Pootle goes to the paint shop
After the welding work was complete it was time for the Pootle to go for paint. I came across the guys at Unique Auto Paint Solutions when a work mate called me and said a friend of his who ran his own paint shop was having problems with his paint booth, so I went down to Anniesland Ind. Est. to meet David. We made a deal that I would repair the faults with the booth and when the time came he would do me a deal to paint the van.
But that was back in September 09 and it was now February 10 so I was a bit worried when I phoned David out the blue and said the van was ready for paint but true to his word he said bring it in for a look.
So Susan and me took the van down for David to have a look, the original plan was just to paint the repaired panels and try to blend old into new as we didn't have the money for a full respray but David thought this would not be very easy and the results might not be the best, as there are so many different areas of the van requiring paint and the original paint was quite faded.
So after much thought a deal was struck to give the Pootle a full respray, he took off a lump sum for the work I done for him, I agreed to strip the Pootle of all the lights, bumpers, bright work etc. to keep the labour down and we could pay him half this month and half the next month which we were all happy with, so the next morning I began to strip the van ready for David and Chris to begin the prep work.
The pic's above show the large amount of prep required before the Pootle would even see the inside of the paint booth, I think this is why a lot of the paint shops out there do not want to take on old vw projects I don't even think David realised how much prep would be involved.
The pic's below show the bus in the booth all masked up ready for some primer.
Then it was time for some colour, we went with the original vw tigra green which only came as a 2 pack paint which meant it would require to be flattened then polished after receiving a few coats of colour which meant even more work for the guys at Unique and with the dead line of Pop yer camping cherry coming at the weekend we all had a lot of work ahead.
So with the Pootle wearing his new shiny paint it was time to begin flattening and reassembly so that's were I come back in.
The pic's below show the Pootle all back together looking as good as the day he left the Wolfsburg factory.
We would like to thank David and Chris of Unique Auto Paint Solutions in Anniesland Ind. Est. Glasgow for all there hard work, we were over the moon with the results and would highly recommend them to anyone needing some paint for there resto project and they would be happy to take it on as they have caught the bug for the vw scene, give them a call on 0141 959 3484
With the outside of the bus looking so good it was time to carry out some work in the cab. The seat were in poor condition and not the original one for the Berlin interior and both door cards were missing.
We were very lucky to find a second hand per of green westifalia plaid seat covers in fairly good condition on ebay and Doods was kind enough to give us 2 blank cab door cards he had lying around. So we stripped down the seats and replaced the foam and covers and bought some cheap grass print vinyl and wading and fitted to the blank cards and fitted some new black carpet around the wheel tubs.
