Paint, Part 1 - The Sides

The first step to painting the bus was to sand the existing paint. Before I could get to that, however, I had to peel off the letters that said the bus used to belong to the Hutterites. Michael first tested the process and declared that I should use a heat gun. When it came time for me to go through with it, Michael revealed he had broken his uncle's heat gun. It was pretty old. But I was pretty impatient so I used the resources on my person. Literally. I used my fingernails to peel off the vinyl letters. And it was a much faster process!

I had two orbital sanders to choose from. One attached to regular electricity and the other attached to the air compressor. I have to say I liked the regular one. But it's for a wimpy reason - it's lighter and more manageable. In this task, I learned it's best to take breaks more than I would like to. At the end of one day of just sanding, I did a pretty lame job towards the back. I had said to myself that I would get back to doing a rougher job later. But that time didn't come because I just plain forgot. I didn't remember until ... I was putting on primer! But it was too late to put the roller down, plug the sander, and finish it off. 

Luckily the little roughness I had put in there was enough to grab the primer.

UNluckily, I did a terrible job of rolling on the primer. I had never really done it on my own and I had slathered too much on. Michael had been in the middle of doing the primer on the bus and had to come down and help me out.

"Hey, Mikey, am I doing this right?"

Michael looks down from the top of the bus. Pause. "What are you doing?!? I thought you were going to do the edges first!?" 

"I was supposed to do that FIRST? I thought we just decided which tool to use. Not which order to use them!"

Michael grunts and sighs. "Ok. Do you have the roller charged yet?"

"Charged? What does that mean?"

"I'm coming down."

He ended up doing the starboard side while I held the tray and "learned." I put learn in parantheses because I'm hoping I remember it the next time I ever paint the outside of a vehicle, which may be decades from now." The primer ended up being so splotchy and textured that Michael congratulated me that I would be doing more work than had been anticipated. I had to sand that side down to be smooth enough for the finish coat.

I left that night pretty bummed that I had delayed our schedule. The next morning I was determined to do it right, but Michael had pre-emptively spray painted a primer on the port side. 

Dick had tried to warn us nicely about rolling on the primer. He said that spraying is the best, but rolling could be done. He said that after we did it we could wet sand it later here and there. It didn't make sense to me until I was spending an entire day sanding. I also remembered talking to my friend Kerry about being concerned about the environment and spray painting. As I was attaching my 6th 120 grit sandpaper onto the orbital, I cursed rollon and brush painting. Spraying is the way to go man!

See how smooth and pretty that gray primer went on?!?!? SMOOVE! No sanding needed.

Actually the spray-painted primer on the port side did need sanding because it was going to be at eye level and very visible. But it didn't need as much as the starboard side. 

We toiled over what color to paint the bus. I brought back a bunch of samples in grays. I had some in gray blues and Michael was actually drawn to it! I was so excited that we might have a more interesting bus. But we ultimately decided on Massey Fergusen Gray because of the nostalgic value it had with Michael. It had been his favorite color for tractors when he was a kid.

 One cool thing about Michael is that he will try on skills even if he's never done them before. The cool thing for him is that I'm always game to try it too. Or at least to let him try it. This allowed us to solve the problem of spraying the bus for efficiency without hurting the environment nor the live beings around us. Michael bought a spray painter to attach to the compressor! He enlisted the advice of Dick and Jeff and they suggested we also get a valve regulator to attach between the compressor and painter.

With one gallon of paint we put on 2 coats of paint on the side of the bus and an extra strip above the windows! The original stripe of blue that had been above the windows was about 2" high. We wanted it to be higher! We were happy with the final product because it gave the illusion that the bus was taller.

Click to play V I D E O: Final Paint Job