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10-25-2019, 02:02 PM
Dear Newell Gurus,
We walked this coach many years ago, and it was
gorgeous! The wood veneer was absolutely stunning (and cost $$$). So it was shocking to see on the attached (short) YouTube link that the same wood had delaminated severely on every curved surface (and maybe others - hard to tell!)
Questions:
Is this repairable, or does it need to be rebuilt from scratch?
What would cause something like this? (And is it the norm over time?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJCWbPvL5Cw
Mark of SJC
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What would cause high end laminate to delaminate? Lotsa water? Steam? Some pernicious solvent?
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Some of my comments are speculation on the root cause. I think that the laminate was some version of actual wood veneer that was laminated to a clear overlay and some sort of substrate. That is different from the laminate that had been used up to that point.
The best I could tell from the video, the clear overlay has cracked where the laminate was wrapped around tight surfaces. Once, a person knocked on my door. He was the distributor/supplier to Newell of all the laminate they use. He came in the coach, told me the make and ID of the laminate in the coach. He also looked at the radius corners and immediately said “that’s too tight”.
So, it makes sense that over time, the clear top layer when put into tension as it would be on an outside radius, will crack and separate from the wood veneer below. I have not seen this failure on the typical laminate in a Newell. I do see some separation of the laminate from the plywood underneath on the tight radius corners, but not in the laminate itself.
Is it repairable? I don’t think sanding it down to the veneer and coating with any clear substance would be an aesthetically pleasing or cost effective solution.
However, the fellow in the video is on to the solution. Remove the wood veneer from the radiused corners, and replace it with a black or other solid color. If one were consistent in how this was done, it could be made to look as if it were intentional in the design.
Richard and Rhonda Entrekin
99 Newell, 512
Maverick Hybrid Toad
Inverness, FL (when we're home
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I wonder if they used Vitricore?
I have seen this laminate split in a couple of Prevosts.
Ernie Ekberg
Prevost Liberty-sold
Foretravel
https://groups.io/g/ErnieEkbergFlooring
Ernie Ekbergs Flooring on Facebook
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Update
I got an email back from Tommy at Newell, who only looked at the same video you did. He ballparked $40~50K...possibly more. I asked if this was common or due to a certain situation, and his response was "We've seen it in the past, but it's not real common"
Mark of SJC
