PART THREE OF OUR NEW HOW-TO SERIES
TO RECAP IF YOU MISSED THE LAST COUPLE OF ISSUES: BACK TOWARDS THE END OF THE 19905 MY MOTO MARTIN FEATURED A FAIRLY INCREDIBLE PAINT SCHEME, DONE BY MY MATE ANDY THE PAINTER, WITH SCENES FROM AN ULTRA-VIOLENT, BUT QUITE TONGUE-IN-CHEEK, AMERICAN COMIC, LOBO. AT THE TIME I ALWAYS MEANT TO GET ANOTHER TANK MADE FOR IT, AND GET ANOTHER LOBO PAINT JOB DONE ON IT, BUT DIDN'T GET ROUND TO IT BEFORE IT SOLD ON TO FINANCE ANOTHER BIKE. MANY YEARS LATER, HAVING BECOME FRIENDS WITH ARGUABLY ONE OF THE BEST CUSTOM PAINTERS IN THE LAND, JOHN O' HARA AT PITSTOP PAINT, I DECIDED THE TIME'D COME TO REVISIT THAT IDEA. .. N. ext I moved on to the Michelangelo god, masking off the characters, and starting on the background section first. Iused candy red over black 'n' white artwork to tint the whole lot into various shades of red, and then added some highlights over the top (pie 1). I knew the background faces were going to be an utter nightmare
- just so damn small, some of them fingernail-scale. Idecided to do one test
face to get an idea, and send it to
Nik to give him an idea of face detail and scale (2). He was quite happy with it - it was me beating myself up for no reason as usual. Artists want everything perfect, and we get upset with ourselves if don't achieve it, but sometimes you have to step back and remind yourself that you're reducing a 20-foot long ceiling painting down to a section of motorcycle tank only a few inches long...
I masked off the god character, while working on the rest to keep the edges crisp and clean, as his robe is mostly white and easily contaminated with overspray. I then proceeded to build up the characters, and airbrush small buttcracks and penises much to my teenage daughter's amusement (3), and soon my cutting mat began to look like I'm some sort of deranged serial killer (4). Isketched in the faces and bodies initially in black and white in rough form (5), and then overworked in the same way with several layers of opaque paints to form shades of flesh tones and details (6/7), but with the contrast turned right up compared to faded pastel colours in the original painting as I wanted this mural to really kick out and be vibrant, like the Lobo on the other side of the tank, and not blend into background, so it had to be bright and bold. I must've gone over these faces umpteen times - one of those things where you adjust, and adjust, and're reasonably happy, but then you come back the next morning with fresh eyes and think 'nope that needs tweaking'...
Nearly done (with the artwork anyway) - last of all I check around the bottom lip of the tank, making sure there're no bald spots I've missed, give the tank a blow over to get rid of any dust, and just spend a few minutes of standing back and looking, then tweaking any small details that catch my eye. Finally, I tag the tank with my business name (8) - it's important to let people at bike shows and rallies know who painted it, and attract the next customers, as all my work these days is from word-of-mouth and/or people seeing what I've done online or in person.
At this point the customer and general public think this is the work finished - 'All you have to do is spray on a few coats of lacquer, right?' People're always amazed how much work there is yet to go to do the job finished
properly, to get that 'show' finish.
Lacquer, or clear-coat, is a little more involved than rattle-cans in your shed (although very acceptable results can be had that way if you're working on a tight budget). Basically, you have to lay on enough depth of lacquer to cover and protect the artwork, and allow for losing some of that thickness in the next stage of sanding and buffing. If you don't put on enough, you can end up sanding or buffing through, resulting in a lot of swearing, and having to go back several stages. How much you'll need will depend on how many hard masking edges you have to cover (or if you've used metal-flake or the like). Again it comes down to experience, but Itypically go for four or five coats of 2K automotive clear-coat, but be aware - this stuff is full of extremely nasty chemicals so you have to wrap up and use an air-fed face mask, etc. but it does give a long-lasting, and fuel-proof, finish to your work that's way above the standard of factory helmets and motorcycles/cars,etc. The better your technique, the smoother the finish (and the less sanding and buffing you'll have to do). Here is the tank drowned in clear-coat, and left to bake overnight (9). Note the threaded holes and open areas are masked off - trying to remove paint from bolt threads later without damaging the new paint on is no fun at all for the customer.
Next comes hours of the backbreaking job of sanding the clearcoat totally smooth. There's no substitute for these next stages at all - no matter how good your technique or equipment, a sanded and buffed paintjob'II always look better with a crisp reflection. It's a lot more work, but totally worth it for the end result. You have to be careful running over sharp edges or sanding through, so there's a fair bit of technique. Essentially, you're flattening back the high spots to get a uniform matte finish so all the surface is the same height - exactly the same as polishing aluminium parts on your bike, and you know
how long that takes to get a mirror shine. Here you can tell by looking along the surface against the light - the gloss and matte are dots visible. These are the high and low spots. Careful sanding 'til it's all matte is the key, starting from extremely fine wet-and-dry paper, and working upwards in grade until it's all even, and you can't feel any masked paint edges or anything else (10).
Next it's out with the buffing compound and polisher. There are umpteen brands and grades of roughness of polish and mop or sponge on the market, all promising the best results, and everyone has their favourite combination. I'm using Farelca, as it's easily available near me on this small island, and gets the results I like (11). I won't go into detail on the polishing stage but, needless to say, it's beyond simple to mess up and slip with the polishing machine, or over-heat the paint and underlying material, and end up undoing days/weeks of work - it's far harder than people realise to do, especially with complex shapes or sharp-angled flexible race seat units, etc. It's a skill that takes a while to master to get a uniform finish like glass, but adds the biggest 'wow factor' to the paint though for sure.
Apart from a good clean, and a bit of fettling, that's basically it. For me, it's time to forward the images to the customer, and get paid enough to buy the next random lump of metal to make bike/hotrod project parts with. I hope these articles've helped show just how much work's involved in a paint job, and why the cost can be quite high - you're paying for a lot of hours and expertise. Any painter producing high-quality work has my full respect as I know first-hand what a back-breaking and frustrating job it can be at times, but nothing beats that feeling of seeing the end product and thinking 'I did that', and the customer going away happy.