I’m painting a 28 foot Argosy camper for a friend. For free.

Lizer

Lizer

Mad Scientist
As the title suggests. It’s been kind of fun so far. My friend has done all the prep work and I’ve guided him through the process. It had been repainted at some point with what looked like latex house paint.

He sanded 80% of it off with 80 grit and did some misc repairs and removal of parts on the outside.

It will be painted factory colors. A light beige on bottom third and top 2/3 is a cream white. This year we will only have time to get the beige on.

We primed the bottom yesterday with 2 coats epoxy. Here’s what we started with:

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We then sanded the bottom with 150 grit on a rotary buffer to take care of the 80 grit scratches and then 220 grit on DA. After that point it was 95% bare aluminum. I didn’t take any pics of that. He might have some.

We masked everything up (he did most of it, I masked the delicate things), and then cleaned the work area with solvent WGR.

I mixed up 4 26 oz cups epoxy to start. Did two medium wet coats. He followed behind me holding my hose (that sounds wrong) to keep it out of my way, and he also ran interference to keep bugs off the panel.

In the end I used 1 sprayed gallon exactly (130 ounces total) and we only had one bug that landed in the entire job.

Not a single fisheye, no craters, no peel, no trash. Came out surprisingly nice for outside and this big of a spray.

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Today I will be spraying single stage on the bottom, 2 coats Motocryl.
 
So far so good. I haven’t sprayed this single stage yet but it’s real easy, and your gun setting suggestions have worked well and got me close.

It sprays just like epoxy, I think. We did the end caps, masking at the seam to use the seam as a break point. Then we’ll mask over the sprayed part and spray the sides. This is two coats. Fugly color but, that’s the 70’s for you.

No runs and only a few bugs.



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Dang that's a lot of real estate!
If you weren't a good painter when you started, ( I know you are.) you will be when your done. You sure will get some gun time in.
And it's good of ya to volunteer, friends like that are hard to find.
 
We got it finished as much as we could but CHAD didn’t send me enough hardener so could only get it 3/4 finished. I’ll order more hardener tomorrow and shoot the rest Tuesday night while we’re still in the recoat window.

I’m happy with the way it’s turning out. Physically it’s very taxing to stay crouched in one position for so long to maintain consistent speed and gun distance, and I’m wearing a paint suit so the water is pouring off me. The peel looks factory.

To join the paint at the seam we just placed a piece of cardboard against it when I was coming up to it and made for a seamless transition in the paint.

The 70 F250 I’m currently restoring for my uncle will be using this same single stage so I’ll be looking forward to painting that next summer.

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I painted the other side late last week. This time the weather was more favorable. The temps were cooler and the air was still. Painting the other sides we had a stiff breeze and I had to hold the gun pretty close to the panel lest it blow everything away. It made it difficult to get a smooth wet coat.

The last side was different though with favorable weather conditions. Had to do it after work so didn’t get started until 7 pm but only had a few bugs.
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You're a better friend than most. I hope your buddy appreciates it. One thing that many may not realize is how tiring it gets holding the gun for extended periods like this. Bet your arm and shoulder feel it tonight. :)
 
Chris_Hamilton said:
You're a better friend than most. I hope your buddy appreciates it. One thing that many may not realize is how tiring it gets holding the gun for extended periods like this. Bet your arm and shoulder feel it tonight. :)
Click to expand...
My arms weren’t so bad but my lower back, in my coccyx region, was pretty pissed off for several days from holding a sustained crouch.

My friend’s reaction is why I did it, because he’s absolutely beside himself. I get way more out of that than somebody handing me cash that I’ll spend on something that didn’t make me as happy. And they’re really good friends. They reciprocate which is why I have no qualms helping him and for me it was something new to try.
 
Just to update this, I finally finished the top half this year. Paul did all the prep work and I simply squirted it. It’s a solid 10 footer given the prep work but I still tried to shoot it as slick as I could given it’s not getting cut or buffed!

i gotta say it wasn’t too bad to do and actually was kind of fun!

The roof was a little interesting. I climbed on top in fresh clean socks and bent over while spraying two wet coats of either epoxy or single stage at a time. Spraying at midday, the roof was so hot I could barely stand on it; it was burning my feet and I had to be continually shifting them around. At one point I tried to get on my knees but it would burn my knees. After that we stuck to only spraying in the mornings before the metal heated up so much.

Also, despite the fact that this was sprayed entirely outside, there was way less trash in this than anything I get in my booth.

And we pushed this to the limits of exactly how robust a paint system can be; we were abusive! There were several times when I had rain on fresh single stage that was maybe an hr old. They were times that epoxy was sprayed at 8 o’clock at night and then it got cold that night. There were times that epoxy was sprayed at 8 o’clock at night, and the dew was so heavy that the epoxy was completely blushed the next day. And several times where I was spraying in the morning and some wet dew would blow out of a crevice. I’d blot it with a shop towel, hit the spot again and keep on going! Our saving grace through all of this was the fact that this sat outside the entire time so the heat and sun generally worked in our favor.

For me the goal was to simply get the paint on the damn thing.

He’s still putting it together and adding the trim, but my part is complete. Now I can say I’ve sprayed an entire camper (with an LPH400 to boot).

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One important thing is after painting if you have not done it already, is a transparent silicon around anything that is added to the coach.
Water is the enemy of all RVs.
On the roof, they use a unique self-leveling sealer around dishes, air units, or exhaust fans.
 
Barry said:
One important thing is after painting if you have not done it already, is a transparent silicon around anything that is added to the coach.
Water is the enemy of all RVs.
On the roof, they use a unique self-leveling sealer around dishes, air units, or exhaust fans.
Click to expand...
He’s been using some kind of sealant he bought from Airstream.
 
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