Alright, here is the write up, sorry for the delay and length!
The sanding and prepping the van for Raptor took about 50-60 hours. Most of that time was spent sanding and taping. I highly recommend trying to sand everything and then wash the car and let it dry and then prime the areas you go down to the metal right away. Do all 3 back to back so as not to introduce rusk. I wrapped up all my sanding on a Sunday after spending a week straight on it and then the van sat there until the next Saturday. By the time I got back to it, I saw a few spots that looked like rust was just starting up, which led to having to do more sanding. I live near the ocean though, so it is worse for me. As long as you sand, clean, and prime the bare metal spots, you should be good.
To apply the Raptor, I ended up finding a place that rents spray booths by the hour/day. I rented the large one (13'10" high vs 8'), so I can pop the top inside. I drove the van there the day before I had the space rented and started taping. I taped for about 6 hours and still has some taping to do in the morning before Raptor. They let me park the van in the spray booth overnight, so did not have to worry about moisture. To tape, I used regular painters tape (under 4 rolls) and 18" masking paper from home depot. It worked well, just took a long time. I am sure there are other options that are faster or do a better job, but I was pretty happy with what I did. Raptor has very little overspray, so that was not a concern.
Spraying the van was pretty straight forward. I had a local autobody paint shop mix me the color I wanted (concrete gray) and bought 8 1qt tintable Raptor bottles. I also bought the variable nozzle gun because I wanted a finer texture. I did not realize that it does not come with a pressure gauge or air hose adapter, so I had to purchase both of those a the spray booth place (another $40 on top of the $75 for the gun). Plan ahead and get it cheaper! To mix the raptor, I used 1.5 oz of paint in each bottle. I know you can go higher but read that was the "normal" amount somewhere and went with it. The color ended up being quite a bit different from the paint. It is hard to describe. I like the color I ended up with though. It looks lighter in the sun and darker in the mornings and afternoon, kind of weird but works for me!
I used a large piece of cardboard, so I can dial in the texture. The vari nozzle gun was set to 2 turns of the nozzle. I would say that I probably had too much pressure at first, around 110-120 psi. The texture was very fine though, so I went with it. It definitely sprayed the paint out quickly though. I had to spray about 24" back from the van but did not quite figure this out at first, so there are some areas that got a little saturated from me being too close. I later dialed the pressure back to 80psi and still got the finer texture but better spray control, still staying 24-30" back when spraying.
I did the back and top first because I had to pop the top and tape around the lower canvas seal to get the top of the van body. It took 3 bottles to do the back and top. I was doing a thick coat and with the higher pressure, just went through the bottles quickly. I realized that the other 5 bottles were not going to be enough for the rest of the van, so I picked up another 4 pack during lunch. Bring a bucket to use to spray the gun into pulling the acetone through it like paint to clean the gun. They say clean the gun after every bottle, but I felt that was overkill. I would setup the paint and hardener in pre-measured containers for 2 or 3 bottles of raptor and then spray 2 or 3 bottles back to back. You can probably do 4 or 5 bottles back to back if the temperature is not too high and someone is mixing and shaking while you are spraying. It was about 65-75F while I was spraying.
To give a sense of timing, I did my morning taping from 8-9:30ish. Sprayed 4 bottles by 12, took a while to get set up. I taped around canvas seal and picked up the last 4 bottles by 2. I finished spraying the last 8 bottles by around 3:30 or 4. It goes very quick when you spray 2 or 3 bottles back to back. The hardest part is finding the spots you missed. I probably should have pulled the van outside before the last couple bottles and looked for spots that had less coverage and used those last two bottles for a light coat around the whole van with a small emphasis in the areas that had less coverage. This would help with the color too since there is a bit of variability from bottle to bottle because my paint add was not very precise.
I pulled the van out of the spray booth and started taking the tape off. I should have used a razor blade at first but did not. I was after the tape pulled a could small chunks of raptor with it that I realized I need to cut the tape lines to separate the two. I let the van sit overnight before driving it home the next day. There are a few spots that were the tape covered more of the original paint than I wanted or where the tape removal took a chunk of raptor, so I will have to touch up with the color paint. I cannot emphasize how important it is to take your time and tape it right!
Overall, I am very happy with how it turned out. More pics below, enjoy!
2008 GMC 3500 SMB
Linear Mode
