Touching Up Exterior Paint

A lot of things have happened to, in, around this front corner. And as a result, it doesn't look that great anymore. In fact, there's spots where the paint is just plain gone. So if we go to touch this up, we're up against a couple things. This is white, but is it what kind of white? Can I just go and get a can of aerosol paint from a hardware store and spray that? Probably not. And even if I could get information from the manufacturer about a specific code for this paint, that's probably not gonna help me 'cause this paint's 23 years old. And if this camper lived outside, it's got weather and sun and all sorts of stuff going on. So here is this crazy cool thing. The crazy cool thing is places that do a lot of auto body work, as you might imagine, are frequently trying to match existing and older paint. And one of the ways they do that is maybe something you've already done. You take a chunk of something. You go to a home center. They put the chunk of something in a scanner, and they match that color. Now, the difference is when you find the right spot, you call 'em, and they put a scanner on the camper. So at a auto body place, they'd be putting it on a car, and they do the same thing. They scan the color. So the way that this worked for me was made a phone call, and it was an auto body place that referred me to a paint store. A service person from the paint store came to the camper, and they put the scanner right on the unit. And I was looking for scans of the white, and then there's kind of a blue and a teal, and I wanted paint so I could touch all of those up. Once they did that, then the next thing is often a phone call that says, "On a scale of 1 to 10, we can match the white to a 9. We can match the blue to a 7," or whatever. So they can give you a read ahead of time on how good a color match they think they're gonna be able to provide for you. From there, at the particular place I use, they were able to provide me with rattle cans, aerosol cans that are in the colors I'm using. Now, I went with one of the colors not in an aerosol can 'cause I wanna show you a different way that you can apply paint. Next thing for me, I'm gonna mask this off and this and this so we don't get paint where we don't want it. And then come back with the white and start filling in these bad spots. ♪ Shake it up, baby, now ♪ Follow the instructions. If it's a rattle can and it says, "Shake for a minute after the ball moves," shake for a minute after the ball moves. The other thing to consider here is one of the things I did is I put a big fan at the end of the building. Got windows open at that end. So I've got a lot of air moving through here. You wanna make sure that you have really, really good ventilation. And if you need to wear a mask, I actually have a breeze in my face right now, so I'm gonna be able to forego the mask. Speaking of masks, I've got stuff masked off. That's on the prep side. I also cleaned the surface. And just prior to putting the masking tape on, washing everything down with warm soapy water is gonna get the residue off of there so that the paint has every opportunity to stick. Now, as I spray, one of the things to watch for is on the areas really close to the corner, we need a fair bit of product there to make sure we get this covered. From there, we can kinda feather it out 'cause this white doesn't look bad. It's really right up here that it looks the grossest. So as I work away from that corner, I'm gonna feather it a little bit by moving away from the camper and then also maybe not holding the button down, but just kinda giving a burst of paint, a little short burst of paint instead of a full . Here we go. So down here, hit it, move away. Get it good, move away. More of the same with the white, and then with the blue what I'll need to is let the white dry. Then I can mask the white, hit the blue. But that other color, I wanna show you an alternative to the rattle paint. If it happens that you do a form of color matching at a home center or something like that and you can't get aerosol cans, without question one of the best ways to put paint on is with an aerosol can. Spraying paint always levels is out better than brushing or rolling paint. So there's a solution. Products like this are available, and this turns anything, any liquid into an aerosol can. The way it works is that you get a jar, and the jar is threaded on top to receive this, this being an aerosol can. So I can put whatever liquid in here I want, in our case paint for the camper. Then.... So I wouldn't wanna do a huge area this way, but as a solution that allows you to spray a paint instead of brushing or rolling a paint, I think it's a really, really good thing to know about. So whether it's your camper, DIY project, or something at home, this is a great way to do touch-ups. I'm wrapping up the paintwork here on the nose of the camper, and I'll tell you what, boy, am I glad I'm doing this. What a significant difference in the look of this thing. And that's with the masking tape on. So I can't wait to peel the tape off, and it's just gonna make this front corner look way more better. What's that song about the magic moment? This is looking good, and definitely worth getting done. The nose of this camper looks so much better than it did. So part of what I'm up against here, there's some caulk residue on there that I just plain couldn't get off. And net-net the overall now with the paint on there is so much better than it was. So I gotta kinda live with the square that's stuck on there. But if we did a before and after, the before and after is huge. What a gain.