Vanning


Vanning is a compulsion, an obsession, an occupation, an affliction, a fascination, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it, must. Those who don't, think it's a waste of time. For me it is a calling.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008


It's been hard to get back into the swing of things. I've been busy with stripe work and it's been HOT. The garage has needed cleaned. I've been trying to get that done . But what I thought was a small leak under the eagle was ALL the seals in the rear end going bad. The "boys" came down last weekend and took it apart. Had to take the rear axles to the machine shop to get seals and bearings pressed on,and replace the pumpkin and yoke seals. what a mess. But she's all fixed and back togeather,ready to go to Van Slam.


had to move some of my van toy collection to the big garage.

Today, I did a van for a good customer of mine.I did a Finky on it for him,and of course I did'nt get a picture of it. He has whole fleet of cool cars that I've worked on. These are a couple of P T's he asked me to work on..





Thursday, July 24, 2008

Well , the last week was the van nationals. Spent the week there, lots of work and lots of fun. the Eagle took best ford and best woodworking. Not to bad. The last few days I've been catching up on work piling up while I was gone. I'll have more when I get back on track.

now what?? something else wierd from the coop mind

Sunday, July 6, 2008

reliving the summer of 76

Every time I get in the eagle van I'm transported back to the summer of 1976. Vanning was growing by leaps and bounds and the N.S.V.A. was holding their national event at the race track in Bowling Green, Kentucky. This was my first huge automotive event of any kind. I was overwhelmed at the custom vans there. what an experience. there were 6000 +vans there . Over 1000 in the show & shine competition. the eagle was picked as the best overall van out of all of them. So painting the van this week was very nostalgic. Last post I got the eagle design painted.The last 4 days I've been sequestered in the garage working hard to finish in time for this years nationals. next was the ribbon with the lettering





Lettering with gold seize

I love variegated leaf and it works very well here.






when you consider I don't really do airbrush scenes, the most difficult part of this was to do a Greg 0 Akron,esk mural. It needed to look like the others on the van.

then the background colors.

pullin tape wet sand Buff
READY FOR SOME PINSTRIPING.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Before I can work on the van I needed to do a job for a customer. Today it was lettering a horse drawn ambulance for Mr. Green. He is a regular of mine. He restores horse drawn vehicles of all kinds,and has a large collection of them.
He needed this done for a show he's going to this weekend and I promised him it would be done.
Done!





stage coaches, hearses, wagons, and lots more. these things had miles of stripes on them!
I've spent a lot of hours in this building.



last night it was the white base, candy red(transparent color) and the shadows, today it was the white highlights,some color, face details and a coat of clear. tomorrow, phase 2. unmask this and mask the next few color panels. see ya tomorrow.

the flying eagle.... again

Its been a busy summer so far. The van nationals are fast approaching,and I haven't had time to get to the stuff I've wanted to do on the Eagle Van. The last week I've made an effort to get these things done. Last weekend Dale came down and help finish the set up on the fuel injection. That ,I think, is ready to go. she's purrin' like a kitten.
finishing the wiring.
HAD TO TAKE THE DASH APART TO INSTALL THE INJECTION COMPUTER.
Dale does his magic on the computer. this took hours, and beer. thanks dale.

This week I've started the painting on the rear I've been wanting to do since I got the van.. The Flying Eagle had a real cool graphic on the back of a spread wing eagle with a typical Greg of Akron scene in the center. I want to replace this graphic and work it into the existing paint scheme. this is the original paint job. this photo was taken at the van nationals in 1976.
Got it layed out exactly where it was.







this is as far as T got today. The holiday weekend will be busy. I cant wait!!!