Hi everyone! I’m new to the forum and had posted a couple questions in the advice section a while back about a recently acquired OT camper renovation - and was very pleased with the friendly replies and excellent advice. Since I’m excited about how it’s going and figured you all are probably the only people who would appreciate it, I thought I would post some pics with its progress so far.
I’ll have to say, I figured I would end up painting it, but a good cleaning with simple green and a scotchbrite pad, followed by some Rejuvenate for vinyl and I was amazed how good its looking already. Also, the vinyl gunwales are horribly oxidized (I thought they were aluminum at first), but some wet sanding with a vinegar/water solution followed by the Rejuvenate seems to tame them well.
Before:
![image|375x500]
After:
(upload://doIbUOVqTdMQWQhWkj1CHesCucM.jpeg)
Anyway, still plenty left to do, but it’s exciting seeing it come out better than I thought. A nice note about Old Town - I was able to buy “Old Town” replacement decals. But after emailing them about getting replacement “camper” decals, they were happy to send a pair out to me free of charge. Nice customer service, for sure 
Surprised they had the Camper decals I asked them if they had any Discovery 174 decals and they told me that were not doing them any longer.
Boat looks great though! You will have to hit it with the Rejuvinate periodically to keep it shiny. I keep all mine under a carport and I usually wipe them down after a trip. I wash every time for Zebra Mussels then give it a wipe. Don’t use much of the Rejuvinate inside, it does make the vinyl slippery.
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It is looking nice. Have you had it in the water yet? How did it paddle?
Are you going to make any other changes to it or just clean it up as original?
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Haven’t had it in the water yet. It belonged to a friend of ours for 30 years and was a reliable craft, but with the kids grown and gone and their new kayaks they didn’t see keeping it around anymore.
My intent is to clean it up as best as I can, including revarnishing the thwart and yoke. I don’t expect to get it back to showroom level (nor do I want to), I just want it looking nice as well as doing what I can to make it last another 30 years
I’m sure I’ll be adding grab loops/painters, bungees, cargo d rings, and such once the initial restoration is done.
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Once I get the hull/gunwales cleaned, the deeper scratches filled, and the decals on, I was going to give it a good once over with 303 and buff it up nice and shiny. Other than the thwart and yoke, the inside is surprisingly clean and is just going to need a wipe down with some simple green or soap and water.
I’ll have to store it outside, but I’m designing an area that’s attached to the fence with brackets to hold the canoe and a tarp awning to keep the snow and sun off of it
