Clearcoat adventures

[Tonyf]

The clearcoat on our coach was in rough shape, so it had to be redone. The best way to repair peeling clearcoat is to completely sand and repaint from the base coat up. We did that for part of the coach, the hood and area above the bunk since ethe paint was completely gone anyway. The other areas we sanded and touched up. It turned out that there was a blend from the coach to the cab, making it had to match the paint. We ended up using the coach color on the cab, which was supposed to be International Warm gray, but who really knows what colors were used and they are faded anyway, making it more difficult. We repainted the gray, black, red, and medium gray areas. The orange is a 3 stage paint, it was in decent shape, just needs some touch up here and there, will do that latter. The Sherwin-Williams paint store was able to shoot the coach with their color gun and come up with a very close match. We did not take pictures of every step, was fighting the pollen and weather. We redid the front, big slide and driver side, and rear of the coach. We had a sign shop make a new graphic for the cabover. Overall it turned out nice, and the 25K or so it saved me was worth the effort. Still have a few areas that need a little work with blending and wet sanding, will do that in a month or so. Pics attached.

[Tonyf]

More pics, hope this helps someone.

[hossross]

Are you spraying all this outside? Is any top coat needed over the color coat you painted? I commend you for taking this on. Obviously you have above average painting skills, what did you use for spray equipment and what type of SW paint did you choose? Looks much improved and hopefully will last for 10+ years

[Tonyf]

Originally Posted by hossross

Are you spraying all this outside? Is any top coat needed over the color coat you painted? I commend you for taking this on. Obviously you have above average painting skills, what did you use for spray equipment and what type of SW paint did you choose? Looks much improved and hopefully will last for 10+ years

Thanks. It was all sprayed outside, with the exception of the front clip and cabover, I can pull the motorhome into my shop up until the first air conditioner. Then, we just hung a tarp from the garage door frame over the motor. Ten years ago I built a shop with a 12' door, thinking back then it would be fine for a tall trailer or MH, well the Supernova is 12'10" : Up until now, its worked fine for my race trailer and what not. I also built a scaffold out of scrap lumber to stand on, then and pulled the MH under it so could reach the cabover part, that part is alot large than you would think! Needed longer arms, so its not perfect, but will be ok, can't see the very top anyway. We ended up wet sanding the front clip several times. We sanded it, then had to wait for a few days for the weather to clear, in the meantime the pollen stuck to the sanded paint like glue, so the morning I primed it, it had to be wet sanded again with red scratch pads and heavy duty soap to remove the pollen .

We used a base/clear system -- 2-stage, so yes a clear coat is required, You'll get better results with a 2 stage system rather than trying to shortcut it with single stage paint. More work, but usually worth it. The clearcoat allows you to wet sand out any imperfections and dirt to a certain degree, then rebuff it to a high glass. Can't do this to a metalic single stage paint, or a metalic base coat for that matter, the metalic will look all wonky unless you re-spray it. The clear also allows you to mix a small amount of the basecoat in it to give it a slight tint, then use it over other similar colored areas to help blend it. I still have a few areas to rework to blend it in a bit, namely the A pillars -- will do that this fall. Pretty soon it will be too hot for me to paint outside, so it will have to wait. I used a Sharp Finex gun and the SW Dimension paint, the primer sealer for the hood was 3M that I had leftover from another project.

[hossross]

Thanks for the quick reply, and the additional details. Very helpful to me.

[pwerwagn]

Nice work Tony! Looks great!

[proost]

So I read this just after discovering that I have some uncracked bubbling starting on some original paint on our coach. Arrgghhh. I just wish there was a better way to repair the clearcoat lift than having to do a full repaint. I'm 43' - that's pricey! lol

[Tonyf]

Originally Posted by proost

So I read this just after discovering that I have some uncracked bubbling starting on some original paint on our coach. Arrgghhh. I just wish there was a better way to repair the clearcoat lift than having to do a full repaint. I'm 43' - that's pricey! lol

Understand! My son in law works at a body shop, what they do for cars going to auction, or for some of the rental companies, to take a high pressure air hose and blast off the loose clear coat, (that way they don't sand the metallic) clear it, then sand it and re-clear. It works so-so as long the as the base coat is in good shape. Who know how long it will last. I have yet to try it. YMMV.