Sunday, February 3, 2013

A New Layer of Paint

We chose to paint Westly with a 2-part aerosol epoxy product called Spray Max 2K.  Turns out, it's pretty awesome stuff - you crack the activator at the bottom of the can, shake, and spray.  They make a primer, a base, and a clear that are all of pretty great quality, and paint colors are custom-mixed by dealers (thanks 66autocolor.com!).  In all, the process took us about 3 months to put all the paint on (I miscalculated the amount of paint we needed, so we had to place a few more orders).  The black spray on the inside is Spectrum sound deadening paint, made by Second Skin.  We figured that if we're going to spend some serious time in this van, we might as well make it a little quieter.  Surprisingly, this stuff makes a HUGE difference.  In all, we're very satisfied with the paint job - there are a few minor blemishes, but for a rattle can job, everyone seems to be impressed!


Friday, February 1, 2013

Westly Gets Naked

After a few camping and fishing trips, Chrissy and I knew that we could get more use out of the van with some new cabinets, and while the bright green paint-job was great for the 80's, Westly needed a new look.

Bids for new paint hovered around $10k.  I wasn't about to shell out that much, and we figured we were well capable of doing a decent job ourselves.

We tried fitting Westly in our garage to paint him.  It was a tight fit...  Wasn't gonna work...


Luckily, my roommate was generous enough to lend us a giant space at his shop.  With the help of our buddies, we were quick to strip Westly of his cabinets, furniture, and accessories.  Soon after, it was hours upon hours upon hours of sanding, bondo, sanding, and more bondo.  Turns out that a good portion of the panel behind the sliding door was poorly patched before, and some bondo magician had managed to cover up some pretty bad body damage - albiet poorly: