{"id":199,"date":"2011-10-19T18:12:08","date_gmt":"2011-10-19T18:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/?p=199"},"modified":"2014-03-29T17:52:13","modified_gmt":"2014-03-29T17:52:13","slug":"getting-ready-to-paint-2-picking-a-sprayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/?p=199","title":{"rendered":"Getting Ready to Paint 2: Picking a Sprayer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Getting my 15-year old Land Rover Defender painted is proving to be full of challenges, one of them is identifying \u00c2\u00a0a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sprayer\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.\u00c2\u00a0 Identifying and contacting a painter has been more difficult than for any of the other specialists that I have dealt with.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0Opere has\u00c2\u00a0 been my first reference for specialists ranging from mechanics, bodywork and electrical , but \u00c2\u00a0the painting is in a different order because, obviously, there is no paint oven under Opere\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0 tree.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Over the course of the past few months whenever I have broached the subject of painting with him to try to nail down that phase of the project he never seemed very interested.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Strange because there are frequently one or two Defenders in his yard that look like they are just about to go for painting or have just come back from painting.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 It was only when he realized I had found the Sikkens shop and had gotten a price he focussed.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 As he always does,\u00c2\u00a0 he stressed the importance of ensuring I was going somewhere that would do a good job, but did not promote anyone he knew.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 When I told him who I was talking to and how much they had quoted \u00c2\u00a0he seemed to relax, either because he was satisfied that this was a good place, or that he could not beat the price and still take a cut that would make it worth his effort.<\/p>\n

My former colleague Stephan had recommended\u00c2\u00a0 Sikkens, a name which is well-known for paint around the world, as a place that had done a very good job for him at a reasonable price.\u00c2\u00a0 He said he had his Defender painted \u00e2\u20ac\u0153at Sikkens\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, so\u00c2\u00a0 assumed was a business somewhere in Accra.\u00c2\u00a0 I saw his Defender and it looked great.\u00c2\u00a0 Since then everyone, including Opere, has \u00c2\u00a0recommended that I use Sikkens Autobase paint, but \u00c2\u00a0is clear they are not recommending any one place. Rather they each seemed to have their own favourite \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sprayer\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, all of whom may use Sikkens paint.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0I was left wondering if \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sikkens\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was a place in Accra as Stephane has led me to believe, \u00c2\u00a0or just a brand of paint.<\/p>\n

To enlighten myself I turned to Google and searched \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sikkens in Ghana\u00e2\u20ac\u009d – there were about a dozen auto paint shops that come up. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I noticed that one of these, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Kolours\u00e2\u20ac\u009d,\u00c2\u00a0 was located not too far away from where I live so I went by to have a look and talk to them.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0The first thing I noticed when I pulled up was that the name \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Kolours\u00e2\u20ac\u009d did not appear anywhere on the front of the seemingly small storefront operation, \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0rather it featured \u00e2\u20ac\u0153SIKKENS\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, as if that was the name of the shop.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I sent an email to Stephane with description of the location and he confirmed that this was in fact where he had had his vehicle painted. \u00c2\u00a0So there is no one \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sikkens\u00e2\u20ac\u009d it is rather a network of places that happen to distribute Sikkens paint, and which probably have to undergo certain training and maintain certain quality standards \u00c2\u00a0in exchange for the name.<\/p>\n

The manager of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Kolours\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is Bernard, a personable Ghanaian who each time I go back to look at colours, or ask questions, he says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m ready\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, \u00c2\u00a0his subtle way of reminding me that it has been well over a month since I first spoke to him and said I was going to bring it in for the paint.\u00c2\u00a0 The problem is I keep finding reasons to delay, I am not really ready to paint yet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

"Kolours" Paint Shop, with Bernard poised at the Defender<\/p><\/div>\n

I have had three informal quotes on painting,\u00c2\u00a0 Opere and Francis have cited numbers, but without the benefit of any close look at the details of what it is I want to do (Iie. everything has to come off before painting, two colours outside, one inside and bottom paint).\u00c2\u00a0 I have only given those details to Bernard, and his price is the same or only marginally higher than the quick quotes I got from Francis and Opere.\u00c2\u00a0 What also swings it in Bernard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s favour is that I know one satisfied customer, and the Kolours shop looks very clean and well run.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I will use them, but follow Stephane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s advice to monitor the work closely myself. But we are not ready to paint yet, there is still an undercarriage to clean up, and a few niggly pre-paint details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Getting my 15-year old Land Rover Defender painted is proving to be full of challenges, one of them is identifying \u00c2\u00a0a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sprayer\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.\u00c2\u00a0 Identifying and contacting a painter has been more difficult than for any of the other specialists that I have dealt with.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0Opere has\u00c2\u00a0 been my first reference for specialists ranging from mechanics, bodywork […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[16,25,13,24,20,14,15,22,21,23],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-planning","category-restoration-and-outfitting-technical-and-cultural-exploration-and-discovery","tag-4x4","tag-africa","tag-defender","tag-expedition","tag-ghana","tag-land-rover","tag-overland","tag-overlanding","tag-west-africa","tag-wheatcroft","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}