The day started out as windy and cloudy.  We were very worried that our planned painting day was not going to happen!  When someone is painting outside, care must be taken to paint on a warm day with minimal wind.  This is so that nothing being blown about will stick to the paint.  Fortunately, the clouds cleared, and the wind died down… Hallelujah!!  I was slightly bummed to find a swarm of Mosquitos that had decided to land on the hood yesterday.   They were dead, and it only took a few swipes of a 180 grit bit of sandpaper to erase their body and prints from the dried primer. 

The wind held off, and we continued painting!  We diluted this paint, the Hunter Green Professional Rustoleum, with about a pint of acetone per gallon.  We used the same application technique (with the spray gun and air compressor) as we did with the primer, yesterday.  Today we only used one gallon of paint, albeit we did not paint the roof of the bus.  Why? Well, we are waiting to discover the temperature increase within the bus on a warm day with a dark-painted roof.  It seems silly, but here in Colorado (especially in the mountains where we will be parking), it’s seemingly cold out much more than it is warm out.  Added warmth from a dark roof will be greatly appreciated, especially in the winter.  If we find that we indeed like the solar, radiant heat from the ceiling… We will paint the roof with the same green color as the rest of the bus. If we get unbearably hot in there, we will just paint the roof white.   Roof color and heat thereof, is an important consideration for many ‘skoolies’, and is a decision we will have to experience before deciding on. 

While I painted outside, Justin and one-good-armed Anders ground down the dome rivets (with the grinder), and drilled the hollow rivets.  In order for us to share the power cord for the grinder and the air compressor, we had to reverse the Wolfbus back 30 feet (blocking our driveway).  She fired right up today, yeah!  The guys were able to pull down the first ceiling panel, yay!!  Now that we have the riveting removal technique down, it’s only a matter of time until the rest of the panels are off, then the insulation will go in!

Also, I even made a stencil depicting a rock outcropping called Horsetooth Rock well known here in Fort Collins! It turned out pretty well I think, but perhaps to some people unfamiliar with the natural feature,it might just look like a weird painting accident.  I’ll have to wait and see how much we like it. 

After the paint dried, we re-installed and caulked the windows in.  For some reason, they were more of a pain to put back in… than it was to take them out.  We really had to convince quite a few of those windows to get back in.  The screwdriver and hammer immensely helped in their ‘convincing’. 

We had to ‘call it a day’ early today, so Justin could watch the season premiere of Game Of Thrones.  Next on our agenda is getting that ceiling down!  Thanks for reading, too-da-loo!

–Kelsey