Never enough time

Last week I received a call from Mr. Green. An old customer of mine that restores old horse drawn vehicles. He had another job for me, lettering a couple wagons. I went and took measurements,so I could make patterns . That was Friday..... Then I remember I was to go to Fast Eddies moon pie run in Indiana. Left early Sat. to go to the show. Took some stuff to give to Ilene, and drove 3 1/2 hours.. The whole thing was a blurrrrrr! El Vago (Ray Smith) showed up. Hadn't seen him in ages.. It was fun to paint with him again!
There were a lot of stripers there this year . Most of the regulars, Scal, Wendel, Shane,Web, and a lot of guys I can't remember their names....sorry. The weather was crappy,and we ended up inside. There were fewer cars than last year but, I think the weather caused that.

Ray brought his newest hat.. He's always good for a great laugh. A tribute to "Swine Flew" I didn't get a lot pf pictures. Was busy having to much fun. Hey Wendell!, can I have your autograph??? Ray is demonstrating a cool brush he acquired. He got a stash of mack striping brushes from an old sign painters kit. These were made in the 1920's. Wow, the difference is unbelievable. Ray cut loose of one for me....THANKS RAY. I will put it to good use.

Afterwords,we all went to Applebee's and had a great time. Wish we could do this more often... Back to the real world.... Went to Mr Green's first thing Monday.and did the wagons... it went like this...

These wagons were not for anyone in particular so he wanted me to make up some name and town for the bakery wagon. I came up with these..

Another successful day.......now back to that van.

WHAT NEXT ??

The last post was awhile ago. Never fear,I'm still here! Besides being super busy. I have been trying to catch up on some long ignored projects.
I have a customer with a mustang that wants a panel painted with a fink in the car. Got it started but have been waiting for the paint to dry.LOL. This should be finished soon. Did this Lincoln and the olds 442 recently ,also..It was hot that day!!


The saga of the Death star is revving up. the last post had us putting a coat of black down as a base coat. Laying out the graphic panels has been a long process also. They have to be just right. the van is to have the same Star Wars theme as before, but we had to try to include the story of the 3 newest movies. Actually that was a problem. Condensing 6 movies into one vans' worth of scenes was a daunting task. My plan is to strip off all the side stories and concentrate on the main theme of the Star Wars series. That is, the life of Darth Vader/Aniken Skywalker. We see him in movie 1 as a little boy, He progresses to a young adult, who becomes a Jedi knight ,goes bad and is eventually redeemed by his son. The original paint had many murals all over the van depicting scenes from the origional 3 Star Wars movies. The problem was they didn't really show off any of the custom work that had been done to the van. In fact , the murals did much to hide the real shape of the van and you didn't notice all the custom bodywork. What I am striving to do is accentuate the shape of the van.Bring out the bodylines with panels and color along with other details,while working murals into those shapes, to tell a story.

After a year of sketching on paper , it's time to draw on the van with tape. They never transfer without some modification. then after looking at them for a while , it comes off and I do it again,till it looks just right. this was the first draft, it's changed already.... stay tuned....

MAKING A CAREER OUT OF THIS VAN???

Getting this van ready to paint has been a long drawn out process. Besides stripping the paint off, there are a few places where the body needed repair. The gullwing door hinges are stressed and the metal is fatigued beyond welding. We welded a brace to the surface to strengthen the surrounding metal.

The old paint is finally off. Time for primer and block sanding....YUK.

Primer!!!! finally one color!!

And then..................BLOCK SANDING!!! I FEEL LIKE MY ARMS ARE GOING TO FALL OFF!
TOM! ... What did you hit!!! Well, it will soon be a base color, and then the fun begins!!!

C&A Harley show.

Last month I did a show at the local Harley dealer. I've done this show the last several years. It'sbeen a good one. Here are a few of the bikes I did that weekend.

It was hot that weekend but I had a bay in the building to work out of. I want to thank Adonna for her hospitality. Hope to be there next year!!!

The Deathstar saga continues

The last month or so has been busy. I haven't posted anything on the progress of the tandem van I am working on. Progress was slowed by the fact that the shop I am working out of moved in May. Couple that with the problem stripping the old paint off,and I haven't made a lot of headway. That is about to change. Sam has the van ready for primer. It will get primed and blocked this week, and the fun begins. I will have a little more time this month and plan to have most, if not all the spray work and murals done by the time the footballs fly again.

There were at least 3 paint jobs on this van.With the amount of filler in the van we couldn't use chemicals to strip it, so we ended up taking off the top clear coat this way.....on the entire van. As you can see it was on there pretty thick.
After sanding and blocking the pass.side, we pulled it out of the building to turn it around. Even though the building is 60 feet wide ,it wasn't enough. It's like turnin' the Queen Mary around. After wrestling it back inside, we proceeded to sand the rest of the paint off. Care must be taken not to sand low spots in the surface. with all the bondo in it, it's easy to do. Block sanding is about the only way to do it right. Man my arms are sore!!
Then we find things like this. This is the front driver side fender with a stress crack . We found several of these. Small but they must be welded up ..
A couple days like this and I could strangle Tom...lol Stay tuned gang. I'll have more as we get primer on it............later Say goodbye Yoda............

At one time or another , we all have said," I'd love to go back and do it all over , knowing what I know now". That would be nice but we know that isn't going to happen. RIGHT? ..... Well, I might just get the chance.., sort of. My first attempt to build a custom van was to say the least, crude. Ever since I sold it,I have wanted it back. But alas, it went to the crusher,after it was sold about 4 times. 30 years of sellers remorse has given me the desire to reproduce that van, but eliminating the mistakes I made and doing it right . The van was an early model Dodge,that I cut in half and shortened. It was a real cute truck, but I really didn't know what I was doing, or have the proper tools. Over the years I have refined it in my head. Adding ideas, changing things,and making it a little more contemporary. I defiantly remember the things I screwed up. I haven't got a lot of pictures of that van,but here are the ones I can find.
My Father-in-law was trying to teach me to weld. I took out the tired slant 6 and, replaced it with a small block V8. Here ,I'm welding the motor mounts. These are pitiful photos. Maybe 4th generation copies.
No ,this is not a trick photo. The chain hoist goes through a hole in the roof that became a sun roof.
This shot in primer shows off how short it was. I still get jazzed looking at this picture. I went to my first van-in, in this van in 1975 , still in primer. The camper van was my mom's. Behind it ,is the last car I owned. A 73 gremlin. It went shortly after I started driving the van I took this picture the day I brought home this Chevy van. It was to become the Barnstormer.. I still have it.

There are a lot of things that I want to change. The porthole is of the day, but will go, as will the side pipes. Larger wheels and tires. These are 14's I think. Move the gas filler,and put it behind a door. I want to seal up the rear doors. Solid with no windows. I love that look. Tunneled tail lights..gotta have tunneled tail lights .I did that with the Flamin' Banana. This is the Flamin' Banana. a 68 Dodge van that I built in the early 80's. My first chopped van. (thats my brother) Here it is almost finished at the 13th Nats. in 1985 I've had several early Dodges over the years. I had a beater van (it would make a great rat van today.) that I got so I wouldn't have to drive the Barnstormer every day. Had a lot of fun with this van.. And believe it or not it was a trophy winner.(that's C.B. not me..)

When my brother went into the Marine Corps, he gave me his van for a couple years. I did a lot of work on it and drove it around . We called it the Rubber Biscuit. He was a Blues Brothers fan. I had Juan do a mural on the back of the "Brothers". While I was at This years Rat Fink Reunion I received a call from a friend of mine, Tom, from so. California. A guy in his van club had an early Dodge he wanted to sell. Tom thought of me. The van is a long wheel base, has a v8,and an auto trans. Exactly what I would want to reproduce my van.

These are the pics I have of the new van. It doesn't look like a lot to the untrained eye, but for a 40 year old van this is in great shape.

Look at the floor. The floor under the driver is one of the first places these vans rotted out. This van still has the factory paint on the floor . It will be nice to work on an early without having to fix a bunch of rot.Tom has the van now. Currently I am working on one of his vans. The sooner I get his done ,the sooner I can get this home. I'm excited!! Stay tuned. I will post more on this project.

I came home to a mess. A storm came through here a couple days before, and busted up a lot of my trees.

Along with some repair jobs to do ,I needed to work on the chopped Astro, to get ready for the Nationals.

The Nats were in Pennsylvania this year. Got there early and got set up. Even then the time went so fast. Had a Nats board meeting to attend, and then show classification on Thurs,and then the show on Fri.

I got drafted into Judging the early dodges class.

Always one of my favorite vans. I've had several early Dodges through the years. The show was very good this year. Over 140 vans .

this van won best of show this year.. an excelent job!!! Owned by Donnie Noone, one of our board members..