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Prep & paint
When we purchased the slide on on the 31/08/10 the wombat that previously owned it thought it would be a good idea to try a bit of DIY on the exterior glass finish with an ANGLE GRINDER!!! thus leaving the whole thing riddled with little half moon crescent shapes in the gell coat and the ribbed profiles, he then painted it with some unknown "off white" color paint that to me looks like somethin ya would purchase for $3 a 44 Gal drum full, oxidized, flaking, dry dead paint overall it's a bloody mess he suggested my best bet was to get it sand blasted to remove the old paint hahaha ya can just imagine the effect that would have on the glass mat and the resin.
Anyway this of course makes my job ten times harder in my prep work trying to get the whole thing flat again although white is a pretty forgiving color as opposed to say black it will have to be extremely forgiving in this case.
So after much thought i have decided to do it in a textured finish using a "U-pol" gun the same sort of finish you see on the rocker panels on cars AKA stone chip finish, anyway it is black i will then seal that in a primer surfacer then top coat in Arctic white (factory landcruiser color) then use up the rest of the tin of clear coat i have left so hopefully it should come up nice in a textured finish and save me a month of Sundays on prep work.
Being glass construction you can get away with type of finish i think it would look terrible if you were to apply this type finish on an ally clad van.
I have cut an example out of a pic in Paint shop pro (2 below) but this example is not to bad but it gives ya an idea of what not to use when prepping fiberglass DON'T USE AN ANGLE GRINDER!!!
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U- Pol gun (above)
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What a mess, the result of a peanut and his grinder
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textured finish i am hoping to achieve slightly less course though than in the back of the ute,
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I have never seen so much moss and small lichens on a roof than on here.
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Any potential leaks are sealed with a special paintable bitumen based tar this of course will keep any moisture out, when it has properly cured it will be painted white.
