The weekend days when not painting the caravan were spent painting all the parts we had removed, including gutters, doors, door handle, hinges, the aluminium trim around the door, gas box, roof spoiler, wheel spats and the weather covers from above the windows. The ali parts got two coats of etch primer, then everything received two coats of primer/undercoat followed by two coats of gloss. Paint was applied by brush to the smaller parts, and by roller on the doors and gas box. We screwed the small and narrow parts to strips of scrap wood to make handling them easier.
 |
| Etch primed |
 |
| Primed |
 |
| Painted |
With fresh paint on everything, Lou felt the inside of the doors now looked shabby. These were sanded and then spayed with aerosol paint. We used Rust-Oleum plastic primer and direct to plastic gloss white paint, all specially formulated for use on plastic. We chose the spray as it can be re-coated after one hour and is fully dry in 24 to 48 hours, much sooner than the seven day curing time of the Tekaloid products.
 |
| Paint reaction. |
Warning! These Rust-Oleum sprays are sometimes advertised in conjunction with their Crystal Clear protective coat ("frequently bought together" on Amazon). The gloss white paint isn't very glossy, and we thought this clear coat would be like lacquer. The first time we applied the Crystal Clear, it reacted with the paint and gave a crinkled finish. I thought the air temperature may have been too cool, so stripped all the paint off and re-sprayed primer and paint. I also sprayed a test piece and tried the clear coat on this. The paint had been on the test piece for over a week and the air temperature was 25°c. The result was not as bad as the first time, but was still crinkled. The Crystal Clear went in the bin and the finish of our sprayed plastic parts is disappointingly more satin than gloss.
Click here to go to the next page to continue reading our story.
