Keying is where you scratch the old paint lightly with a fresh scourer or sandpaper to roughen it up and create texture for the new paint to hold onto, much like a primer would do. A light sanding is all you need to create extra adhesion, but make sure to wipe the paint dust off with a dry towel before proceeding onto the painting.

Washing removes any dirt and grease that may prevent your new paint from sticking, and we’ll let you in on a little secret: we’ve only ever washed our van using a sponge, an old scourer and regular old washing up liquid! It works a treat, and costs far less than car shampoo. Make sure your van is dry before moving onto the next stage.

Masking is the longest part of the process, but taking your time here will mean a better end result. There’s no science to it: grab some masking tape and some old newspaper and start covering every surface you don’t want to get paint on. We strongly recommend using a quality masking tape like this one; yes it’s more expensive, but it’s worth its weight in gold when you don’t end up tearing a thousand tiny little pieces off just trying to get one length unrolled.

Some additional considerations are to make sure it isn’t going to rain, it’s not too windy and the humidity isn’t any higher than 85%; this also means you shouldn’t paint too close to sundown, as the damp which settles in as it gets dark can make your paint bloom (go milky). If you can paint indoors then most of this won’t be a problem, but outside all of these factors can make a difference to your overall finish.

If you’re the unfortunate now-owner of a van with a terrible paint job, your only option is to go nuclear on it. Our Bedford CF had a lovely classic cream paint job when we got it… That someone had smeared what seemed to be Magnolia emulsion all over. The paint was flaking off badly when we attempted to key, so we had no choice but to strip it all back before painting.

If you need to strip your old paint back to primer or even bare metal, the only tool for the job is an orbital sander and a pack of various grit sanding discs. Start with a coarse P120 grit sanding disc for the main stripping, then smooth this over with P240 grit, and finally finish with a light pass of P300 or P500 grit. 

At this point you’re also going to want to grab your rollers; we’ve found the best roller to paint a van is a simple gloss foam mini roller kit. The fine pores of the sponge create very small bubbles which smooth out shortly after applying, and the small 4” roller width allows you to tackle most areas on your van.

Our only recommendation for these rollers is don’t cheap out and buy them from Poundland; they don’t have to cost a fortune, but equally you don’t want them tearing apart and falling on the ground while you’re painting, which is really, really annoying. Especially when you get down to your last roller and watch it fall onto the ground and get covered in dirt, rendering it unusable. Don’t use emulsion rollers either, unless you want your finish to look like it was painted by a wet dog.

You’ll want to grab some brushes too, for the details like ending around window frames and door locks. Get some quality brushes; don’t argue with me on this, just spend a few extra quid and avoid horrible coarse brush strokes because you wanted to save an extra £2.

We’ve found the best way to paint a van is to work on each panel one section at a time, using a brush to get into edges and small areas and then rolling as close as you can to these areas to smooth the brush strokes out. The key is to roller slowly and in small sections, as the faster you roll the more bubbles you’ll make; this is especially true for primer, which can turn into ‘candyfloss’ if rollered too quickly. Ensure that you have smoothed out any paint drips before moving onto the next area, as you’ll have no chance of doing so once the paint starts to go tacky. To achieve the most even finish pass back over the areas you’ve just painted with your almost-dry roller to slightly smooth out any air bubbles; make sure to do this before the paint starts to go tacky. 

Don’t be tempted to overload your roller, as excess paint can cause an orange peel effect, which nobody wants. You can also mix in a small amount of thinner as prescribed by your paint manufacturer to help mitigate orange peel, but you’ll have to do at least 2 coats. If you do end up with drips and uneven texture, you’ll need to use wet-and-dry sandpaper to smooth these out before repeating the Prep and Painting sections for coat two.

You can watch the video on how we roller-painted our Bedford van to get a better idea of the technique. 

Roller painting a van is really simple; if you can paint a wall in a house, then you can paint a van. Most of the work goes into research and prep, but if you follow this guide you’ll have a lovely new paint job in no time.