Painting / Vinyl Wrapping a Van

[closeanuf]

You didn't say what your budget was.  If you buy an old van you are going to be more concerned about mechanical issues to make sure it is safe to be on the road.  Then there's the conversion to think of.  I would say a paint job is not the top priority.  Maybe when you get it running
safely and livable you can get one of the guys telling you how easy it is to help you paint it.

 

[bullfrog]

Dull desert tan or pink/red in our area touched up yearly due to desert pin stripes from brush and Russian Olive trees is easy. Even colored primer in camo patterns works, add another color when ever you like. Bed liner is heavier but more durable and more expensive. If you make it look too good someone will make an offer to buy it. Make it mechanically perfect and to your liking on the inside. Keep it rust colored and dirty on the outside and you will have less problems. Sort of rat rod and Mad Max combined. Just cheap all white if you want the normal look. Park it down by the rail road tracks for a few days it will get painted for free!

 

[bullfrog]

Just saw a story about a Russian that uses a brush and his fingers to make pictures out of road grime on the trucks there. Looks like pencil drawings, beautiful.

 

[VanKitten]

Well..it is an old van.   And there is a long long list of "do" items

But....I will need to deal with the paint job.....

I only just started with marinetex and fairing compound.
The back has even more holes.   The other side also 

 

[bullfrog]

Great looking RV! If you boondock you will get scrapes and scratches, having something easily repairable that will get you unnoticed in town and into an occasional rv park is as easy as a can of white spray paint. All I'm saying is that is possible to do this so well that you become afraid to go places because you will scratch it.

 

[John61CT]

Nice base! But don't even try to make it all smooth & pretty, lots of $$ and unnecessary, go for functionality and reliability first.

Good candidate for a MadMax vibe IMO

 

[VanKitten]

Bullfrog

The issue I am facing is this wind. A can of spray paint isn't going to work...this wind is tremendous! On a "quiet" day it is 25mph. Brush and roller seem the only answer. But, all too often the wind carries with it a lot of dust. Sometimes it looks like pink clouds it is so dense.

As I cannot predict if the dust will kick up in any given 24 hour period...something that requires me to paint it all..completely...and recoat in 12 hours has very little chance of actually happening within those time frames.

I like the idea of a bedliner type of material..because it is low maintenance. Just wickedly expensive to have someone else do it indoors!

I checked with the local Maaco. They cannot accommodate a vehicle this tall. So..el cheapo may be out of the question too.

 

[Van-Tramp]

VanKitten, I think you are missing one important element... the object you want to paint is on wheels. You can do a buildout of the interior, fix all the mechanical things, prep the exterior, and then drive it somewhere else for the painting. Heck, go to the 2018 RTR and do the painting there, Im sure others would love to take part in and get some bed-liner experience for their own use later down the road.

Last thing you can do is go to Baja and pay for some of those fine gents to paint your van. They will even do it where you are camped, and it is good professional work for $1000 or under. Why so cheap? No overhead and no EPA regs.

 

[John61CT]

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2017/04/animals-etched-onto-dirty-cars-by-illustrator-nikita-golubev/

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

I am not confident in my ability to paint one myself that would yield a result that I would not be ashamed of . . . 

Vinyl wrap. My son had some wide vinyl stripes applied to his car . . .

Any of you done this? What are your thoughts? Is it hard and/or expensive to do yourself. Is the appearance the same as a paint job? If it doesn't look right can it be removed?

I agree with others here that you should get the van in good working order, interior built to the way you like it before worrying about the paint.  If you are only going to be on pavement (city, RV & government parks, etc.) wrapping your van would be an option, but IMO you will spend more $$$ and it will be as labor intensive as painting (surface prep is the same and you need to have at least a protective coat of paint).

If the body is in good shape except for the paint there are a number of ways you can go.  A basic rule of thumb:  lots of hard work vs. lots of money.  If Mexico is doable that might be an option.

I've painted a number of vehicles.  I don't find it easy nor cheap.  The first thing you need to decide is what is a good paint job to you: there is the 50 foot (looks good at 50 ft), the 10 foot, factory, and the concourse paint jobs; increasing in cost and labor.

Here is a documentary of the painting of a Corvair with rustoleum, brushes and rollers.  It will give you an idea of what is possible and he work involved:    http://www.rickwrench.com/index79master.htm?http://www.rickwrench.com/50dollarpaint.html

Here are just a few thoughts:

• Flat the paint covers a multitude of imperfections.  The shinier the paint the smaller and more imperfections are noticeable.  Look on military restoration sites; some of them are using flat house paint because of the high cost of military vehicle paints.
• Dark colors show more imperfections than light colors.
• Preparation is everything.  Good prep can cover for some imperfections in the paint.  The best paint job cannot cover for bad prep.
• You can sand out almost any imperfection; the closer to final coat the more tedious.
• You cannot spray much of anything in a breeze.
• It is possible to get a 10 ft paint job out of spray cans with some practice.  Flat is easiest, gloss hardest.  It gets more difficult as the size of the job increases.  Not sure how expensive it would be.
• Paint or vinyl stripes/patterns can cover lots of imperfections.
• Boondocking will scratch, gouge and tear vinyl wrap.  Will scratch and gouge paint; the softer the paint the easier it is to damage.  Others with experience can comment on bedliner, but I think it should be quite durable; probably damage body to panels before the bedliner.
• Removing paint is again labor intensive.  Softer, thicker paints are more work.
• Four things determine the difficulty of removing vinyl: how long it has been baked in the sun, vinyl thickness, how careful of the surface underneath you want to be and adhesive used.

That should be good for a start.  I'll probably think of more after I post this  :-/

Spraying is easy  . . .

Different people have a different idea of what constitutes an acceptable paint job.  I've not seen a 10 ft paint job put on without a lot of practice.  Orange peel, fish eye, prep, and technique are noticeable at that distance to an untrained eye.

 -- Spiff

 

[rvpopeye]

If you're not going for show quality , on a van down by the river the work is not as demanding......

 

[VanKitten]

It would be a great plan...except....I fully expect my Mom to live a fair number of years more. I have a home health aide 5 days a week...6-8 hours a day. (Insurance rules ... must not exceed $800 per week. Agency rules...no caregiver can work longer than 1 eight hour shift in any 24 hour period). The rest of the time...it is me. Mom cannot be alone...and she has a wild panic if there is a stranger in the house and she cannot find me.

So..each day, I cannot leave before 8am roughly, and must be back by 3-4 pm...latest.

 

[VJG1977]

I'v seen two DIY paint jobs using rustoleum and a foam roller. Walking by them in a parking lot you would not know they were not factory. The key factor is wind blown dust and trash in the paint.

 

[VanKitten]

I'v seen two DIY paint jobs using rustoleum and a foam roller.  Walking by them in a parking lot you would not know they were not factory.  The key factor is wind blown dust and trash in the paint.

Exactly right.    Wind and dust.    Cannot predict it, cannot control it.

 

[Bud Smiley]

Different people have a different idea of what constitutes an acceptable paint job.  I've not seen a 10 ft paint job put on without a lot of practice.  Orange peel, fish eye, prep, and technique are noticeable at that distance to an untrained eye.

 -- Spiff

True that. The car I painted looked good at 10 feet but sure wasn't concourse quality. I masked everything very well, had a decent HVLP gun setup, and was very careful about the following:

- always begin spraying off the car and move onto the car
- never pause the gun while spraying.
- never try to touch up a spot. Wait for the next coat.
- don't ever spray a heavy coat.

I'm sure pros can break all those rules but they kept me on the straight and narrow. I wet sanded between coats and I seem to recall putting own 4 coats. I sprayed it over the old paint after sanding it to rough it up (but not to bare metal). I did it in my garage after work, maybe an hour or two per night for about a week.

I got a little orange peel but it mostly went away with wet sanding. I believe the paint I used was a good part of that -- it's yacht paint and is a one part polyurethane with a very good gloss that self-levels. It looks much better than any of the spray paints I've seen used and it also holds up very well to UV and doesn't need to be clearcoated.


(all just my subjective experience; I would totally do it again and expect even better results)