Chop that fucking Sportster

After too long a time of not-painting choppers, here's one for all you golddiggers.
It's a hardtailed ironhead sportster, almost finished in this pic, still some details left to do.

It's at my buddy Tjeerd's shop (ShortCut Choppers) which is convenient cuz I can finish the modified tins myself, cleaning up grinder marks and welds and making sure it will still fit perfectly with a few coats of paint on them. After that I took everything back to my shop for filling and primer.

The customer wants gold scrolls, the number 59 (don't know that position) and the letters CTFS on it. It took some sketching and brainstorming to come up with the right look for this bike. When I dream up a design its also good to have the bike close at hand so I can sketch it out on the tins and fit them back to the bike to see how it looks. After that stage I put the design in the computer and have stencils cut.

I use the stencils to spray on gold leaf size (some kind of glue) and then pull the stencils off right away. The size then has to dry for an hour, during which I continue taping off the other parts. After an hour, I can lay on the leaf. It sticks to the surface immediately and I use a very soft brush to get rid of the excess leaf.

It takes a lot of time and today I only managed to do both sides of the oilbag...

one side of the tank,

and half of the rear fender today.

It all still needs cleaning and touching up.
Then a layer of clear and after that, certain parts will be shot in matt clear.
Next week it continues, but first: Hotrod Hayride, yay!