How many cans of Kraylon does it take to paint a bus?
Maybe you better make that "how many cases" ;D
lots....here are a few graphic examples of KRYoLON. couldn't find any krAylon . ???
(https://static2.kryolan.com/sites/default/files/home_images/aquacolor%2B.jpg)
I am going to assume this is a serious question.... Paint the roof with a good grade semi gloss or gloss house paint in your color of choice. Use a good quality roller and you'll get a nice durable finish that will stand up to scrubbing if it gets dirty or filthy. I did this to my first coach, a 1948 IC41 ACF Brill. It looked great and you couldn't tell it was house paint from more than a foot away. You can use spray paint on the sides; it'll probably take about 4 cases. It will be very hard to get any even gloss though, due to the large surface area. A satin paint would be better. You will need one of those handle type paint can sprayers, or your finger is going to cramp up. If you tape off sections at body seams, It will go easier. You need to be good with using spray cans already to know how much to apply before it runs. Since the paint is going to be a thin coat compared to using a spray gun, it will start fading after a couple of years in the elements without recoats, but yeah, it's doable and cheaper than a professional paint job by several thousands of dollars. I'd consider gloss house paint for the sides too, if cost is an issue. 4 cases-48 x $3.77 per can- $180.96
Ask your local tagger, they can probably get you a fell off the truck discount...
If you are serious about doing this. consider using a cheap air spray gun and your compressor ( I pained one of my trailers using this, and also one of my Harleys). If you want to do it cheap use trailer grade paint( will be much cheaper than using spray cans), and much easier.
Rent an air compressor and paint gun. Will get better results. Rattle can spray paint color can change batch to batch. Good Luck, TomC
Cosmo,
You better tell these folks you are having fun. Some are taking the question seriously, probably because they considered it.
Krylon can cover around 10 square feet per can, so the roof would take 63 cans, for two coats plus 32 cans of primer. The sides of the bus would depend on how much of it would need to paint, for my bus roughly 24 cans for two coats plus 12 cans of primer. That's for an MC-5C.
Brian ;D
Treating all bus questions on an equal respect basis. Plus I always kind of wondered the same thing...
I laughed one day when I passed a guy painting a van with a roller.
Next day I went by, and was amazed at how good it looked.
Laugh was on me, I guess.
Many different ways to accomplish any task.
Henry Ford said " Whether you think you can, or can't accomplish a particular task, you will be right"
Quote from: dickegler on August 23, 2014, 01:17:32 PM
I laughed one day when I passed a guy painting a van with a roller.
Next day I went by, and was amazed at how good it looked.
Laugh was on me, I guess.
Many different ways to accomplish any task.
Henry Ford said " Whether you think you can, or can't accomplish a particular task, you will be right"
Once upon a time every Rolls Royce made was painted with a brush....
Quote from: eagle19952 on August 23, 2014, 02:18:30 PM
Once upon a time every Rolls Royce made was painted with a brush....
So were all London Transport's double-deckers in the good ol' days (when labor was cheap, and when nobody knew or cared about VOCs).
John
Quotefrom: eagle19952 on August 23, 2014, 02:18:30 PM
Once upon a time every Rolls Royce made was painted with a brush....
Quote from: Iceni John on August 23, 2014, 06:03:51 PMSo were all London Transport's double-deckers in the good ol' days (when labor was cheap, and when nobody knew or cared about VOCs). John
One of the biggest differences is that a Rolls Royce was painted with a brush TWICE. Every body was thoroughly prepared (a phrase that should be included in every discussion about paintwork) and painted white and meticulously smoothed and finished. The thought was that if the car looked perfect when it was painted white, it would look perfect with any other colour level added. Once the white layer was as good as it could be made, they did another perfect prep job and then got out the paint pots and brushes again and applied the final coats.
The first time I had to go down to the section of the Land Rover factory that built body parts, I heard the phrase "oh, that doesn't get finished until Body in White" (and you'd often see the phrase "body part subassembly --> BIW --> Final Paint --> Final assembly" in production, "BIW" of course meaning Body in White.) BIW was much more than just pre-final paint preparation, but that was pretty much the basis of the entire point of manufacture at that stage. Of course, any post that includes the phrases "Land Rover" and "perfect paint" can be taken for a low attempt at black humour (apologies for the pun), it shows how deeply the concept is ingrained in British vehicle manufacturing thinking.
I would think black would better show the flaws.
When i first got into the bus business i bought several clapped and stretched mc9 s from the hound i painted them with a roller and 1 5 gal pail of tremclad white , in those days up north was all gravel and mud any how nobody know the difference between a 100.00 and a 10 k paint job a 60 mile an hour paint job worked fine .
I've got a book about about automotive refinishing which (I think) was a text book for an academic course on the subject - least ways there's an awful lot of chemistry and technical data in it, and it's definitely not aimed at the hobbyist. Naturally it's all about spray painting all the way through, except for the last section which is about ways of getting the 'ultimate finish' in very specialist applications - in fact all the examples it gives shows the Queen's horse-drawn carriages being painted (true 'coach-building'). Anyway, as you've probably guessed, those 'ultimate finishes' are all achieved by hand with brushes, and a lot of skill.
On the subject of Rolls Royce paint finishes - there are videos on Youtube showing the current Rolls Royce paint plant where the completed aluminium bodyshells go down an automated line which dips them (and rotates them upside-down) in something like six or eight vast baths of liquid, one after another. Starting with etching acid, various corrosion-resistant coatings, and finally the first couple of coats of primer. The line is half a mile long or something ridiculous. Sadly though it's in Germany - the body-in-whites are transported to Britain after that stage. (Body-in-white is a term my engineer Dad frequently used incidentally).
Jeremy
However...and I love a good plan, if somehow you come across the bunch of cases of spray paint priced right, (like for $free$) then how about considering doing the proper prepp, then spraying a primer thick over a small area....then feathering it in thin with a good high quality finish paint brush? We have done this with excellent results. But an entire Bus Conversion? Dunno that fur sures. HB of CJ (old coot) :)
I painted the inside of mine with spray cans about 14 years ago and it still looks as good as it did the day I did it. I cannot remember how many cans I used but it went a lot faster than I thought it would.
Quote from: Charles in SC on August 25, 2014, 07:23:14 PMit still looks as good as it did the day I did it.
You know that that can be taken in several different ways, right?????? :)
Most boats are still painted with brush. Course it is usually with two painting side by side to achieve two coats immediately and be able to brush any sags or drips. Marine paint is probably the best (translated expensive) paint made. Good Luck, TomC
I painted our skoolie with a foam roller and oil based ACE Ruststop (custom tint that has faded several shades), Rustoleum Hammered Copper (it dulls like a penny) and Rustoleum Hammered Black in 100F heat with stiff winds. Tip: don't paint anything in high temps when it is windy.
I will be repainting the body in a couple of years (after we leave this state and get a piece of land) with Behr Marquee Latex Paint (Satin). This fall, when temps cool a bit more, I will sand, oil prime (oil paint needs oil primer) and repaint the rub rails, etc that were painted with Rustoleum. It will be repainted with Marquee Latex house paint (satin sheen) I don't think the campground we live in would allow me to do more than that. My paint colours will be somewhat similar, just a little bit deeper in tone.
Before I started painting the bus, I read The $50 Paint Job (http://www.rickwrench.com/index79master.htm?http://www.rickwrench.com/50dollarpaint.html) and the Rolled On (http://rolledon.forummotion.com/) forums. Prep is everything. The websites I read advocated hand sanding between coats. I was not going to hand sand a 40 ft bus. So I just deglossed and rolled on two coats. The lousy drip that was in the previous sprayed on paint showed thru the rolled on paint. The paint I used was a semigloss. The resulting finish was like a fairly smooth textured egg. It looked very good until you got less than two feet away. NM is hard on paint. Any paint. The bus gets sand blasted pretty much every day. The sun has faded the ACE paint quite a bit over the 4 years it's been painted. I realized this when I had to do a little touch up (tree branch fell out of the tree we are parked under) and had to match the colour. When I compared to a can of the original paint, the difference was very surprising. I expected a little fading, just not that much.
Hey, it's a skoolie. We have done things to the skoolie conversion that we would not have done with the Eagle 05. But I had been looking at rolling on the small amount of paint needed when we still had the Eagle. I would roll on paint rather than using spray cans. I have also used a hand held Wagner paint sprayer to paint our old Apache popup with Rustoleum Hunter Green. It had to be thinned down a lot. It stuck good, lasted for years but the finish was dull and more far more textured than the foam roller. Could of had something to do with the colour I chose. But I wanted to keep the pop up green, just not Granny Smith apple green, since the title said "Color: Green". All things considered, I prefer the foam roller paint job over the Wagner sprayed paint job. In both the looks and the ease of application, the foam roller is the best of the two. Plus touch up is easier and pretty much undetectable.
I recently experimented with roll and tip vs spraying on two different areas on my roof where nobody would see. I used PPG "omni" epoxy primer and single stage topcoat. I compared results rolling primer, spraying vs rolling topcoat. I was comparing results using 4" Home Depot "best" foam rollers (other lowes rollers gave me trouble) and a cheap harbor freight paint gun.
Here is the before shot of the problem area, just nasty:
(https://busconversionmagazine.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.tapatalk.com%2Fd%2F14%2F08%2F27%2Favenyba8.jpg&hash=4fdbd788fe29606cf427e62cfd2b0e95ce9bdddd)
One of these from HF is your friend for removing goo and roofing caulk instead of scraping:
(https://busconversionmagazine.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.tapatalk.com%2Fd%2F14%2F08%2F27%2Fdu5atequ.jpg&hash=823e2929b0800f362a4b252aa395e9ebe289801e)
This is after rolling on the single stage primer, and maybe a bit of sanding:
(https://busconversionmagazine.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.tapatalk.com%2Fd%2F14%2F08%2F27%2Fymety8eh.jpg&hash=b259685a8f277ee75f29371e488a78c63fcc9413)
Now at this point I gotta say, I love this primer in white! This stuff is tough as nails and really easy to apply and work with. It is somewhat watery going on, more watery than the topcoat. I wish it would survive on its eon, but it doesn't have the UV resistance of a proper topcoat, so on to that next.
I tried rolling the topcoat. Now this didn't go well, I was having problems with bubbling. Now there isn't a rolling additive available for the PPG stuff, it is a car paint, and if I were to use industrial paint additives are available. However, it's what I had, so I pressed on.
The topcoat paint is more sticky and thicker than the primer. I tried the "tip" technique, which is where you go over where you've rolled with a very light brush stroke with a chip brush, but it was grabby and uncooperative so I reverted to spraying.
This is the final (mostly) sprayed finish:
(https://busconversionmagazine.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.tapatalk.com%2Fd%2F14%2F08%2F27%2Fba6anysy.jpg&hash=03ed4b5ff5d03af70e51d729ea6cb22920adbe3d)
I would have no hesitation rolling the primer again. I think to roll topcoat I'm going to need something formulated differently, though. Spraying needs a properly adjusted gun, which I had trouble with, and lots of taping off. Rolling is way easier in comparison, but bubbles are a problem, but far less masking off required, maybe only a strip of tape to protect from accidents.
Good enough for a roof.
I started out just having fun, but after reading all the posts there was some good information posted. I will be needing to paint the ol girl at some time, so it was very helpful. Rolling paint seems like the way to go up top. I was told to use tractor enamel from Attwoods. Going to keep it high gloss white. Currently the bus was painted using Imron one tough paint. But we can no longer get it, I heard it has glass in it(?). So sanding of any type I will have too wear a mask. Like I said, need to look into it. Thanks for all the information.
Several of us have rolled paint on our unflashy buses. Would you roll paint onto a high-dollar Prevost - no, of course not. But for us folks with pauper conversions, rolling makes sense and works well provided you use the right paint. Any paint intended to be sprayed probably won't roll or brush on well, if at all. Rustoleum, and all its variants and equivalents, rolls on well and is durable. I completely repainted my roof, taking off all the old paint down to bare metal, and I:
A) hand-rubbed with 80-grit (and used wire wheels on the 1600-plus rivets!),
B) cleaned with an acetone-based degreaser,
C) brushed on Mar-Hyde 5113 self-etching pre-treatment primer (really it should have been sprayed, but brushing it seemed to be OK. It's VERY volatile, so it's best to paint it on a cold day),
D) recaulked every seam with Loctite S40 polyurethane caulk,
E) rolled on Rustoleum Stops-Rust 7780 clean metal primer,
F) rolled on two coats of Rustoleum Professional 242256 gloss white enamel with Hy-Tech ThermaCells ceramic insulation additive mixed in to it,
G) rolled on two more coats of the same but without the additive (the additive makes the paint rougher, so these two plain coats helped smooth the surface to stop dirt sticking to it so much).
I used 4" short-nap rollers from Home Despot (sorry, Lorna!), whatever their best available quality level is. This winter I'll be rolling the sides, but over the existing paint that's still adhering well there - again I'll use use Rustoleum gloss enamel, probably Almond color because it has almost as good solar reflectivity as plain white. Using stock colors will make any touch-up easy in the future.
John
I have to say if I were to repaint my bus I would spray it with automotive paint, probably base coat clear coat. On my bus there really isn't that much paint - just a 2 foot high by 30 foot long mid panel below the windows. Taping and masking the windows for their black trim would be about six times as much work. Roof would get a roller job, though. But I have a "booth" to paint it in, and all the compressors and guns and such.
Brian
Since I am going to go back to white and blue, I plan to roll the white (top and stripe) then spray the blue stripes with auto paint.
Vern
You can still buy Imron paint I watched the guys at Volvo in Phoenix painting a Prevost with it
Quote from: luvrbus on August 28, 2014, 03:17:15 PM
You can still buy Imron paint I watched the guys at Volvo in Phoenix painting a Prevost with it
Imron contains cyanines (and a whole load of other nasties), so you MUST wear a positive-pressure breathing apparatus when using it. A dust mask ain't enough!
John
Quote from: mung on August 28, 2014, 02:59:33 PM
Since I am going to go back to white and blue, I plan to roll the white (top and stripe) then spray the blue stripes with auto paint.
Vern
Do be sure that the two different types of paint you use will work together - it's would be a disaster to have a reaction between them after you'd sprayed the blue stripes
Regarding the availability of Imron etc - in Europe such paints were banned a few years ago for automotive use (everything has to be water-based now), but they're still available for commercial & industrial applications only. Your regular supplier will only offer you the limp-wristed car stuff unless you specifically make clear that you aren't actually painting a car. Maybe similar laws are filtering into the States now too.
Jeremy
I have both air and airless sprayers so I can do any type of paint out there. I am thinking of using something like this on the roof.
http://www.lowes.com/pd_139929-29-5527-1-30_0__?productId=1015511&Ntt=rv+roof+paint&pl=1¤tURL=%3FNtt%3Drv%2Broof%2Bpaint&facetInfo= (http://www.lowes.com/pd_139929-29-5527-1-30_0__?productId=1015511&Ntt=rv+roof+paint&pl=1¤tURL=%3FNtt%3Drv%2Broof%2Bpaint&facetInfo=)
Imrom has been water based here for several years now
Quote from: bevans6 on August 28, 2014, 02:14:38 PM
I have to say if I were to repaint my bus I would spray it with automotive paint, probably base coat clear coat. On my bus there really isn't that much paint - just a 2 foot high by 30 foot long mid panel below the windows. Taping and masking the windows for their black trim would be about six times as much work. Roof would get a roller job, though. But I have a "booth" to paint it in, and all the compressors and guns and such.
Brian
Paint party at brains! Bring your buses, but don't tell Brian ;D
Mung,
I saw a bus that someone had rolled on that thick white roof stuff in the south, after many years it dried up hard like concrete and I don't know how the heck you'd get it off there if it cracked or whatever. They said it keeps it cooler, but after baking in the sun I think you're stuck with it. IMHO and YMMV.
Being a gear head / Hot Rod type, I always thought using a mop was a great idea for the roof job, paint brush for the rest. In my world, how it runs is what counts, beauty is skin deep they keep saying.
Seen a few fancy paint jobs broke down along the highway. My MC7, I have driven it over 150,000 miles in 20 years, never had any issue on the road. We all have different values.
Dave M
I'm with Harleyman, Brian you have room for two buses lol? I talked to the automotive paint supplier here in town and was told Imron was banned in the states, but could get it out of Mexico (go figure). Painting in on the list, but way down the list. Still a lot of good information posted for us guys who are going to paint their bus themselves. I like the roller way up on top, in fact was on a ladder this afternoon (checking out my destination window glass and trim) looking the roof over. A good cleaning, some rough sanding and the top would be ready for paint. Uh, forgot to mention the tape and covering the sides. Enjoy the holiday!
If you commit to a roof paint, you are kind of stuck with it. You just keep doing it to keep it fresh. But, it will keep it cooler and will be tougher if you have to get up on the roof to anything. Still trying to decide in which way to go. Automotive paint scratches real easy so that doesn't work if you are going to have to walk on it at any point.
Marine deck paint might be the obvious choice for a bus roof - super tough, non-slip and obviously very very weatherproof. Won't have any 'special' heat-reflective properties though.
Jeremy
Yes that is another good option, you can get that with grit in it as well.
Vern
We rolled Henry's SolarFlex Elastometric roof coating on our roof (a whole large bucket in 3 thin coats). It really does drop the temps. We had previously used Snow Roof's Elastometric on the Class C and David's cargo trailer (no longer have). We love this stuff.
No problem Iceni John if you don't like Home Depot. There are lots who don't like Slow's either. That's why there is more than one choice of places to shop at. I just wish I got an employee discount. I could have saved a lot on the conversion cost!
Well, my bus is in the boat shed right now but it's coming out as soon as I figure out a way to fix the clearance light that is finally toast. You know you are having a bad day when you take the cover off to replace the bulb and a half a cup of water runs out... Going to put in some LED's under the original lens.
I just talked to a guy with Monk 36 trawler/cruiser (kind of like Sean's big trawler but 10 foot shorter). His deck is all cracking, it's balsa wood core fiberglass and I may be putting it in and repairing the cracks for him before the winter. Big job, not hard just tedious like a lot of jobs. Probably 15 square feet of deck will need to have work done on it. But there is an open call for anyone who finds themselves in the north shore of Nova Scotia and wants a place to park. My outside pad is 20' by 70' concrete with a pump-out station available and a 30 amp plug in. The boat shed is 12' by 45' on the pad, 15' door and the building is 35 by 60. The other building is usually full of stuff, only has 11'-6" at the doors.
Very hot here today, it may get up to almost 80 degrees... Cooler when I took this pic... ;D
Brian