Building a Motorhome - Day 8

On day 8 the motorhome got its full body paint.  We had decided to make a modification to one of the standard color schemes offered by Tiffin.

The day started with prepping the coach for the base coat.  This involved covering windows and other things that shouldn't get painted.

Our coach in the prep area

People working on the roof are secured by a safety harness.

This gal was applying molding which covers the joint between two sections of fiberglass.

This is one of the painting booths.  The booths have a downdraft system to pull paint fumes out of the room.

Our coach in the booth, prepped and ready for the base coat.

One of the painters getting fully suited up for spraying.

Some of the upcoming pictures had to be taken through paint booth windows of various clarity.

Cleaning the surface with tack cloths.

Spraying on multiple coats of the base coat

Base coat done, ready to move along for pattern masking.

In the next station, the masks for the paint pattern are applied.

The paint pattern masks are supplied on a series of rolled up, pre-cut, stick-on, contact-paper-like patterns.  The patterns are on a heavy craft paper, and covered by a peel-off sheet of paper.  Two workers hold the unrolled pattern straight while a third worker peels away the cover paper.

They then carefully position each section to the correct location on the coach and then use plastic blades to press the pattern onto the body.

The fully masked coach in the stripe paint booth where three additional colors will be added to the paint pattern.  This masking will preserve areas where the base coat will be left visible.

The paint kit for our coach.

The first color is sprayed in the desired parts of the pattern

After the paint dries (just a few minutes) the areas in the pattern with this first color are covered with masking before the next color is applied.

Now other areas of the pattern are painted with the second color.

Then the areas painted with the second color are covered.

Finally the third color is sprayed on the remaining unmasked areas.

This was the final step for this day.  We would have to come back the next morning to see the results.