Today was less than stellar. The temperature outside was cool but not bad. It was about 55 Fahrenheit or roughly 13 centigrade. In Britain that would be a heatwave.
There was no actual plan for the day. I wanted to experiment. I've noticed the grey Rustoleum paint is flaking off the yellow paint on my bus and have also noticed that the grey is fading. Thus I thought I'd try a small experiment with the paint with a view of perhaps changing the color to white since white can't really fade.
In Walmart I'd picked up some 2 minute "advanced" remover. Selecting a cheap paintbrush that I won't be using again, I spread the gel liberally on an area of paintwork approximately one foot square. After 5 minutes I tried scraping with a plastic paint scraper. Sure - some came off but not very much and certainly not the multiple layers claimed on the tin. At that point I realised I'd been had and might just as well have spent the money on a bottle of Beaujolis. It would have had the same effect on the paint!
So, after much scraping I gave up on the funky chemical solution and dragged out the compressor and my Harbor Freight sand that apparently came from India. No wonder the Indian beaches are vanishing! I sand blasted for a good hour and didn't remove much paint which tells you right then and there that the peeling is not due to poor preparation but to poor paint. The paint that was peeling (and fading) is Rustoleum smoke grey.
Having finished with the sanding I pulled out a can of automotive primer and a can of Rustoleum white paint. I'm sorry folks - you know I hate this Rustoleum garbage but I just can't get any other brands locally. The spell checker wants to correct Rustoleum to "mausoleum" which is really quite apt. Anyway I sprayed with the primer and it did the common thing Rustoleum does and frothed out of the can, dribbling over my fingers and sprayed lumps onto the bus body. At that point I gave up on the primer and decided to try the "advanced formula" white paint. That came out of the can but looked absolutely horrible. It dribbled and ran and was more thinner than paint.
At that point I had had enough and pulled out a can of Rustoleum smoke grey. I know that color works. It did not take me long to spray the mess with grey paint. The result is a grey bus but that's better than before.
Fortunately I have a pot of white paint. My next step will be to wipe the bus down where I want to paint it, with thinner and then to roll white paint on using a roller. I want the bus to be white to reflect heat.
I'm not worried about Harbor Freight's white sand on the ground. I will probably use my black pulverized coal slag in the grit blaster next but only on areas where the paint is peeling or where the yellow is showing through.
This is probably why a lot of people do not bother painting their busses - the return on time and money invested just is not worth it. As I tell people - if you're going to hire somebody to build your bus or paint it, you'd be better buying an RV. School bus conversions are done solely for the converter's use. After the converter has finished with it they usually end up at the scrapyard as there are way too many converted busses out there and nobody wants somebody else's conversion - particularly since so many seem to be so half-assed and dangerous. It's all about return on investment.
The one takeaway from this is that anything claiming to be "advanced" is usually absolute garbage.
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