I put so much time and effort into the fabrication of the Stingray (see previous post) that I wanted to do something special with the paint. Before I could do that, I had to remove all the black spraypaint from the previous owner.
Even after peeling off the decal, you could still make out the old Orange County Choppers logo. The fender was originally chrome.
The paint remover worked decently but the nozzle kept clogging. I fought with this can a lot. Next time, I'll likely buy a brush-on version.
The frame was next...
Eventually, between both chemical and mechanical means, I got the frame down to bare metal. All the decals were gone. All the old flat black spray paint was finally gone.
I suspended the parts by chains and got them into to primer. If you look close, you might also notice I welded the taillight mount to the rear fender and drilled a hole for wiring before paitning it.
...followed by metallic blue basecoat. All the paint I used was rattlecan. The metallic blue was Duplicolor Metalspecks. It's a beautiful color blue.
Not all of the painting went smoothly. While painting my battery box, I accidentally dropped it, so it got covered in dry, dead grass. Needless to say, I had to sand that back down and start over.
While I let the basecoat dry for a few days, I started experimenting with graphics and colors on a test panel. I was cutting various stencils with my Cricut and seeing what worked. I decided that I wanted to blend vintage Stingray bicycle logos with modern Corvette Stingray logos and do something related to water. I tried a water droplet airbrush technique that was very cool I didn't think it would work with all the curved surfaces of the bike. I opted for waves and tried a few styles.
I worked to clean the rust and pitting on the exhaust the best I could. For the front forks (not shown), I removed the flame decals and did the same work as the exhaust - a lot of cleaning and polishing.
They're far from perfect, but a lot better than how they started. If I could've bought a new exhaust, I might have, but I couldn't find a source of anything close and I liked the 1-into-2 design.
As for the paint, it was time for pinstripes and stencils. It's the same process I used to paint my red & black Sportster years ago... and my Evil Monkey tank too.
For detail work, I would use an airbrush (same one I've had since high school). I'd get the rattlecan paint into the cup using a straw. You just have to give to propellant a moment to stop bubbling or it can make a mess.
I love the mix of waves, pinstripes, and fades. I was thrilled with how these parts turned out and they weren't even done.
I added waves all along the bottom of the frame. Even if most people won't notice them, I know they're there.
I added more fades too.
I put blue candy over top (again, more rattlecan paint). I used Duplicolor Metalcast blue for the candy.
I even put blue candy over the head badge. What's now blue was originally silver.
When it came time for graphics, I ran into issues. I was going to do white paint for the graphics. I wanted paint instead of just vinyl stickers. I experimented with gold paint on my test panel but the gold paint I had looked great alone but didn't look right with clear over it. In fact, it sort of melted into the clear and looked terrible. So white was the plan...
After all the work to get to this point including all the stencils and fades, these final graphics almost ruined everything. I made a number of mistakes. Notably, I didn't sand or rough up the blue candy so the white paint didn't adhere well. I probably put the white paint on too thick and waited too long to remove the stencil. I ended up having to take a razor blade to the white paint to try to remove it without destroying the blue. It was not fun. To make matters worse, I did other graphics all at once and 4 of them had issues with the white paint lifting. Thankfully I didn't do the tank at the same time.
When I finally got all the white paint removed from the frame and the blue repaired to the best of my ability, I took a different approach. I used the same stencils but instead of paint, I used size for gold leaf (sorry, no progress photos). I had never used gold leaf before but, again, I tried on some test pieces first. After applying the size, I removed the stencils and applied the gold leaf. It was nerve-racking as I found you have the get the stencil off quickly while the size is still wet to avoid it lifting but the results turned out well and better than the white paint would have. I emptied 2 cans of Spraymax 2K over the top of everything and you can see the final results in my next post.
