Ducati Flakes

Apparantly, at some time, the Italian bike builders at Ducati were caught by the glitter and glamour of custom paint. Literally. They finished their bikes in several shades of Metalflake, cast into the polyester tanks.

A belgian Ducati lover gave me a tank and 4 sidecovers to paint in the original Metalflake colours of Kelly Green and Bright Red.

The tank was badly dented and had several badly repaired cracks and a small hole in it.

After sanding down, repairing with fibreglass and tank-curing the inside to prevent leaks, it was time for flakes once again.

And that's the end result. Hope to get some pics when the bikes are fully assembled!
Merry Christmas!

Struck Gold!

Yesterday I was visited by Rob Kater, who wants do do a photoshoot with the Green Machine next spring. He was kind enough to bring some gifts as well:

The book on the left I have been looking for for some time. It was first published in the mid-seventies by Metalflake and it is all about the application of all of their products. From flakes, kandies and pearls to Vreeble, Eerie-Dess and refraction-tape. It also covers many traditional special paint techniques like Acetylene painting,  Acrylustrations, Freak drops, Fish-scaling, lace painting, cobwebbing etc etc. A real Kustom Painter's Bible!

Here's some kolor sample pics of the effects described:

The other two are kolor sample cards from Metalflake. Samples of all Flakes, pearls and Kandy kolors over silver, gold, pearl black and white base-kolors! It even features some kolors that are not produced anymore but some I have got in my secret stash of seventies kolors!

Thanks a bunch, Rob!

Keep on Flakin'

Flakes are the shit. I added some yesterday and it looks slammin'!
I used the Glowble flakes from Metalflake. Not the biggest on the market but certainly the shiniest. Look at them smiling at you, even from the bottom of the mixing cup.
I sprayed a few layers over a dark grey base. It shines!
You can even see reflections in the flakes. Now I have to add many a layer of clear, and then some green Kandy. Tune in next time for more crazy paint.

We love you, sun.

Sun, sun,
it's so fun.

Clouds move out of the way,
Pretty girls come out to play.

People are in a good mood,
but it is understood,

that the best thing about the sun,
is the way it makes Metalflake shine, son!

I'm blue.

Doing some Kandy painting today on the sporty.
Last time, it was a very light blue and now I am going to add some blue transparant kolor to darken it.

Some time ago, a well known paint-mixer who worked at my paint-supple store, Tonny, died unexpectedly. He was the best at mixing kolors to match damaged paintwork. He had painted some kustom shit in the past and there was still some old Metalflake kandies and flakes left over from the 70's and early 80's. I got my greasy hands on that stuff and now it's mine, MINE I TELL YOU!!

There are some kolors there that are no longer made. For example, I have the new "Royal Blue" Kandy Koncentrate from Metalflake and I also have two older "Royal Blue" KK's. Three different kolors! On this project, I used the oldest Royal Blue (also the darkest, with a hint of purple), in some clear to darken up the sporty in 3 layers.
Then I peeled off the tape and cleared it.
Now I have to decide what to do with the light panels. Stay tuned for that! It will rock your world!

Cross Chop paintjob part three (revisited)

Last time I sprayed the black and white and wasn't completely happy with the layout of the paintjob, especially on the tank. The next day, I came back to finish it and immediately saw that things weren't right. So I bit the bullet and retaped the whole thing. I made the black stripes a little wider and changed the spacing slightly. Again with the white, taping the outlines, then the black.

In black and white it looks freaky, too!
But I decided to take the rest of the tape off, too. After some minor touch-up, I cleared it.

Watch out! The aliens are coming!

I re-did the fender as well.

I am finally happy with the end result. Next time, I will sand and polish the clear, then we'll finally see how it looks on the bike!

XS650 Cross Chop Part III

Here's another update from the vaults of Kustom Painting.

Last time, I sprayed the flakes in lots of layers of clear. It has had some time to dry/cure and today it's time for the black and white stripes.

I start by scuffing the paint with a scotchbrite pad.

Then I make up the layout with tape and lots of careful measuring. It's a bitch, trying to lay out straight lines on a tank with this much curves.
The white cardboard marks where the saddle is going to be. After checking whether the looks are allright, I mask the parts that are to stay yellow.

Now I wipe everything with a mild degreaser and a tack rag, to get rid of any dust particles. Next, I spray two coats of white.
Then I mask off the white pinstripes with 3mm tape and spray the insides of the stripes black.

Then I take off all the tape, correct any paint bleed-throughs and it's ready for more clearcoats. Next time, I'll finish the edges and the underside of the tank and fender and paint a black & white circle around the fillerneck and in the middle of the fender.

Yamaha Cross Chop Paintjob Part Two-and-a-half

Hey hey hey kids!

It's time for another episode of: Yamaha Cross Cho Paintjob!
Last time we left when the tins were all filled and sanded. This time, we will put on some sparkly Kolor.

First, I put the parts on stands that are on eye level. The parts can be turned around 360 degrees so I can easily reach all sides without having to walk too much. I taped off the filler neck and the underside of the tank and fender, because I don't want any flakes or paint on them.
After this, I make sure that the circumstances are right for painting. I have a small wheather station (they are quite cheap) so I can watch the temperature and humidity. Very important when you paint! Even if you can't control the temperature, it's worth while recording it, so when you are painting at 17 degrees, you know you have to wait longer between layers than when it's 22.

This is actually a very important step when you want to control the quality of your paintwork. "Watching paint dry"is a nice saying but modern paint are complex polymers that react with each other. They do that better at certain temperatures. It's a cosy 22 degrees, that's perfect.

Next, I check the air pressure at my reducer. It's a steady 2.0 bar. Be sure to check this while the air is flowing out of your gun (with the trigger pulled open). Pressure at the gun will be slightly lower because of the long air line to the gun.
Now, I mix up a sealer, to make sure no chemicals from the fillers bleed through into the new paint. It also makes a nice even kolor so you won't see any light and dark spots through the gold.
Two coats do the job.

I went to my automotive paint store and selected a nice gold metallic out of their thousands of paint samples. It turns out to be a Suzuki kolor...
Always strain the paint before you fill your paint gun! You will be saying very bad things when your gun blocks up or spits because some dried paint particle fell into your paint cup!
The kolor looks great and really shows the curves of the tank and fender. I sprayed two coats to get a nice, even coverage.

Next, I mix up some two part clear and add Metlaflake Micro silver flake. Slightly smaller than the ones I normally use, they will show off the curves of the tins very nicely.
It takes a few layers to get the coverage I want. After the first layer, it looks like this:

Then I spray 3 more and I am happy with the final result.

Next, I mix some Metalflake Candy Concentrate CC4 (yellow) into some two part clear lear and spray 3 layers, to get a nice warm yellow. Here's the end result, I am golden.

Next time, I will be painting the black rays with white outlines. Until then: aye-to.

Yamaha Cross Chop Paintjob Part Deux

Yesterday I spent some more time on Tjeerd's tins.

They came out of the booth looking quite straight but, as always, when you start block sanding, some low spots and imperfections will appear.
When you want to get your tins really straight and smooth, forget power tools for this last step.

We are dealing with fractions of a millimetre and power tools take away too much material in a very short time. You need some straight surface to wrap your sanding paper around. You can use a piece of soft wood or you can go to your automotive paintshop and buy some special tools for it. They are just wooden planks with a thin rubber surface and they have handles on top for more grip.
After some sanding, I marked off the last low spots. They will be filled and sanded again.


Finally, after two layers of filler and some more sanding, they are straight and ready for some magic paint! This session took me four hours and left me tired, thirsty and dusty.Tune in next time when I lay on some flakes!

Preparing the Cross-Chop Paintjob.

Finally: the first paintjob in my new lab! It’s a Yamaha 650 Cross Chop. For the builder and more details on this bike, check out www.short-cut.nl.

Tjeerd from Short-Cut choppers and I have discussed the design of the paintjob long and hard. In the end, we decided to use the Yamaha Cross colours; yellow, white and black. With a twist, of course, we can’t go without Metalflake! This is a colour sample I made in Photoshop.



We played around with some tape before we dismantled the tank and fender.



The tank is from a Union moped and very old, scratched and damaged. Besides that, the filler-neck has been moved and the rear fender was modified using grinder and welder.



Before I start sanding and filling, I grind off any sharp edges. Paint tends to creep away from sharp edges and you can hurt yourself.



After that I clean up the welds so primer and filler stick to the surface better.



I have been working for two hours now and everything is ready for a first layer of filler.



The first layer has been sanded and I marked the spots that need more filler.



After two more layers and a lot of sanding the parts are ready for primer. Another three hours have passed...



It took me an hour to spray one layer of primer and two layers of spray-filler. No wit takes some time to dry. Some sanding on Monday and then: Flakes.