Sandblasting

After we had spent several weeks underneath the van equipped with metal brushes and paint scrapers to remove all the dirt and many layers of undercoating, we started to realise that this was a rather inefficient use of our time. We needed a quicker solution to get to the rust and after we informed with some more experienced people, we ended up looking for a sandblasting company.

The yellow pages brought us to the closest sandblasting company we could find (about 6 km away) since our major problem was how we were going to get the bus there whilst it was on the trolley. Luckily, we could borrow a large double-axle trailer to transport our van to the sandblaster. It took some significant joint effort to get this giant shopping trolley onto the trailer, but we did eventually and secured her into place.

During the trip to the sandblasting company, we were trying to figure out how we would get the bus off the trailer, as we hadn’t fully thought through the gravity factor involved… Once we got there, a forklift truck did the job for us: scary but very effective!

A week later, she was ready for pick; the result was pretty satisfactory; a rust free Splitty, entirely sprayed in a primer suitable for welding. We finally reached the turning point as from now on we are putting her together again!