Show off your paint job

[jazty]

There was a member on here who sand blasted his bus. Afterwards the poor thing looked as though it had crawled out of a retirement home! All the flat sheet metal had wrinkled and warped. I'm sure there is a blasting medium that won't have that effect, but it's something to watch out for..

Oh, and here's a picture of my paint job:


I used Rustoleum self-etching primer (the sorta military green colour); spray bombs of various colours that were on sale for $2 each to protect hidden areas, such as under the rub-rails; black spray bombs to make the bus less yellow to legally drive it home; white elastomeric paint on the roof to keep the sun's radiation out.

Pretty, ain't it? I call the colour scheme, "Rolling meth lab chic".

[Stu & Filo. T]

Originally Posted by jazty

There was a member on here who sand blasted his bus. Afterwards the poor thing looked as though it had crawled out of a retirement home! All the flat sheet metal had wrinkled and warped. I'm sure there is a blasting medium that won't have that effect, but it's something to watch out for..

Oh, and here's a picture of my paint job:


I used Rustoleum self-etching primer (the sorta military green colour); spray bombs of various colours that were on sale for $2 each to protect hidden areas, such as under the rub-rails; black spray bombs to make the bus less yellow to legally drive it home; white elastomeric paint on the roof to keep the sun's radiation out.

Pretty, ain't it? I call the colour scheme, "Rolling meth lab chic".

See if you can find a place or mobile unit that blast with Dry Ice, Dry Ice won't damage sheet metal.

[pepepito]

Originally Posted by Stu & Filo. T

See if you can find a place or mobile unit that blast with Dry Ice, Dry Ice won't damage sheet metal.

Dry Ice will not warp the metal and soda too but both are super expensive so you are better off taking it to a place that can do it for you.

I still will just sand my bus by hand ( using the orbital sander) like I did with other restoration projects and I will prime it and plastidip it.

[family wagon]

I have a dump trailer that sorely needed a new coat of paint. Because its metal is so dented from tussles with tractor buckets and concrete chunks, blasting was the only reasonable way to sand the surface. I knew blasting required lots of air, so I bought an old, used, cheap towable 185 CFM compressor (two, actually. Long story.). Figured I'd see what I could do with the biggest pot Harbor Freight sold, which is 110 pound. In the end I made a trade with a guy who owed me some money and had a professional Marco blast rig, so he used my compressor and his rig to do the blasting on that trailer for me.

Though I'm barely to amateur level, I've learned that there are more kinds of blast media than any of us would have ever guessed. The final appearance of the metal after blasting -- pitted, wavy, etc -- apparently depends on the shape and weight of media, the air pressure, and the proximity of the nozzle to the surface. Some media is very angular and strips paint in a hurry, but it also pits the metal pretty bad. Thinner metal would stretch and become wavy, too.

[opus]

I guess will resort to my pressure washer eventually taking it all back to yellow.

[mudpie]

Wow...some nice looking buses. A couple that are along the lines of what I was leaning toward too, so it's nice to see it done. So far, so good.

Originally Posted by opus

The yellow paint job was the best job money could buy.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, which is entirely likely since I know nothing about painting vehicles...

By the time most buses get into the hands of a private owner, they're generally 15 years old or so, and have probably never had a coat of wax put on them. Wouldn't this be one of the easiest surfaces to prep, in terms of adhesion? I'm thinking pressure wash it, sand any spots where it's flaking, and just scuff and shoot the rest. Yes...no?

With a solid, clean base coat, that's going to have a low sheen at this point in it's life, is there much more that's really required? Obviously the scale of it is huge, but in terms of prep, what were you able to get away with? Probably should have added that to my list of "what I'd like to know".

[ol trunt]

If it is bc,cc,and the shine is gone clear coat de-lamination won't be far behind. At that point you really need to sand the cc off before you paint or risk having a short lived repaint.

[browncrown]

Here is Brown Crown. I did not paint it myself as I did not have the place or talent to do it. I had one of our shops here do the painting that also re-paints many of the school buses. The best way I have heard the color described is "Soft Serve Brown" like a frosty, and some of my friends call my bumpers "Pimping Gold Bumpers"

[Jolly Roger]

I am sorry that I still don't have pic's (tech challenged) I had a neighbor complain (hoa) and the county showed up and said I had to paint. I am a pipefitter welder by trade and the company I work for has a full sheetmetal shop. Long story short no prep my wife bought rust oleum primer brush on for the roof and I brought quite of rust oleum spray cans home for the sides.(All is primer grey) It was summer and the metal was hot we cleaned as needed and had no problem's until we ran out of paint? All we had left was the bottom half of the back end.
It just so happened that i had some cold galvanized spray cans (self etching) on my truck she wanted to go buy more of what we were using and I said we will use what I have? Wrong choice? Sprayed it around all the light opening's,windows and anywhere paint was needed? Self etching means that if there is an existing paint like the yellow that is already there it is going to eat it for lunch? and be there when it is done! Bubbles,runs, sanding?
Needless to say a beautiful day of my wife and children helping turned into a complaint (to be nice)? Self etching is made for a paint going onto galvanized metal not for metal already painted?