Slow progress

The plan today was simple... to fill the screw holes in the body, apply the second coat of paint to the part as yet with but one coat and to roller paint the roof. As ever, things are never quite that simple. To start, the rivets were too large which necessitated a trip to the store for smaller rivets. While in the store, I picked up a couple of other goodies.

So, the plan upon my return was to coat each rivet in epoxy glue then to put it in the hole, rivet and cover over with glue. I believe I managed batches of 4 before the epoxy had hardened. Having done that, the side that had not yet been covered with a second coat had its second coat. During this phase I discovered that a better technique for painting was short brush strokes in a generally upward direction. I painted a couple of the supports then as the light was beginning to go, finished the whole of the back with a first coat, managing in some places to do sections in a single coat.

The light finally gave out and the paint can still had half a cupful of paint left. Rather than seal the can and come back to dried up paint wasted in the can, I opted to paint the hood by moonlight. Eventually, the hood had as much paint as the can had to give so the can and brush were tossed to one side. It was too dark to see to clean the brush - even if I knew where my girlfriend's sister's boyfriend kept the gasoline for the mower.

Tomorrow I get to see my handy work and will be able to fix errors. With luck, tomorow I'll manage to get the roller into action and do the roof. That will leave the supports, the rest of the hood and the front of the bus to complete. It's getting there. It feels very slow but it's definitely getting there. As ever progress is too slow for my liking.

The Rustoleum finish is soft. Branches could easily scrape the paint away, revealing a yellow finish. Thus, it will be a good idea to keep a can of spray paint in the bus. The price of a gallon of cellulose paint worked out at $386. Rustoleum is about $25 to $28 a gallon. You can see where I'm heading there! There's no immediately visible reason not to use Rustoleum. If it bubbles and peels off then I could look into other paints on the areas that are peeling. For the moment, with my current budget, $75 including brushes will have to do for the outer finish.

After the painting is completed, the front tow hook will be removed and the wiring rearranged so that the school bus only lights become a useful part of the braking and turning indication system. The stage after that will be to rearrange the windows and to fill two window apertures with aluminum sheeting. The stage after that will be to seal most of the windows then to put a privacy coating on several and paint those that won't be used black. The floor has to be dealt with before the windows though then the partitioning can be put inside. I'm optimistically hoping for January completion but it could be longer away.