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I have a 1971 VW Westfalia camper bus. It was in bad need of a paint job when I got it. Someone had painted it with what I believe to be house paint. No bueno :( I decided I had to take care of it. I figured I would do it cheaply, but I wanted it to not be an embarassment either. The reason I was so interested in d.i.y. and cheap is because I want to take it camping but not stress about scratches etc. I wasnt shooting for show-quality paint here.
After some googling I came across 2 really good articles on painting your own vehicle with "Rustoleum", so I figured I was game. The two sites are:
The $50 Paint Job
A Cheapskate’s Paint Job
I used the $50 paint job for reference and Cheapskate's for moral support.
Please keep in mind this did NOT cost $50. It ended up costing me about $175, and 2-3 weeks of "spare time". I wanted to do a 2-tone paint job, so my time investment was doubled.
Apologies, but I did not track individual material costs closely, only the total.
Materials:
Two quarts of Glossy white Rustoleum
Two quarts of Sunset red Rustoleum
4-6 high density foam rollers and handles
4-6 touch up brushes
2-4 paint tray inserts
1 gallon of mineral spirits.
A few tarps or drop-cloths
A small container to put brushes in
Automotive masking tape
Orbital Sander (or by hand if you're a masochist)
60-grit wet/dry sand-paper
80-grit wet/dry sand-paper
100-grit wet/dry sand-paper
220-grit wet/dry sand-paper
800-grit wet/dry sand-paper
Dust Mask
2 Tack cloths
10-12 paint stir sticks
Spray bottle
After some googling I came across 2 really good articles on painting your own vehicle with "Rustoleum", so I figured I was game. The two sites are:
The $50 Paint Job
A Cheapskate’s Paint Job
I used the $50 paint job for reference and Cheapskate's for moral support.
Please keep in mind this did NOT cost $50. It ended up costing me about $175, and 2-3 weeks of "spare time". I wanted to do a 2-tone paint job, so my time investment was doubled.
Apologies, but I did not track individual material costs closely, only the total.
Materials:
Two quarts of Glossy white Rustoleum
Two quarts of Sunset red Rustoleum
4-6 high density foam rollers and handles
4-6 touch up brushes
2-4 paint tray inserts
1 gallon of mineral spirits.
A few tarps or drop-cloths
A small container to put brushes in
Automotive masking tape
Orbital Sander (or by hand if you're a masochist)
60-grit wet/dry sand-paper
80-grit wet/dry sand-paper
100-grit wet/dry sand-paper
220-grit wet/dry sand-paper
800-grit wet/dry sand-paper
Dust Mask
2 Tack cloths
10-12 paint stir sticks
Spray bottle
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Signing UpStep 1Prep work
Remove all of the trim pieces that you dont want to paint.
I decided for a bevvy of reasons that I was not going to do a lot of body work on it. Mostly for the same reasons I'm doing a cheap paint job: utility. Keep in mind, blemishes will show up quite nicely if you choose not to address them. Anyhow, with that being said, after you have the body in the shape you want, it's time to begin sanding off all of the old paint.
I began with some 60-grit paper and an orbital sander. MAKE SURE YOU WEAR YOUR DUST MASK.
It took me about 10 hours and 15 beers to get the paint off. After the 60-grit I went over it quickly with some 220-grit and it came out nicely.
(For what it's worth, I sanded out about 80% of the bondo that was already on it. Id rather have ugly and honest than a sculpture)
Next I did a small amount of bondo to clean up some pin-holes where I had some welding done, then cleaned the whole thing off with a tack cloth.
I decided for a bevvy of reasons that I was not going to do a lot of body work on it. Mostly for the same reasons I'm doing a cheap paint job: utility. Keep in mind, blemishes will show up quite nicely if you choose not to address them. Anyhow, with that being said, after you have the body in the shape you want, it's time to begin sanding off all of the old paint.
I began with some 60-grit paper and an orbital sander. MAKE SURE YOU WEAR YOUR DUST MASK.
It took me about 10 hours and 15 beers to get the paint off. After the 60-grit I went over it quickly with some 220-grit and it came out nicely.
(For what it's worth, I sanded out about 80% of the bondo that was already on it. Id rather have ugly and honest than a sculpture)
Next I did a small amount of bondo to clean up some pin-holes where I had some welding done, then cleaned the whole thing off with a tack cloth.
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But what fun is that?
This is NOT just a camper van, this is a classic!! and it is more than worthy of a real paint job...a cheapy paint job is what you do to a chevy Nova...or a ford escort wagon....but that's just me.
Once a hippie always a hippie....and this is a hippie's van.
I would love to have one of these!! It would be babied like crazy!!
But I have to say that even if you did things the cheap way, your basics were good...
I'm a VW enthusiast, and have had many Type 1s (and a couple of show trophies to go with them), but I don't regret the day I gave up my gorgeous 1961 Type 1 for this bus. I would trade all the good times I had in that bug for the first 5 minutes in the bus with the kids :)
We plan on having many more adventures in the bus for many more years :)
Thanks again for the feedback Sir James!
Cost and ease? You spent how long to do it? A good spray job you spray and walk away.
I started drooling when I saw your ride....lol
I went camping in the desert 1 time....let's just say it was a learning experience & leave it at that.
Spent 10 days in the hospital after that trip. :(
When I go camping, I head for the forest, that is where I feel at home. I know how to survive in the forest, get me in the desert & I'm not worth spit....
But you could save yourself a ton of time if you buy a cheap paint sprayer. I think mine was 50 bucks from one of those cheap tool catalogs. Then you could do this in a weekend rather than three weeks, a LOT less buffing too.
Thanks for posting!
Texturized paint is one of my favorites. I address dings and dents, but not with bondo, I camoflage or enhance to turn the damage into an artistic feature. Rustoleum has a black spray paint called Rust Converter, that's my biggest prep step.
Where your job literally took days, I can mask off large sections, prep with a quick sand to roughen the paint, put down rust converter where necessary, spray, add design and be done well before the sun goes down.
On top of the sprayed paint I've done designs with templates cut from manila folders. One design on an old van was a template cut into the shape of a tapering rectangle to resemble a flag repeated in a tapering pattern. I hope you can imagine it.
If the image uploaded successfully you'll see that I like white roofs and racing stripes. Craft stores sell stick on doodads like stars and colorful artistic designs in plastic and foam that can be used to turn dings and dents into features. If I do a design on one side I generally replicate on the other for symmetry.
Oh and nice job putting the instructable together. Looks great! I might need it for the '87 Toyota 4x4 Van I have now.
Thank god the spirit of the 60's is still alive and well!!!
You did a great job and it looks good (well, I would have preferred a psychedelic motif, but you have to live with it!).
but u must to do it better i belive i can do it
I've thought many times about doing an Instructable on the paint job I did on my BMW, but never got around to it; I now feel that you've relieved me of that guilt! Thanks! And thanks for the link to my site (now I know why the visitor count suddenly went through the roof!)
One note on the longevity of the paint; thus far it's been over two years since I painted the car, and it's held up remarkably well. It looks almost as good today as the day I finished buffing it. The car is parked outside nearly all the time (spent some time indoors waiting for me to get around to changing the clutch, but that's it) and has seen a pretty pathetic level of care. I've only washed it when needed and my son put a coat of wax on it this fall. That's it. I did find out that concentrating the spray from a a high-pressure wand on some bug splat on the leading edge of the hood wasn't a great idea; lost a little paint that day! But otherwise, no fading, no nothing. Very durable.
And for any skeptics out there, I bought a little utility trailer a few months ago that desperately needed a paint job so we wanted it to match our van.
While I was painting the trailer, the paint was such a good match to the van I thought "why not" and prepped the van for touch ups on all the scratches and such, all the way around my van. Rustoleum works like a charm! It's true it's not the cheapest spray paint but it's a fair price and my trailer and my van look great!
In my dreams, i'm coating my car with a super hard epoxy that's had carbon nan-dust infiltrated in it (paint is for chumps who like pretty cars). I will add your advice to my bucket list.