Tag Archive for: Rejex

Spring Cleaning

/4 Comments

That was the roof of my coach after I had spent 8 or 9 hours washing, drying, detailing and buffing last spring. I think it turned out really well however I should have protected the roof right from when we first took delivery of the coach. I had used Rejex on the body of the coach back then but left the roof unattended. And even though the coach was still relatively new, it was a much bigger job than I expected to get the surface of the roof clean and well protected a year or so after having taken delivery.

The first challenge was how to get up to the roof itself. In the video below, you will see that I used a general purpose ladder to get access topside. With the ladder fully extended, I had to use a couple of interesting moves to swing my body up and over as the ladder was not tall enough. We had checked with Newmar and they told us that there was no issue with putting the ladder against the sidewall of the coach. More than strong enough to support the weight. We used towels at the end of the ladder to protect the finish.

Lorraine helped to bring the supplies up to the roof. I began with a hose, wash and rinse bucket and a lot of towels. Because it was still relatively early in the year, there was a lot of dew. There were quite a few black streaks around the air conditioning units as well. The black streaks were really tough to remove from the roof.

Once the roof was clean, I worked in sections of about 8 feet by 4 feet. I used some spare towels to mark the area. Once applied, I waited for the Rejex to haze, which doesn’t take very long at all, and then buffed out the area. That translated into ten sections to wax and buff. I do own a dual action orbiter however I elected to do the roof the old fashioned way: by hand. I removed my shoes so perhaps I should say by hand and by foot.

Quite the effort. Here is a short video that gives you a bit of sense of the task.

Although I do not have a particular fear of going up on the roof, I have been told that at my age I should just let someone else do the work topside.

When we were at Hearthside Grove in September of last year, we hired a detailer to come out to wash and wax the coach. I had them do the roof as well.

They were able to do in about 45 minutes what it took me over 8 hours to accomplish. They used a premium coating product and told me that it should last the coach until we go south to Florida later this year. The same detailing team from Hearthside heads south for the winter and I will use them again when we are at RiverBend in December.

Spring cleaning is going to come much later this year. Almost mid-April and our temperatures are still hovering around the freezing mark with snow in the forecast.

Climb That Mountain

/0 Comments

Everest

Or, five things I learned from detailing our 40-foot coach:

Lesson 1: Patience

I had estimated about 24 hours when I first planned our approach to detailing the coach. I’d say I was closer to 30 hours to complete the job. Applying the paint sealant by hand and then buffing by hand takes considerable effort and time. Especially when climbing up and down ladders. I had to reframe my reference in terms of how long it would take to detail the coach and I had to be attentive when on the ladder. No rushing!

Lesson 2: Tools

Getting the right tools for the job makes the experience a lot easier. Still, I missed one very critical tool.

I had all of the requisite cleaning supplies to wash the coach down prior to applying the sealant. I listed all of those supplies in this post. With all of my planning, what tool did I miss?

My Porter Cable 7424XP Variable Speed Random Orbit Polisher.

I have one in my toolbox for detailing my cars. Why didn’t I use it on the coach? I’m a bit baffled. Maybe because I thought it would be difficult to operate high on the ladder. Maybe because I thought it would be difficult to keep my balance and I might drop the polisher, or I might fall. Maybe because I was worried about getting caught up in the power cable.

Whatever the reason, I would not do this job again by hand. I would learn how to safely work with the Porter Cable polisher.

The most useful tool? The water blade. I have a smaller handheld water blade but I am going to purchase the 18-inch blade that I can mount on an extension pole. The water blade literally made drying the coach a breeze.

Lesson 3: Weather

The paint sealant I was using, Rejex, is sensitive to the weather. RejeX should be wiped on, allowed to dry for 10-20 minutes until it forms a haze, wiped off, then allowed to cure for 8-12 hours. Rejex also does not like the heat. 85F/29C or lower. And Rejex does not like the rain.

Weather in our area can be quite volatile. Even though the weather forecast predicted no rain, the day I was working on the driver’s side of the coach, a thunderstorm came rolling in just as I had finished the last section. It poured. Looks like the paint sealant held on though. If the weather is unstable, best to wait for a better day.

Lesson 4: No Pain, No Gain

This type of job does exercise an entirely different set of muscles. When you spend 8 hours or more working non-stop on a motorhome, you will feel the pain. I was unable to finish the whole coach on a long weekend. Day two was the driver’s side and on day three I was too sore to continue. I finished the passenger side the following weekend. If the muscles are too sore, it may be too dangerous to be perching on ladders 10 or 12 feet up in the air.

Lesson 5: Satisfaction

I have to say that when I finished detailing the coach I had this sense of a significant accomplishment. Like climbing a famous mountain, I did it!

Masterpiece

/0 Comments

Masterpiece

The Newmar Full-Paint Masterpiece Finish is one of the most stunning and durable in the industry.

It is also one of the more demanding finishes to detail because of the overall size of our motorhome.

I started to detail the Castaway yesterday. I was able to complete the rear cap, the front windshield and the lower front cap. The rear cap turned out to be fairly straightforward.

The weather has to cooperate. It is always best to wash and detail a vehicle when it is cool and there is no direct sun.

I used a two bucket system for the initial wash. Both buckets have a capacity of 5 gallons and both buckets have a grit guard. The grit guard fits in the bottom of the bucket and extracts grit from the wash mitt. The dirt settles at the bottom of the bucket so your wash water stays clean.

One bucket holds the wash. I use Meguiar’s Gold Class Car Wash and Shampoo and Conditioner. Terrific product.

The second bucket holds rinse water.

I have a microfiber wash mitt and a microfiber wash pad on an extension pole. Given the height of the Castaway, I have to use a pole to reach the top areas of the vehicle.

I gave the area a good rinse and then washed the rear cap from the top down. I refreshed the wash mitt and the wash pad frequently. On the top area of the rear cap, six times and on the bottom area of the rear cap, six times. I refreshed  by rinsing out the pad or mitt in the rinse water bucket and then loaded new soap from the wash water bucket.

Once washed, I gave the area another good rinse. And then it was time to dry.

I have a lot of microfiber drying towels. They absorb so much water that I was able to do the rear cap of the Castaway with three towels. For the upper part, I had to be on an 8-foot step ladder, barely high enough to reach the very top of the coach. I carried two towels with me. One to absorb most of the water and the second to lift off whatever water remained on the surface.

Given the width of the rear cap, I had to reposition the ladder four times to cover all of the top areas.

Now that this area was clean and dry, I could apply the paint sealant. I am using Rejex for the coach. From their website:

RejeX is a water-clear, thin film polymer coating designed to provide an ultra-high-release surface. RejeX is commonly used as a paint sealant providing a high-performance alternative to conventional wax-based products to maximize protection and shine on vehicles of all sorts, including aircraft, cars, motorcycles, boats and RVs.

Very straightforward product to apply. Just like a wax, a small amount of product gets applied to the surface and, once it dries to a haze, buff to a high-gloss shine.

Rejex wants 12 hours to cure so I had to check the weather to make sure I would get those 12 hours. And I did. The rear cap looks great. I spent roughly 2 hours on the rear cap.

The front cap was a lot more involved because of the windshield.

For the windshield, I clayed the glass, I polished the glass, and I applied two coats of water repellant followed by a lengthy buffing session. The water repellant was challenging to buff out. I used Griot’s glass treatment products all around.

Because the windshield is so large and so high, I had to use the step ladder for the entire process. I divided the windshield into four zones and went to work. All told, it took about 4 hours just to do the windshield.

As I started to run out of time, I could only apply sealant to the bottom half of the front cap.

The water repellant is impressive. I could see the morning dew literally run off the windshield.

My mission later today? Complete one side of the Castaway. I am planning to tackle driver’s side.