Painting. We had originally wanted to paint the bus some ridiculous color like Lamborghini green. There is a beautifully hideous fluorescent green spray paint from rustoleum, unfortunately we were only finding it in spray paint cans and no gallons of it. So, we went with a Behr oil based exterior/interior paint. Before we could paint though, we needed to cleanup some of the stuff on the outside. Most of which involved removing lights and using a wire brush attachment thing for the angle grinder.
Clean up took an hour or two at night. Took off the former painted on school bus lettering. Had some scrapes on the side we had to clean up as well. I was kind of anxious about painting the bus. I’ve never painted a vehicle before and I didn’t know if there were some other things to keep in mind when painting. Anyways, we cleaned up the bus after work so we could get to work the next day.
So we had both canopies going. Started with some foam brushes and our rollers, eventually I got a system down on the sides where I didn’t need the foam brushes for the most part. Really just needed it for the top to get under the lip. You can also see the Roof Paint we used. We ended up using little rollers for that which worked out pretty well. We still need to get up there though and recaulk the seams.
We started with the front of the bus since we figured it would be the biggest pain in the ass to deal with. It wasn’t too bad, Matt stood up on the hood of the bus and painted the top using the roller and foam brush.
Mostly done there. We decided to paint the grill something different so we opted to leave it blank for now. I had braised some cheap beef cut which turned out really well. Fresh green beans and some roasted potatoes, great way to cap off the first coat of paint.
I wasn’t super excited about putting on the second coat. I figured it would take a little under the same amount of time as the first coat. I was completely wrong. We went through the 2nd coat in just over an hour.
We used those Purdy WhiteDove rollers. Those things are a little pricey but they worked out really well. Our roommate Phil sanded down the top light covers and spray painted them for us so we could put them back up. Also, I bought waaaaaaaay too much paint. 2 cans of paint was more than enough to cover the bus. I was thinking we would go through 4.. so for any other short skoolie converters, something to keep in mind.
We were so happy with a bus that was finally painted that we decided to take Sunday off and go to the beach!
