Paint Your Wagon - with a roller!

[Llamapup]

Sorry

This thread is way to long to read it all. Some really good results on this thread but I have concerns about losing value on my van if its painted by hand

Any thoughts

If you do a good job, it will go up in price

This is a long thread, but well worth the read. I reckon I had nothing to loose from painting my van myself except for the £50 in materials. Here are some before and after photos of a work in progress to Illustrate the point:


This sort of seam rust was present on most of the panels on the van prior to my attempt at painting. Although this was fairly superficial rust, it must have detracted from the value of the van.



I removed all the Westfalia stickers and got to work grinding out the rust from the seems with a wire wheel. At this stage I was starting to question if I had taken on more than I could handle. The van went through a really ugly stage.



Once I completed the prep work (two weekends), I got stuck into doing some rollering.



Really happy with my efforts I took on one panel a weekend. Flatting, masking, painting....



As I was driving the van during the week I had to put some of the trim and lights back on last thing each Sunday afternoon. But this was a 5 minute job.



Nigel the cat was no real useful addition to the process but he has become strangely interested in what was going on.



With at least one coat on all 4 sides the van is really starting to look how I was hoping it would. I'm no longer questioning the value of painting the van with a roller.

So far I reckon I have invested about 25 hours into the project to roller the bottom half of my Pastel Westy in RAL 2000 Orange. I expect to be done with the lot after a further 10 or so. I reckon its been well worth the investment as I got two quotes for painting the bottom half (£890 and £1,000) both of which were ar more money than I had available to spend.

As the the quality of the work..... well there are a few small areas of my paintwork that have needed to be sanded back and repainted because of drips or bubbles etc. And there are some areas where my masking could have been better and required me to use some white spirits to remove orange paint from a windscreen rubber. But overall I think its come out surprisingly well and must have improved the value of the van.

Agan, all of this was done on the street in front of my house by someone who has no previous experience with paintwork. So £50 well spent I reckon.

Thanks

Llamapup

[avant-garde]

I'm about to paint my van using Combicolor RAL 1015 Ivory colour ...has anyone painted their van this colour ? I know that onc onc has but can't find any pics from him.

I'm changing the colour from white to this Ivory colour, but leaving the high-top white. Using RAL 9010 on the roof.

I wanted to get my van looking like guavajelly's on page 25 of the paint your wagon thread... - I love that colour, beautiful...but it's not for sale in the UK for some strange reason...and the closest I have seen is the CombiColor RAL 1015

If there are any pictures of vans in this RAL 1015 colour I would really love to see them. That way I could then compare with the guavajelly's van colour.

Here's hoping.
Avant-garde

[CovKid]

Llamapup, how dare you suggest Nigel the cat contributed nothing. He was there to generally oversee proceedings - as all cats do.

I'm impressed, you've gone for it and come up trumps - superb colour scheme too. Most laugh if you suggest painting with a roller, but you've got to admit, once you've got the hang of it and mix is spot on, the finish can be quite astounding. As you say, much much cheaper than spraying and far more environmentally-friendly. The amount of people that spend a fortune on a respray only to have it ruined because a seam rusted through. At least with rollering you can isolate a panel and make any repairs as needed and then get it to blend in flawlessly.

Nothing lasts forever, T25s included, and to my mind this is the most sensible way to approach painting.

Nigel rocks!

[j4jon]

Its been 5 Days since i painted the van and i have noticed the paint has totaly changed ! in the texture that is . I will wait another couple days to flat a few area's im so shocked with the result even passer by's have been asking if i have a diffrent van !




if you compare this picture you will see how diffrent they are in colour 2 !



This pic shows there is still some areas that are not exacley right , but the beauty of this is that
it can be done in parts and end up with almost a showroom finish , when i repaint the area's il be using covkid's idea doing the narowboat technique

What colour is that?

[catflaps]

Llamapup, you have made me feel much better having seen your images. My van is currently at the "ugly" stage and it's hard to see an end to the prep! I also think i was too liberal with the vactan - some drips and runs in places it's not needed. I didn't realise it would dry to have a texture of it's own that's quite hard to remove the excess of, even with a sander.
Hey, you live and learn! I'm going to have arms like Arnold by the time I finish.

[rainman]

Llamapup, that looks awesome. I've been considering changing my already rollered diarrhoea-colour to an orange and white combo. Your cat looks the spitting image of my sadly departed moggy so maybe that's a sign. Did you paint the top white too or just leave it the colour it was, if that makes sense?

[Llamapup]

Llamapup, that looks awesome. I've been considering changing my already rollered diarrhoea-colour to an orange and white combo. Your cat looks the spitting image of my sadly departed moggy so maybe that's a sign. Did you paint the top white too or just leave it the colour it was, if that makes sense?

Rainman

Thanks for that. I'm quite pleased with how its coming along.

I only painted the bottom half of my Westy leaving the top half in origninal VW Pastel white. I quickly realised that the top half of the van includes lots of fiddly bits like windows and gutters that I couldn't bother dealing with. With the exception of a few very small areas tiny dents and pin prick size rust spots all of the rust and dents were on the bottom half of my van. I actually like the two-tone look anyway.

Lets see some pics of yours

Best of Luck

Llamapup

[Llamapup]

Llamapup, you have made me feel much better having seen your images. My van is currently at the "ugly" stage and it's hard to see an end to the prep!

Obviously the prep is very important, but its amazing how quick the transformation is with just one coat of paint. Once you begin painting you really feel like you have turned the corner on the project. I found the prep work really fiddly and labour intensive needing all sorts of different tools. As I'm working in the street that involved carry all sorts up and down my cellar stairs. Now that I'm on with painting its much easier to get stuck in with a much smaller set of tools and materials: wet dry paper, bucket of water, paint, white spirt, roller, tray. thats it!

I reckon I can flatten back the previous coat, mask and paint one side of my van all in about 2-3 hours start to finish. So thats one coat on two sides of the van each weekend. I just work my way around clockwise.

Best of luck Catflaps.

Llamapup

[onc onc]

I'm about to paint my van using Combicolor RAL 1015 Ivory colour ...has anyone painted their van this colour ? I know that onc onc has but can't find any pics from him.

I'm changing the colour from white to this Ivory colour, but leaving the high-top white. Using RAL 9010 on the roof.

I wanted to get my van looking like guavajelly's on page 25 of the paint your wagon thread... - I love that colour, beautiful...but it's not for sale in the UK for some strange reason...and the closest I have seen is the CombiColor RAL 1015

If there are any pictures of vans in this RAL 1015 colour I would really love to see them. That way I could then compare with the guavajelly's van colour.

Here's hoping.
Avant-garde

Hi Avant-gaurd, i will have a go at trying to get some piccies up, i have gone around three sides of my van so far still have the front to do, and have gone half way up as Llamapup has done on his, the RAL 1015 is quite a bit different to the Pastel white but so far its looking good, not sure if i will need to inform DVLA of a colour change. i will try and get some piccies up tonight.

[chuckle-bus-tom]

looks fantastic Llamapup, I'm glad you have had such a good outcome after deciding to paint it all!

[CovKid]

Indeed - easy to forget that Llamapup had only intended to touch up a few panels

[onc onc]

hope this works this is my attempt at painting my wagon, only done the two sides and back at the mo but will do the front in a couple of weeks, as Llamapup said earlier i also intended to the whole van but because of all the little tricky bits i may leave it as half n half. the colour for this i RAL 1015 on the bottom and vw pastel on top which is not in to bad a condition

[onc onc]

i,m soooo proud of meslf i can now paint vans and post piccies on the tinternet

[Llamapup]

i,m soooo proud of meslf i can now paint vans and post piccies on the tinternet

That's looking good. Quite a subtle colour combination you have chosen. I can't help thinking that a dark brown stripe a along the middle line would really complement that nice retro cream paintwork on the bottom and create quite a good contrast with the top half of the van. Something like this:



Are you going to paint the whole front like I did or just up to the middle line?

[onc onc]

i,m soooo proud of meslf i can now paint vans and post piccies on the tinternet

That's looking good. Quite a subtle colour combination you have chosen. I can't help thinking that a dark brown stripe a along the middle line would really complement that nice cream paintwork on the bottom and create quite a good contrast with the top half of the van. Are you going to paint the whole front like I did or just up to the middle line?

Going for the whole front as you have, as i said i was going for the whole van but that top half does look a bit tricky Your vans looking cool dude as are a lot of the other vans on here, i,m so pleased i found this thread as i was contemplating getting the van sprayed, with the money saved on a paint job i can now get me brake pipes renewed and the a lot of other bits n bobs done on the old girl :