Thoughts? Rat rod bus paint

[Hawkeyenfo]

Looking for thoughts....

It's def time to fix some corrosion and paint my '64 Superior Coach Supercruiser and I'm torn on the color.  It's currently a basic flat two-tone, red high, gray low with a white top, semi-gloss black wheels.  My friends (very good hot rod builders) that are helping want to do it with a white top, then all flat black with gloss black highlights and polished aluminum trim.  The interior is classic tiki hut right now and will stay the same since it is in good shape.

My initial thoughts were more classic colors ( blue or green with silver, etc...) but I'm starting to dig the "rat rod" look.....

Thoughts?  Problems getting into rv parks?  Let me know. .... Thanks!   

[bevans6]

Can you get them to do flames?  I can envisage the flat black but it might pull dirt, look worse than it does, so to speak.  With a '64 schoolie, nice as nice can be you are still getting to the rough side of getting into RV parks.  I think the idea would be to make it very obviously a high end custom of an older bus, differentiate it by hard core bling on the hot rod side.  Kind of Jay Leno style.  If anyone gave you attitude you could say you are just parking it for him, Jay will be along later...   

[HB of CJ]

Long ago and far away we firefighters kept parking a service company small ladder truck too close to the fires.  Seems we kept blistering off all the bright fire engine red lacquer paint.  Our "punishment" was to sand down to bare steel and re prime and re paint using paint brushes.

About 3-4 grey primer coats and about 5 finish coats.  All done with expensive paint brushes between emergency responses.  Sometimes the paint dried on the literal fly.  From 4 feet away, one could not see it was brushed on. A fond memory of long ago.  HB of CJ (old coot)

[trucktramp]

Just a thought.  Black busses get hot on the inside on sunny summer days.  My late brother in law had a black with grey trim fishbowl and it was like an oven in the summer.  Of course it didn't help that the roof air did not work very good but even on cool days it could get warm inside.  I can also tell stories of running a day cab truck that was all black and I ran the a/c in January in Chicago because it was hot in the cab.

[Hawkeyenfo]

I actually have been researching paint brush paint job after reading a few stories about it right here on bus conversion mag.....

I was thinking about the hot bus thing.....seems like something to consider for sure.  Maybe the white top will help a bit...maybe not....thanks for the food for thought!!!

[Ed Hackenbruch]

On a 100 degree day in Yuma, i took  temp gun readings on the side of my bus to see what the differences were for the different colors of paint. On the black piece where one of the windows used to be i got a reading of 186 degrees.

[Hawkeyenfo]

Holy cow!  That sounds HOT! Any idea what the temp of a lighter area was that day?

[Ed Hackenbruch]

Don't remember for sure what all of the readings were but on the 4 other colors that we have the temps were 20-40 degrees cooler. We have a white center section on the roof and a dark blue cap on the rear. One time i went to get up on the top and put my hand on the blue cap and almost jumped off of the ladder because it was so hot. Reached over it and touched the white section to see how hot it was and could hold my hand on it.  Temp that day was around 90 i think, the reading on the cap was about 144 or so. I am thinking that if we repaint, we will be getting rid of a couple of the darker colors.

[shelled]

check out 'Lizard Skin' thermal and sound proofing paint.  Marketed to auto and truck markets in assorted colors by a company that makes industrial roof thermal barrier coatings.

e3

[gumpy]

Wouldn't be my first choice, primarily for the heat aspects of it. Also, I wouldn't put a rat rod paint scheme on it unless it had an engine that could smoke the tires. Then,
who cares what you put on it. It would be awesome!

[Hawkeyenfo]

Well, it definitely won't smoke the tires.....pull a tree out or move a bldg...sure!  Replaced the original International 549 with a factory reman'd CAT 1160 a few years ago

[wg4t50]

Know your happy to get rid of the IH 549 gas guzzler 
Dave M

[Iceni John]

Paint's solar reflectivity is important if you live where it's hot, especially if you don't have much insulation.   This chart showing different colors' reflectivities is interesting:  http://www.deansteelbuildings.com/products/panels/sr-sri-by-color/   Not surprisingly, pure white is best (but why the slight difference between Snow White and Polar White?), with Almond a close second.   I test-painted a sheet of aluminum different colors  -  silver got appreciably hotter in the sun than white, different to what the chart says, but almond felt no warmer than white.   On the roof there's no reason to not also use the Thermacels ceramic insulation powder in the paint:  it will noticeably reduce the heat reaching the interior.  If you paint your bus like a typical flat-black rat rod it will probably be unbearable in the sun!

John   

[Hawkeyenfo]

It was nice switching to diesel! 

I'll have to look over the chart wrt temps and colors....hmmmm, even my blue/gray combo might not be the way to go!  Thanks for the tops on the powder, any idea where to order it?

[Iceni John]

I bought mine from Hy-Tech in Florida, enough for two gallons of paint:  http://www.hytechsales.com/insulating_paint_additives.html   I mixed it into gloss white Rustoleum Professional oil-based paint  -  Hy-Tech says that two coats are needed, so that's what I did.   Even with gloss paint it leaves a rough suede-like finish, but two more coats of plain Rustoleum gave a reasonably smooth and glossy finish.   I just rolled it on with a 4" short-nap roller.

John