Painting the Van Issues – Which Method works best? – Iveco Daily Van Conversion Week 7
Painting the van issues have been a plenty! Both Mark and I have been losing the will so what method works best?
To Roller or not to Roller
If you have scoured youtube as much as we have you will have also seen that roller painting your van seems to be the most popular option. We found roller painting to give a horrible orange peel effect no matter what we did. We tried various different paint consistencies. Various different rollers. Sanded down between coats and arghhhh is the only way I can describe it.
Every part of my body aches as does Marks so if you opt for doing this yourself be prepared to graft!
Tools and Techniques we Tried
After having many disasters with the rollers we also tried painting the van with a paintbrush and just by chance I picked up some paint pads from the Range and they seemed to give the best finish.
The pads have a soft almost velvet texture. Although as you will see from the video there were varying finish results from them as well.
Sanding Between Coats
The sandpaper went from 400 grit to 320 to 240 and there was a lot of sanding and I really mean a lot.
To date this has definitely been the most challenging and arduous, even relentless job we have done on the van.
What Would We Do Differently
When or technically if we ever do this again, there are a few things we would do differently. First if I had to hand paint (instead of spray paint) I would definitely not over work the paint. I would leave it to sit and just walk away. I would also go into the job knowing that many, many hours of sanding will take place!
Ideally I would actually just get someone else to do it or spray paint it.
For us, we really showed the up close and personal finish of the pain at each stage and I think that is the biggest difference as from a distance it looks amazing. Only up close do you get to see the imperfections.
Which Method Works Best?
So, conclusion time. What method works best? Well after using various different rollers and getting orange peel each time I would say if you like that effect then it would definitely be quicker to paint your van that way. However if you are looking for a smoother finish then the paint pads that have more of a velvet texture are definitely the way to go.
If you missed the start of our painting the van journey you can catch that in our previous post.
After a few people from our Facebook Page asked about the products we used I created an easy to shop Van Build List on our Amazon Shop we may get a small commission when you click on our links at no additional cost to you and as always appreciate your support.
Join us in Week 7 where we complete the van painting after a lot of trial and error with varying techniques! You can also see how our Iveco Daily van Conversion has been progressing.
