Day 9 – Our Tiffin Allegro Bus 45LP Build

Today, we earned our stripes.

Our colored stripes that is.

Reminder, the yellow is all the masking that is used to make the design.

So yesterday we had all the vinyl graphics and tape sectioning off our stripes. Today all the colored stripes get painted into place using those graphics and taped sections.

In order to get the individual stripes painted, one color gets sprayed on. Then the paint team has to put down the paint guns and mask off another stripe area. Then another stripe color goes on. Then more masking and the last colored stripe gets applied.

Yes that seems like a lot of work, and you would be correct. But that really is the only way to get the clean lines of the stripes.

Once the coach leaves the striping paint booth it looks more tie-dyed than anything. It’s also time for another inspection and touch-up as they remove the masking to revel the actual design. You see, with all the careful masking off of different sections, sometimes when they pull the tape off a small line could get messed up or paint may have gotten under the masking itself.

This is where the coach really starts to look like a finished coach…almost. When the team starts taking off the masking from painting the true colors and design start to emerge.

Once the coach is fully revealed it looks totally different than just a couple hours ago. Now the team starts going over the coach once again inspecting every detail and line. They mark some areas that may need a little touch-up and mask those areas off.

Now don’t panic. This may seem like a lot of masking but it really isn’t. All the paper that you see may only be surrounding one little striped area. The paper is just to protect the rest of the coach when they spray.

We believe that Tiffin is the only company that takes this extra step in re-inspecting after striping and touching-up any blemishes during the line build process.

They also need to spray the sides of the bedroom slides as the striping paint team can not get to them with the paint gun when the main living room slides are open for initial paint. They are too close.

So into the touch-up booth it goes.

The touch-up booth is a long drawn out process. The people here really go over every last inch of the coach and fix anything that may need it.

David is sitting and just waiting for the paint to dry so it can move on to the next area. Actually he is waiting for them to finish so we can inspect it again along with the paint team.

Finally the coach emerges from the booth.

It goes through yet another inspection as the next booth is when they paint the clear coat. So anything that may need to be fixed up is easier to fix here than after the clear coat is applied.

Now we’ve come to the end of another long day. Tomorrow we will start getting our first coat of clear.

So may I present to you (in matte finish without clear coat) our color design…

“Solar Storm”. (Ok, not the yellow part either.)

Now keep in mind that the paint right now is more of a matte finish, like a chalkboard. So don’t be alarmed.

Tomorrow after it gets cleared it’s going to pop right out at you. (Or so it should.) And did we mention that each paint has color changing effects? Well it does, hence something you may see in the sky during a solar storm with the atmosphere changing color.

Here is the time lapse video of todays activity. If you like these, please be so kind to Like or Share, or whatever you may do. :)

These are the photos of the process taken today.  Please use Show PicLens for best viewing.