Albus Rumbledoor bus build

[Mountain Yawp]

Near daily rain has slowed my progress on prepping the outside of the bus. Yesterday was nicer and we were able to put a solid 6 hours into bus work. We washed, Etch and Prepped, washed, acetoned, and finally painted all 24 of my sheet metal panels that will be replacing most of my bus windows. We painted using the famous $10 purple HF paint gun and Rust-Oleum professional primer mixed with paint thinner. It was kind of an experiment at using the gun for the first time. It sprayed slower than hoped, but I think that is partly due to not thinning the primer enough. I will practice more before using it to spray the exterior of the bus.

[Mountain Yawp]

I've made a little more progress. I worked out a good method for mounting my sheet metal in place of the windows. Each sheet is about 27" x 28", the same size as the original windows/frames. I had thought I would need to build wood frames to support the metal, however I found I could disassemble the window frame, remove the glass and sliding parts, and reassemble the frame. Then after cleaning the frame and opening of old sealant and dirt, I put metal in, put the frame in, and then add a spacer made of the leftover slider parts at the middle and bottom of the frame because they leave a gap. All parts are sealed with Sikaflex. Two screws go from the outside through the metal and into the spacer and frame to add support. I will post some pics that show it better than my words later.

[Native]

Sounds like a neat idea. Makes the process of deleting windows rather modular.

[Mountain Yawp]

Crazy that almost a month has passed while I continue to work on window replacement. It is now complete and I can fully focus on prepping the exterior for paint. I made some good progress on that yesterday. All of the reflective stickers and now removed. It is amazing how much easier they came off on a sunny and 75 degree day vs cloudy and 50 degrees. I didn't even get the heat gun out. Hopefully I am painting in the next week or two.

[JackE]

Originally Posted by Mountain Yawp

All of the reflective stickers and now removed. It is amazing how much easier they came off on a sunny and 75 degree day vs cloudy and 50 degrees. I didn't even get the heat gun out.

Dang, I have been putting that off after my son tried a few months ago and said it smelled bad using the heat gun. There are many 100+ degree days coming, I'll give it a try then. Thanks for the idea!

[Mountain Yawp]

Originally Posted by JackE

Dang, I have been putting that off after my son tried a few months ago and said it smelled bad using the heat gun. There are many 100+ degree days coming, I'll give it a try then. Thanks for the idea!

Your milage may vary, but it helped with my removal. Another big help was using a new razor blade scrapper at the correct angle. Interestingly, if I held it with the button faced out it would not move to remove anything, but if I flipped it over it slid and removed the stickers so nice. The blade must have been ground at a slightly different angle from the factory. Good luck.

[Mountain Yawp]

I had family visiting for my son's birthday, and they were foolish (or kind) enough to offer to help on the bus. I put them to work sanding the original paint in prep for spraying. Last Friday morning we sanded a little more, power washed, taped and painted. I was pretty nervous to do the spraying, but I got the HF $11 spray gun dialed in perfect on some cardboard and everything went great.
We mixed a custom Rust-oleum Professional color of:
2 parts Safety Blue
2 parts Gloss white
1 part Hunter Green

For spraying it we mixed 12 oz paint, 6 oz acetone, and a splash of Japan Dryer each time we filled the gun's 20 oz cup. I was running about 45-50 psi. It sprayed great and dried fast. It was dry enough to do the second coat immediately after finishing the up the first, maybe about 1.5 hours for the first and 1 for the second.

We are happy with the results and hope it lasts a while. We still need to paint the roof white, and likely repaint the bumpers black.

[Mountain Yawp]

[Mountain Yawp]

A few more details for anyone interested:
The Harbor Freight purple HVLP gun sprayed well, but I am not a professional and have not used a professional gun. It needed at least 45-50 psi, or would not atomize the paint and it liked the paint to acetone ratio at least 2 to 1.
We used way less paint than I expected. Since we were mixing a custom color that we may not be able to perfectly duplicate, I wanted more than enough to paint and touch up with in the future. We mixed a total of 5 gallons, which was way to much. We used maybe 2 gallons to do 2 coats on our 38 foot bus, including all of the windows but 5.
We prepped by sanding with 220 grit just to scuff it up. Hopefully that was enough to help the new paint stick.

[Placeholder Bus Name]

Originally Posted by Mountain Yawp

A few more details for anyone interested:
The Harbor Freight purple HVLP gun sprayed well, but I am not a professional and have not used a professional gun. It needed at least 45-50 psi, or would not atomize the paint and it liked the paint to acetone ratio at least 2 to 1.
We used way less paint than I expected. Since we were mixing a custom color that we may not be able to perfectly duplicate, I wanted more than enough to paint and touch up with in the future. We mixed a total of 5 gallons, which was way to much. We used maybe 2 gallons to do 2 coats on our 38 foot bus, including all of the windows but 5.
We prepped by sanding with 220 grit just to scuff it up. Hopefully that was enough to help the new paint stick.

That's great detail on the amount of painted needed. My bus is already white but will needs a respray before we hit the road. I was going to do white but I'm seeing more and more people do interesting colors.

[Mountain Yawp]

Still here and working on the bus. I took a long break last fall and most of winter, but am rolling again. Ceiling insulation and panel board is now in place, as well as most of the wall insulation. Pics soon hopefully.
I decided to make the goal that others also made: do something, anything, on the bus every day. Well, 6 days a week anyway. Everything needs a rest day.

[Mountain Yawp]

Screwing the bead board panels on.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Mountain Yawp

Screwing the bead board panels on.

Looks like you're celebrating your fasteners! I like those star thingies. I guess it's also possible my vision is going.

[Rivetboy]

Originally Posted by Mountain Yawp

Screwing the bead board panels on.

Just finished removing my ceiling yesterday. Seeing the picture of your ceiling going up gives my wife hope. Good Job!

[Mountain Yawp]

We made holes in plastic ceiling stars, then a washer, then the screw. Finishing touch will be painting over them the same white as the panels.

[Mountain Yawp]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

Looks like you're celebrating your fasteners! I like those star thingies. I guess it's also possible my vision is going.

Nice job spotting those in the first pic. Being a kid in the 90's I could buy the glow in the dark ceiling stars at the dollar store. Now they are $8-12 from Amazon per package. We thought it looked better than a plain round washer.

[Mountain Yawp]

Originally Posted by Rivetboy

Just finished removing my ceiling yesterday. Seeing the picture of your ceiling going up gives my wife hope. Good Job!

I know that seeing other people's progress helps keep me motivated and provides ideas. I hope your ceiling goes well.

After the walls and upper cabinets are in and pushing on the ceiling, then we will go back through and adjust screw tension, add screws if needed, and caulk seems to get a more smooth and even ceiling surface.

[Mountain Yawp]

I finished building my 2 sets of bunk beds for the 4 kids. Turned out better then I had expected. Also made more progress on the electric system. Pics to come later.

[A_Bus_Called_Quest]

Just dropping in to say Albus Rumbledoor is the best name I've ever heard/seen.
Well done!!

[Mountain Yawp]

Originally Posted by Bear Gerschafer

Just dropping in to say Albus Rumbledoor is the best name I've ever heard/seen.
Well done!!

Well thanks. You are the first to comment on it. I wasn't sure if anyone got it, or just no Harry Potter fans on here.