fortytwo wrote:
Consider color carefully for full body paint. There's a trend to make them stand out from plain old fiberglass by using dark colors. Bright, shiny, and destructively hot. The side of an RV with black or near black paint will be 30-40 degrees hotter than white. It will also cause premature failure of the fiberglass.
In my view Alpha had it right - all white. The swirly decals are an attractive marketing ploy, but no decal exposed to constant sun will last more than a half dozen years before obvious deterioration.
As others have indicated, there's two types of fiberglass: gel coat over fiberglass matte, and filon. Filon is simply a pretty thin (compared to any laid up fiberglass) glass/fiber panel with a color added to the final coat. It's never slick and shiny like fiberglass, even when new. Gel coated fiberglass is the easiest to repair and polish out scratches. It can get old and chalky if not treated with some type of wax, but in most cases can be polished back to a good shine by a buffer or one of the many new silicon finishes.
However, if appearance is important enough.....
Good point on the dark finishes.
