Roughly 9 months ago we came up with an idea for a red & white stripy bus we could all travel in around Canada and North America…  about 2 months ago we purchased said bus and embarked on the journey of transforming the appearance from a beige 1981 GMC Citation with mission brown speed stripes to Barry. Not once up until then did I realize or consider how hard it could actually be, so if you’re thinking about repainting, wrapping or making something crazy out of found and donated objects have a read of this before hand for a little inspiration and maybe some helpful hints.

Firstly…  Research!!!  Have multiple options so you don’t get half way through the first coat and have to move on or realize you are actually painting the rest of the cars in the car park as well…  for all those land pirates out there.

Measure and plan…  it doesn’t have to be down o the millimeter but having a rough guide will mean less of the ‘F’ word later on…  and more money in your pocket at the end of it….

So we had three options, One was to hire an airless house painting system coupled with a 1000w generator from ‘RONA’, wheel it to the far car park where Barry would be waiting clean and masked. Load it with flexible exterior paint and pray to the almighty sky turtle that we had what it took…

Option Two was to spray paint it in the alley next to Third  (Graffiti/paint shop down town)  and have to deal with all the crack heads.

Option Three was to use spray paint like Option Two but do everything in the shade of the maple trees and at the relaxed pace of Trout Lake…

Obviously Option Three was chosen as we would have more overall control on the situation. The devil and his spicy advocate played a huge part in deciding the where aboots and how-aboots we would do this… “What if its windy or raining when you hire the air gun?”,  “You’ll paint half the car park.”,  “Coppers don’t give a shit what your doing, they want you to leave regardless.”,  “Have you any idea how long it will take to paint this thing?”, to which we answered “No?”

We hadn’t even started yet and it was amounting to a stressful and daunting task…  Lists were written, plans were planned and shits were lost….  Some sand paper was purchased along with masks, gloves, sponges, a bucket, 7 rolls of green masking tape, TSP (washing solution) and 34 cans of white Montana spray paint…  Well two lots of 17 but lets not get into that…  And some ‘fat caps’ to get the most paint onto the the surface whilst painting and we were set….

The sanding took us two days to complete with only uncle Trout and Cpt. Yom slaving with buckets of water and wet & dry sandpaper getting into all the grooves and panels of our new home…  The Vancouver baptist church played in the background and we smiled.

Upon washing Barry with the specialized detergent to free his skin from dirt and oil revealed that the past two days had been worth the pain and our canvas was sufficiently prepped for the transformation.

Step three…  Masking…  Prepare to get bored shitless…  Because I did, but don’t lose hope the same tape which is stealing every part of your creative and patient soul will be your ticket to pure joy in a couple of steps.

Once all the fiddly headlights, indicators, generators and locks have been masked and you have news print coving your windows, like a crack house, it’s finally time to paint. The only thing that will effect the paints finish now is the weather…  Getting too hot, too cold, too windy or rain which is the worst because it softens the adhesive in the tape and gives you a big messy headache. Thankfully that didn’t happen to us although the wind halted production for a couple of days and made the finish a bit rough on one side of Barry and my hair and beard sticky like you wouldn’t believe…  Sorry I digress.
Early in the morning is probably the best time to paint because the air is still so you don’t lose too much  paint in the wind. Apart from the couple of days of wind everything went off with out a problem. I still have visions of explaining to a group of angry ‘RONA’ staff and customers why there is flexible exterior paint on their new Prius’ and monster trucks…

Now comes joy…  Pulling off the tape reveals Barry’s swanky new suit… 

INSERT:  Celebration dance, Celebration Drink(s) and celebration smokey… (not the hideous sausage).

The next step involves purchasing a 150ft roll of red vinyl sticky stuff and relearning year 10 maths…  As it turns out Pi r squared = Barry Pimpin & The Cosmic Barbers…  Who’d a thunk it?

Hot tip from a pro.
“Start on the side people don’t see as much.” This was the best piece of advice we were given as we are neither car painters nor vinyl car wrappers and we were sure to ‘F’ it up. After the first stripe we only got better just do it in the shade and if you can use a hair dryer to heat up the vinyl to manipulate it into the cracks, do so it will give you a smoother finish.

At least 3 full days, 2 people and as many beers and Miki’s of Fireball that money can buy should be accounted for this hefty task.

Always take a step back and make sure what ever your doing is straight, especially when drinking Fireball. Otherwise we would of had a bus covered in wonky stripes…  And ya don’t want that do ya?

Barry’s endearing facial hair is constructed from vacuum cleaner hose, metal rod, 3 different types of tape, chicken wire, bike helmet padding and an obscene amount of bicycle inner tubes. Everything but the inner tubes were used in layers to create the tapered form whilst retaining a non porous nature as it lives on the outside…  The inner tubes were then attached with cable ties length ways in even sections then additional inner tubes were woven through to provide texture and form whilst ironically hairdressing techniques were used to taper the ends of the ‘stache into a point.

All in all, the transformation took about three weeks to complete and cost close to $700 for all the materials with plenty left over to make signs and various other things.

Thank you to Mario and Cam the Kiwi’s who talked us out of the house paint and car parks…  Jen and Viv for the use of your hose and your precious view of Trout Lake, and for loving, not hating.
Also to Bikes on the drive for all the Helmet padding and Tusia for all of your gifts especially the inner tubes and the JBL’s they flippin rock!

breakfast, lunch and blog!