Back at it!!!

Since my last post, I have been working on the Deathstar, Alot!.. I,ve decided not to post anymore photos of the van, till it is finished. Maybe a close up shot or two. but till the van comes out next summer, I'm keeping it under wraps. Soooo, what else have I been doing? Till a few weeks ago, not much. November brings the end of football season (bummer) and another birthday (another bummer). The van club had the last meeting of this year at my place, and we had a Halloween, football & birthday (3 of us) party rolled into one. I got to show off my newly tilled patio, and my new grand daughter. The "boys" built a bonfire up the hill to signal the space station,

and we cooked and ate till the we hours...oh yea, & the Buckeyes beat Penn State!

The Following week was spent getting ready to head out of town for the Turkey run,in Florida.As you may know, I do this show every year,and then hang out for a while working and soaking up the warm weather. Before I went, Vance and I spent a lot of time working on the van,since this years trip will be an extended one. One thing both of us didn't like is the height if the new seats in the van so we cut down the bases and lowered the seats 2 inches. Wow, what a difference.

The best investment I ever made was getting Vance that Tig welder. He is getting real good at it. Also a quick update on the van hood.. He has it mounted to the van.It fits pretty good after some "tweaking". He now has the Idea to make the scoops functional.

now would you call that a hood ornament?? I had a couple things to finish at Sams' before the Michigan game. This sweet little rod got a small graphic and I outlined it and added a couple custom touches. Now that the Michigan Game Is History, it is time to head to the turkey run.. More to come!!!! oh yes....another shot of my grandaughter Vada!

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............