The passenger side is just about half done, if I count from bumper to bumper.

Every colour behaves differently. The beast is the emerald green, which leaves behind the thick grey glue. Second is the teal, which leaves a a chalky white residue. The best are the burgundy, the lettering, and the swipes, which just peel right off.

I put in a solid day of destriping to get to this point, starting around 9:30 and working two hours, then putting in another four hours this afternoon. I’m on flier duty for the rest of the week, so it’s nice to get a head start. This is not an onerous chore, believe it or not. I love working on my home and being out in the sun feels so good!

My tools for this project are:

-a hair drier that blows really hot;

-a narrow metal paint scraper (thrilled to find one that isn’t wrecking the fiberglass!);

-an old Petro-Points card for scraping the bottom stripes that are on white painted metal, not fiberglass;

-an old pair of tweezers for picking at small bits;

-WD-40 for loosening the adhesive prior to blasting with heat.

I have two thoughts about this immense project that may shed some light on why I’m putting myself through this.

The first is that Miranda was due for a really thorough exterior restoration. Why put in all that elbow grease only to cover decals that are cracked, peeling, and dated?

The second is that I have a number of options for how to restripe, in a variety of prices and difficulties. If I end up with a worst case scenario, that even with a thorough buffing I still have ghosting, or, even worse, I can’t get off all that grey glue, then I can get three rolls of wide striping in different colours, plus a couple of stock graphics, and just reproduce what was there in a more simple design. Total cost for that would be a few hundred bucks and Miranda would still look better than she does now. I’m exploring all options, including professional restriping and even, gasp, painting, but I know that regardless of what I end up doing, it’ll be completely worth it.

As a side note, I love my location. After working all day in the hot sun I really wanted a cold beer and there just happens to be a liquor store across the street!

All this work today was also a good distraction from my feeling of impending doom about the election results. Two and a half hours left until the poll results start trickling out…