Katrina Gets Paint!

Lots going on....so much that we have been spending weekends in a Motel near the shop. It's an inexpensive old place but we enjoy it and the restaurant next door as well as  being close to the trailer. The Kalama River Inn has been around since 1955 and boasts an Elvis stay back in 1962 while he was en-route to the Seattle Worlds Fair - with pictures to prove it.  We did stay in the "Elvis Room" and talked about how down to earth even famous people were back then - can you imagine any "star" of today staying in a place meant for mere commoners like us?

Anyway about Katrina...

We have been furiously working to get paint on Katrina, so many "little" projects to complete prior to spraying the paint. As much as we would love for her to be perfect she will not be winning a Ridler award that is for sure. So many dents and dings in the skin that we just decided to sand the filler that we applied and paint. Otherwise it would be another month of repair work for not much better result - don't get me wrong she looks great and will look even better after I do the Turquoise highlights this weekend.

Lori is such an amazing worker! She hates ladders and heights but decided that she would get on the roof to apply the Eternabond RoofSeal tape  (which she also found online and told me about).  This stuff is great! She cleaned all the seams and vents on the roof and applied the tape - DONE! No elastomeric paint to apply, what a time and mess saver! She (Lori) is my pride and joy and I appreciate her so very much.

There's my girl! Even though she hates it she is up there fixing the roof seams.

She accomplished cleaning and applying the EternaBond tape in one LONG evening while I prepped  for paint

Before and after, this stuff is great!

Here she is sanded... I should have stripped the paint while the panels were off as I originally intended

Most of the paint got sanded off - which is a lot more work then stripper

The back all ready and polished too

Masked up and nearly ready to spray

We took our time and made sure she was clean prior to masking

The orange tape is vinyl to leave a nice sharp line between the painted and polished areas 

Very little original finish remains

Up and down the ladder all day, who needs a gym?

We rigged temporary light in the shed for spraying which worked out great

Nothing fancy but it turned out really good - no dirt in the paint at all

There she is again, we cleaned it three times with wax and grease remover and then once with  anti-static

First pass spraying the sealer

I used a shield the first time around but it fogged up

Each time around the trailer took about 45 minutes - I applied one coat of sealer and two coats of color 

It was pretty uneventful although quite a workout - I managed to get the paint down flat with no dry edge

Overspray was not too bad

The paint and sealer went on nicely - I bought it on eBay and it was a bargain. Great  paint too!

My inexpensive Sharp HVLP gun worked just fine

Although the paint comes with hardener/reducer I thinned it an additional 10% as I used low air pressure due to my compressor size - these are the reducers I used

Here's the paint I bought, I'll use it again as it seems to be very good quality - especially for the price

Applying the first color coat WOO HOO FINALLY!

It was WORK getting around her 

Lori assisted by making sure my air hose did not get in the way or tangled

My compressor barely kept up but it all worked out 

First coat all done

 

All done!  This was a great day!

I pulled some paper back after cleaning up - the paint had flashed off and I was anxious to see the contrast  against the polished aluminum

We left for a few hours and returned to unmask it completely 

We are very happy with the results 

I am looking for a bumper with some character, I do not want the square tube type and will buy an Airstream style sewage hose storage holder  

 

Well I guess I've got to finish restoring the windows now... That's next up window install and turquoise paint stripe