Spray paint vs paint brush: Why not the latter?

[ManWithNoBrows]

dont worry demac even though we havent met yet we have talked through the forum.
i will be your friend if you need one?
friend request sent.
i dont typically have friends more work aquaitenance men that think i want someone to hang out but never very often and only if i ask for help which is almost never.

I hope you guys get a chance to meet in person someday. DeMac is pretty cool, but just needs to understand how to treat people sometimes. Hopefully you can keep him in line so he can start to excel in life.

 

[Jolly Roger bus 223]

never been the body man and have been asked quite a few times to hand over the brush roller or whatever.
but i have always been told that prep is key for a good vehicle paint job.
and maybe a night at the holiday in with paint youtube university???
my wife asked me to paint the rooms in our house 20-years ago.
took the roller away from me and has never asked me to paint anything again.
so i know dang well she will be the one that learns how to use the sprayer and not me.
i did something right 20 years ago?

 

[ManWithNoBrows]

never been the body man and have been asked quite a few times to hand over the brush roller or whatever.
but i have always been told that prep is key for a good vehicle paint job.
and maybe a night at the holiday in with paint youtube university???
my wife asked me to paint the rooms in our house 20-years ago.
took the roller away from me and has never asked me to paint anything again.
so i know dang well she will be the one that learns how to use the sprayer and not me.
i did something right 20 years ago?

LOL I could only imagine what the room must have looked like. That's pretty funny.

 

[Jolly Roger bus 223]

I hope you guys get a chance to meet in person someday. DeMac is pretty cool, but just needs to understand how to treat people sometimes. Hopefully you can keep him in line so he can start to excel in life.

thats between him and i and i hope one day soon you will drop this S??T.
lets talk paint or shut up until you ask for advice/opinion on something else.
i am usually the butthead in life but its hard not to sound like a butthead in type when you cant hear the tone of someones voice.
but i can be loud and clear of my tone through text if needed?
i try to play NICE?

 

[ManWithNoBrows]

thats between him and i and i hope one day soon you will drop this S??T.
lets talk paint or shut up until you ask for advice/opinion on something else.
i am usually the butthead in life but its hard not to sound like a butthead in type when you cant hear the tone of someones voice.
but i can be loud and clear of my tone through text if needed?
i try to play NICE?

Now I see why your wife took the paint away from you. I take it you're a wife abuser and threw it at her? Not cool.

Anyway, it seems that DeMac has a couple friends on here and they just want to trash the thread. I'm punching out and abandoning this thread to the mods to ban those who abuse others. Goodbye.

 

[Jolly Roger bus 223]

Now I see why your wife took the paint away from you. I take it you're a wife abuser and threw it at her? Not cool.

Anyway, it seems that DeMac has a couple friends on here and they just want to trash the thread. I'm punching out and abandoning this thread to the mods to ban those who abuse others. Goodbye.

now i am DEMAC camp.
how dare me of abusing my wife?
i know damn well my south texas irish redhead would have either left or killed me way before now.
especially since we used to spar together before my now 20 and 21 year old kids were born.
you can put me on your delete list.
i wont put you on mine because i want to know if you try to start some more bull ****.

the only abuser i see here is you

 

[DeMac]

I painted my bus last summer. I used Sherwin Williams industrial enamel paint. I planned to spray it on so I bought the best handheld 'airless' sprayer Home Depot offered. As a fall back I also bought everything I'd need to roll it on in case the airless sprayer failed for whatever reason.

Yea, the sprayer was totally inadequate to the task so I rolled mine. I guess the question of whether rolling (or brushing) does a good enough job is totally dependent upon the observer's definition of 'good enough'. Since my only intent was to cover the yellow so I'd be legal I was OK with what I got. The Sherwin Williams paint is a high quality product but if you decided to spray it, or any other paint of similar viscosity, you'd need a commercial style airless system.

If you're choosing between rolling and brushing I'd you go with rolling. Rolling proved to be pretty fast, much faster than I could have brushed the paint on. How much roller or brush marks show when dry is probably more dependent upon the self leveling qualities of the paint than on the application method.

[Good Stuff Above]
in case anyone missed it.

--------------------

never been the body man and have been asked quite a few times to hand over the brush roller or whatever.
but i have always been told that prep is key for a good vehicle paint job.
and maybe a night at the holiday in with paint youtube university???
my wife asked me to paint the rooms in our house 20-years ago.
took the roller away from me and has never asked me to paint anything again.
so i know dang well she will be the one that learns how to use the sprayer and not me.
i did something right 20 years ago?

My wife is always right.
I too, have had far better results following good prep-work. I think that using rollers on a basic bus conversion is fine. If I were restoring a classic or coach, probably want to spray, but I'm cheap & mine is no Crown or MCI.
Especially, for interior floors and exterior roof products, I think rollers are the preferred method.

 

[Iceni John]

I'm about to start rolling Rustoleum onto my bus, so I thought this thread may have some useful nuggets in it that I could learn from. Oh wow, what a digression from the original subject question. We've had personal attacks (unnecessary) and attacks on religion (the less said about that the better...), and some people's underwear assuming a torsionally-compromised state, but very little about the pros and cons of brushing versus rolling. Oh dear.

And back to the original question: yes, London Transport used to hand-brush their double-deckers for many years, but the reason they instead adopted spraying was simply that the supply of cranky old farts who knew how to apply paint smoothly by brush diminished as they all eventually carked. In the right hands a brush paintjob can be as good as anything sprayed or rolled, but it takes massive skill to achieve that, and such skills are now a critically endangered species. Didn't Rolls-Royce also hand-brush umpteen coats of hand-rubbed lacquer on their cars at one time? Nobody complains too much about the quality of their paint jobs...

John

 

[Jolly Roger bus 223]

i have never used an HVLP gun but have been in commercial construction for 25 years now and know some local painters that will have no problem coming over and helping me get started on the right foot and probably a few that would spray it for me if i buy the beer and give them a place to sleep for the night or a ride home cause i dont play the drinking driving game if you have been at my house.
anyway i am going to go with the rustoleum oil based enamel the implement paint is double the price.
but my second (wifes own shorty) is already white so i think i just need to get it cleaned and maybe scuff it and put a good layer on it and maybe follow with a clear coat.
would that be me abusing her by letting her paint her own bus or would that be her abusing me because she dont want me touching paint in our house much less her bus.
i dont feel abused? i feel grateful i dont have to paint.
i will do the labor for prep and masking without even being asked as long as she is happy painting. i meen it is hers and she wants to do the finishes because i have done the mechanics, the electrical, the plumbing, the framing, the gutting,
the finding, the purchase and bring home.
ok now i am feeling used and abused? but she makes up for it eventually.

 

[Jolly Roger bus 223]

i watched a few men rattle can a work truck paint job and wet sanded between each coat and it came out looking almost pro.
but it was a work truck flatbed so it was more front clip but i was impressed with the look after wards.
i never want to hold that many rattles can for one project again much less a bus.
and i just aint figured out the wet sand mess yet.

 

[magnakansas]

in the long run

The finish of brush on is not as "factory" or "professional" looking. Time wise maybe it is a wash when you figure in masking and prep work...

If your time to paint is limited... as in only an hour a two at a go. The brush method will allow to start/stop.

If you have to worry about overspray. If you have to worry about what kind of paint... Places like populated cities in california might be more of a pain in the butt because of using paints that give off a lot of vapors, versus, wester kansas where you have five miles between mail boxes...

 

[Jolly Roger bus 223]

i have also seen some men buy 20 foot 1" pvc pipe and plastic and arch it over like a greenhouse to make a paint booth but that was for a car and it was tight inside.
i do have constant winds but can move all my other vehicles away and my neighbors are far enough away i dont think i have to worry.
my issue will be bugs, pollen. flower buds if i do it right now but that will be an issue no matter what paint method i use. so i might need to think about the greenhouse/paintbooth idea again.
it is a shorty and i go piping for a living so sourcing the stuff is just a trip to the supply house and reimburse the company account.
now i want to go back to rolling instead of spray.
oh well mommas call its hers.

 

[DeMac]

i have also seen some men buy 20 foot 1" pvc pipe and plastic and arch it over like a greenhouse to make a paint booth but that was for a car and it was tight inside.
i do have constant winds but can move all my other vehicles away and my neighbors are far enough away i dont think i have to worry.
my issue will be bugs, pollen. flower buds if i do it right now but that will be an issue no matter what paint method i use. so i might need to think about the greenhouse/paintbooth idea again.
it is a shorty and i go piping for a living so sourcing the stuff is just a trip to the supply house and reimburse the company account.
now i want to go back to rolling instead of spray.
oh well mommas call its hers.

I like a DIY paint booth. We make emt tents & pvc hoop-houses, too. A bus sized paint booth today, would be a greenhouse tomorrow.

Even for brush and roll on paint, cover is better. Some of my roof pieces had a leaf or love bug.

I palm sanded the brush marks and debris to 250g for a finish. Doesn't look like auto finish. Just won't leak or rust. Looks great from the ground & it's done.

 

[Nawbdy]

Agreed on the paint quality. For anyone else who's reading this post, there are some that say they guarantee you only need one coat, and those are more expensive. Presumably, that increased quality should help with auto leveling. I plan to do that anyway, as I just want to paint it once.

I bought 2 gallons of the Sherwin Williams paint I used. I still have a little left in the 1st gallon after painting most of the bus. I expect I can finish the spots remaining with the last of the 1st gallon. My bus was a 35' with a dog house and I cut about 7' off the rear leaving me with about a 28' bus just to give you an idea of how much I had to paint. I put on one coat and it covered fine. I even had a durability test when a FedEx truck hit the left rear corner putting a dent in the curved surface. The impact took 2 small spots down to bare metal but on most of the dented area the paint is fine.

About self leveling, if my results are any indication, it will be obvious you used a roller or brush when compared to spray painting. The secret is NOT to compare. I realize there are folks that can't accept less than perfection but I'm certainly not one of them, I'm very pleased with my paint job - because - it's done . . .

well . . .

mostly.

 

[Jolly Roger bus 223]

a little bit of brains and time thinking it through is how we can accomplish anything we want.
gotta get into work stuff now and prepare for the week. 0400 comes early.
little bit about me if anyone cares?
i manage on average 50 men and 10-15 govt. contracts and deal with buttheads internal and external daily so pissing someone off or dealing with an idiot after 20 years is just natural at this point.
over this one but will keep up with the thread because i have paint coming up in the near future. one way or another it will get done but advice and opinions are always food for thought no matter what is in my head or experience i have or dont have yet.
advice/opinion is welcome.

 

[Jolly Roger bus 223]

my question that i was going to ask before the drama?
my paint is already white but is chalkie.
for prep to add rustoleum oil base do i just need to use MEK/TOLUENE or similar and just wipe it down or do i need to use something (if so what) to scuff it and then wipe it down so it grips the paint?
i know use the search button but have not seen anything for my specific question.
probably there but my search button takes me to email stuff and nothing specific and dont try talking how to do something beside this on the computer. thats why i have kids.

 

[Nawbdy]

I like a DIY paint booth. We make emt tents & pvc hoop-houses, too. A bus sized paint booth today, would be a greenhouse tomorrow.

Wait! Are you and Jolly Roger suggesting that there's something wrong with the patina I got in my fender when a bug did a barrel roll just before he kamikazed in? I mean it's all about character and man does my bus have character.

FYI, I decided to leave it there until it dried out rather than try to mess with it when it was juicy. Unfortunately my friend walked by an hour or so later and wiped it away with his hand making a nice blood streak across the fender. Fortunately the blood didn't stain the paint.

 

[Nawbdy]

ManWithNoBrows, here's what I got rolling the Sherwin Williams paint.



hood

 

[Nawbdy]

Here's the paint.

 

[TheHubbardBus]

my question that i was going to ask before the drama?
my paint is already white but is chalkie.
for prep to add rustoleum oil base do i just need to use MEK/TOLUENE or similar and just wipe it down or do i need to use something (if so what) to scuff it and then wipe it down so it grips the paint?
i know use the search button but have not seen anything for my specific question.
probably there but my search button takes me to email stuff and nothing specific and dont try talking how to do something beside this on the computer. thats why i have kids.

If it's the factory paint you're talking about, so long as it's still in good condition aside from the top layer chalking, you likely won't do any better for a good base to work off of. So you probably don't want to wear through it if you can avoid it, but you do want to get past the chalk, and you do want to mechanically prep the surface so the paint you're putting on has something to grip to. That old paint is cured completely, so whatever you put on top of it isn't chemically reacting/bonding to it. It's going to adhere as good or as poorly as you mechanically prep.

If it were me I'd:

1) thorough soap & water clean, then clean water rinse, then dry,

2) sand lightly but uniformly with 220 or 320,

3) plain-water rinse again thoroughly to remove all sanding residue then dry,

4) If any time has passed since 3, clean shortly before painting with a 'no rinse' cleaner like TSP / TSP substitute.

5) Paint a test spot to make sure there weren't adhesion / compatability issues, and wait a day or 2 to make sure it stayed that way, before I did the whole thing.