Meeting the Queen of Paint

This afternoon we went over to Belmont to tour the paint shop.  It is in Mississippi, about 8 miles from Red Bay.  This place is huge!  It has at least 12 paint booths that I saw.  There is not guided tour...the guard gave us the overall layout and turned us loose.  So we wandered around on our own.  The stations we saw were not in any order, but here goes....

This RV was in a booth getting ready for some kind of paint.  It may have been clear coating.

These ladies appeared to be doing some inspection of the paint and putting on yellow masking tape where there were problems.

These guys in space suits are doing actual painting.  We were able to see them through the window in the booth.

This RV has just finished up in the "Super Clear Coat" booth.

Here is a rig all taped up and ready to go in to get the base coat.  From what I understood, the base coat is always white.

This is another rig being inspected.

Hard to see these guys painting.  It appeared that there was a lot of spray in the air, but I think that was just on the window I was looking through.

Here some workers are applying tape for the next set of stripes to be painted.

It appeared that there was some stripes being laid out on this rig.

Here is one that is getting ready for painting a level of stripes.

We were warned by the guard that there could be a lot of fumes in the air.  But there weren't really...and I suspect the reason is these huge pipes that pull air out of the booths and send it outside.

I overheard one worker scheduling the above rig for clear coating.  Fairly intricate art work on these.

For an extra few thousand dollars, they will continue the stripes on your slide walls too!  We didn't see the need for this option.

This bay was prepped to receive a coach and as we were walking away, one drove right in and they closed the doors.

This appeared to be some kind of spray or wash area.  Didn't see much happening here.

Outside of the plant there is a large parking lot.  This is where the rigs that are ready for delivery are stored until a driver can deliver them.  They are short of drivers, so if you need a job and have always wanted to drive really expensive vehicles,  this might be the place for you!

We were very fortunate to have done this visit to the paint shop when we did.  We saw that the color white that we saw on our RV paint scheme really wasn't white - it was "Chocolate White" which to me meant light tan.  We met with Melissa, the Queen of Paint to talk about this.  She said it was a white, but not pure white.  We looked into changing just that one color and she made up some change sheets, but we would have to take them over to the main sales office for costing and approval.  Basically, we wanted to use the white from another paint scheme.  Why that would cost money since they normally use that paint, is beyond me.

We went out into the pre-delivery storage area and found our color scheme (Maroon Coral) on one rig and saw an alternative on the other (White Mahogany).  Turned out we liked the White Mahogany better.  We went over to the sales office back in Red Bay and checked a few rigs there to make double sure....then went in and changed it with the sales office.

If you are buying one of the rigs new, I strongly suggest that if at all possible, you come to the paint shop in Belmont (8 miles from Red Bay) and actually see the color scheme you have ordered.  As the Queen of Paint said, the paper version does not do it justice.  You need to see it on a rig in the sun to be sure.  I know we would have been unhappy with our original choice and if we didn't come to Belmont, we would not have had the chance to get it corrected!