This week began the process to transform the outside. Yesterday, it went through the wash bay and then four sanding stations. We didn't go to watch that as sanding is a messy business. So when we caught up with the RV, it was being prepped for the base coat.
Here you can see the masking tape covering the various parts that are not to be painted. This is just before it enters the first bay to be painted.
Now it is being given a couple of coats of primer. There are 4 painters in the paint bay The room is sealed off and fresh air is pumped up through a grate in the floor. It is sucked out of the room from a system in the ceiling.
The four painters in this room are all wearing protective suits and special soft helmets with clear visors. The paint guns are all driven from air compressors which also pump air into the helmets for breathing.
Above is what it looked like after the first primer coat. Almost the beginning of a camo paint job.
Now the painters are applying the first of four base coats. It is amazing to watch the color fill in with each coat. Instead of putting it on too thick and worrying about runs, they do four full coats whenever they paint anything!
Now the base color is on (it is a shade of white). It looks shiny but it will dry to a flat. After the painters finish at this station, they turn up the heat and bake the paint on.
Here is what it looks like with the base coat.
Now comes the interesting part. An army of ladies (we counted 9 at one time) attack the task of laying out the stripes. Long rolls of vinyl are created with the pattern cutout. So where the vinyl is, the base color will remain. Where there is no vinyl, there will be a stripe of a color. They carefully place the vinyl template on the side of the RV and then do it again for the next 3 layers. They do the same to the front and back.
When they peel off the backing, the vinyl remains.
There are a lot of uneven edges, like where slides are, or windows, or handles, etc. These are masked off with green tape to continue the stripe. It is really almost an art form to watch the team change an all white whale into a green and yellow striped RV.
Now the color black is being sprayed onto the stripes that will be black. Naturally they are doing 4 coats!
When they are done painting the black, they put paper over the area they just painted and use tape to hold it there. That way when they paint the next color, it won't ruin what they just painted.
Now they are painting four coats of a greyish color. When they are done, they will use tape and paper to protect that color too.
Lastly, they add the 4th color which is a deep mahogany. That color has a good amount of area to cover, so it takes a bit more time to apply all the coats.
They rolled it out of the painting bay just before quitting time. Looks kind of ugly at this point. Tomorrow morning, another army of workers will carefully remove all the tape and vinyl to reveal our butterfly. But tonight it is a chrysalis incubating before the transformation.
After they remove the tape tomorrow morning, it will go to another paint bay for stripe repair. They carefully go over all the stripes and flag any areas needing touch ups. They start tomorrow at 6am and we are staying 25 miles away. Plus I have developed a cold these last few days and Carol is a day or two behind me with the cold. So we will go over after we get up and check out of this hotel. We will stop by the paint facility to see how it looks and get some pics to share.
Then it gets several coats of clear paint to make it nice and shiny. After that, it gets baked and then taken back to the Red Bay factory for the addition of the final accessories like the awnings, trim pieces, etc. Early next week it has a final inspection which we will attend on Monday and Tuesday before leaving for home.
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