What paint to use?

[KC10Chief]

I have been looking into Oklahoma laws on bus conversions, and apparently, I have to have my bus painted. What's a good inexpensive paint to use? I'm not looking for anything fancy. I am thinking Rustoleum would be good to use, but I haven't seen it in anything other than spray cans. I'm guessing that it would take a lot of spray cans to do an entire bus.

[the_experience03]

Rustoleum, XO-Rust, and any other good industrial paint will work. My bus is painted (poorly) in International Harvester White (it's actually a cream color). Rustoleum does come in gallons. Just keep looking.

[Les Lampman]

We've got Ace Hardware out here in out neck of the woods. I used their Rust Stop (whcih is probably Rustoleum) which comes in gallons, has a few dozen standard colors and can be custom mixed to almost anything (it boggles the mind!). Also places like TSC (Tractor Supply Company) carry gallons of implement paint.

[GoneCamping]

I bought Rustoleum Gloss White in gallon buckets at Lowes (Walmart sells it too), comes in a variety of other colors too.... mix it down about 10-15% with acetone for spraying. While I've painted the bus white, I'm going to paint the bottom valance all the way around in Rustoleum Smoke Gray, and may use a little Rustoleum Hunter Green for some minor striping works. I have green and gray graphics on order for it too...

[paul iossi]

You should be able to have the big box store custom mix paint colors for you, When I painted the old garage last summer I took a scrap of vynal siding from the house and had the paint pro put it in the spectrograph to read the color and tint formula and then had the primer, topcoat and rustoleum for the steel door all tinted to match. The primer and rustoleum weren't a perfect color match but they weren't the same white as the tintbase topcoat that the color was formulated to work with.
If you decide to custom tint your paint make sure that all of your white gallons are from the same batch number and that you get enough paint the first time, and/or mix the gallons together to assure color consistency.


Warning: once you use industrial type paints, automotive paints usually don,t adhere properly untill all residue is removed

[sportyrick]

I got my paint from the auto parts store that sells lots of paint, Car Quest to be exact, and they have a "modified enamel" impliment paint that you can buy. They have quite a few colors to choose from and it's only $35 a gallon. You can't use a hardner though, but goes on just like regular auto paint and you thin it with Acetone. Sure looks and feels just like Rustolem or any other paint like that. It drys real slow which makes it stick real well, is supposed to not chaulk or fade but does take a few days to get hard. I liked it and so did my pro painter helper. Good luck, sportyrick.

[wmah]

I used tractor paint that I got from mills fleet farm for about $23 per gallon. I can't remeber the name of it off hand but it is an enamel. And there is plenty of colors to choose from. I ended up getting ford grey which is a bit lighter then I wanted but at the price who cares.

[busone]

I used white Rustoleum. It was $25.00 a gallon at WalMart. I used my cheapo harbor freight sprayer and compressor. Took days to dry but looks good for the price. Next time I want to use automotive paint but for the price this is fine.

My bus is a 35'BB I used 3.5 gallons @ 2 coats.

If you spray it be sure to install a filter/dryer to keep water and oil from your compressor from getting in the paint.