it.
On the other side, however, I also have to note that the alcan cover is pretty well fastened on and easy to figure out how to remove and reattach.
