Paint Prep Work

Removal of Roof Coating on Curved Portion of Roof

I have spent the last two weeks removing the elastomeric rubberized roof coating from the curved portion of the roof. I applied it back in 2004, so it’s been on for 10 years. I’ll say one thing about the product, it’s hard to remove! I’m leaving about a 6′ wide strip down the center, front to rear. I’ll re coat that after the bus is painted. I used a heat gun and a wide scraper to carefully peel it off. I did have to use my orbital sander with 60 grit on the rear cap roof. It wouldn’t scrape very easily for some reason. It also took about two or three previous layers of paint. I had thought about removing it down to the bare aluminum, but I might just sand it before I apply the sealer primer. The primer that is there is in pretty good shape. I do know there are several coats of paint/primer underneath.

This is going to be a long process getting it ready. I’ll have to use a D/A sander with 320 to scratch up the blue I put on 7 years ago. I have lots of time and it’s a good project to keep me busy for a while.