Paint Your Wagon - with a roller!

[Pepperami]

RAL 9010. Plain white.

[T'Onion]

Cheers Tony , I'll get a wee pot ordered , going to see if it will match the paint on the LT ,

[Pepperami]

It beats VW dirty white, hands down.

[mikec]

Any recommendations what to use to mix paint and white spirit? Do you guys use a clean bucket or what? Can I mix in the tin? Is there room to add the thinner? Going for RAL Moss Green on Easter weekend, prepping this weekend...

[steveo3002]

any clean jar or pot will do , the tins are usualy brimmed to the top

[rainman]

I've used laundry liquitab boxes as I'm not ready to paint the outside yet but needed to paint over some bits i'd welded and/or filled. I covered the thinned paint with clingfilm and it's stayed 'fresh' for weeks (didn't think prep would take this long tbh)

[mikec]

Thanks folks. The prep is taking longer than I hoped, probably no more than the usual amount of removing filler to get to rust...

[CovKid]

The prep is 95% of the entire job so don't rush any of it

[CovKid]

Incidentally, anyone who was planning to roller their van, now is the time to start getting ready to do it. Order the paint in, weld anything that needs welding and aim to have prep all done before end of May. Late May and early June are the prefect months to do this. The painting takes minutes if the preps done. June is good as the temperature rises a fair bit and ebables you to get further coats on in a shorter space of time - say over a week or two.

[Cruz]

What grade of wet and dry should I use for the initial 'keying' before applying the first coat of rustoleum? And should it be wet or dry use?

And then soapy 600 grit between coats? Is that right?

[CovKid]

400 for first key - surprisingly a green scourer (sponge backed type) in soapy water is quite good, especially in awkward areas. 400-600 between coats. Final finish, up to you - few ways you can do it.

[cubensis]

So! Just painted one side of the van and a small part of the rear, waited untill the sun gave us some shade and was very impressed. I think the paint was slightly too thick, I realise this will be more work in the sand down and i will be changing the consistancy to be slightly thinner for the second coat (this is the first).

Even now the finish is impressive and if this was say, a tractor or work van i`d be thinking it`d need very little doing to it, probably a sand and buff would produce reasonable results, although all this is in theory, and in practise it'd probably show through to the original colour (white). however its the van (higher standards!). So i`ll be leaving a week and sanding, got 3 insects stuck in paint, not bothered about that though, will sand them out.

I havn't really heard people mention that the work doesnt need to be done by hand, we had two of us on electric sanders, main tip here is not to let the sander sit stationary as this burns the paint, still tiring work but nothing like id imagine sanding by hand would be.

Wire wheel on a drill took care of the seams great, then rust remover gel in the seams, I wasnt overly impressed by this (green) stuff seems like alot of time standing around for what my gut instict says is a gimmick, i dont think it truly gets rid of the rust, although i may be wrong!. Then I applied vactan to the seams, lightly sand the vactan as this can dry gloopy, wash the van of dustfirst with damp cloth then a cloth with white spirit on, apply a new seam (leaving the old one in). Apply paint, learn as you go and if the worst comes to the worst and you mess it up, sand it all back and start again. Anyway, some early pics:






The paint was still tacky when i took these photos. I will be painting the front of the van of course. 9am - 5pm for two days for these results, four holes filled with metal fix, 95% of surface rust removed, (small blobs here and there i didnt get round to but they were no big deal and rustoleum can deal with this small amount of rust im sure).

P.S. There is masking tape there, its just hard to see, the line will be alot straighter once its removed! Also, I found it hard to get in the seams, however this may have been because my paint was too thick, if it wasn't that its usefull to be consious of the fact that the paint will go into the seams much easier if you have just loaded the roller with paint.

[mikec]

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this topic, believe me, I read every page. Here's a couple before and after pics. Only first coat on so far and not flatted back, so pleased might not bother!

[CovKid]

Another way of looking at this is to get two or three reasonable coats on in year one, then in year two, flat smooth and apply two final coats. That also allows you 12 months to single out any emerging troublespots such as rust in seams and other places.

Mine has been on a year or so now and thats what I'll be doing next month.

And yes, many will find the unflatted finish more than adequate. Either way, you can always flat down at any point and just go again - without it being off the road, more environmentally friendly and much much cheaper than spraying. In fact if you really were at a loose end, you could change colour schemes every year.

Good to see everyone having a go, saving some pennies, and getting some fun along the way.

[cubensis]

Interesting reading, when applying coat after coat does it not effect the overall finish? Surley its better to flat back between every coat?

Would there be a noticable difference between flatting back between everycoat compared to flatting back once after three coats? I would imagine any imperfections would be amplified if they were not flatted back?