Occasionally, I get a job that balloons into an all day thing. I got a call to stripe a 1913 Ford. When I get there, he has his buddies all lined up to get their cars striped. 

  did all 3 of these also   o what fun!

This was Fords first production car...top speed   35?   lol

 Another Job recently was this VW bus. He wanted lettering that looked like it had been on there for a long time...  he was a happy camper! 

 I have started a couple different projects on the van. One was to finish the engine cover. The last metal parts to be painted.  Here is the special front piece that I made to show off the motor when I show the van, Makes it easier to see all the goodies on the engine. 

 I'm going to stripe up the inside of the cover and the lid is getting a Tiki. This is not quite finished but you get the idea.

   Another project is the surf board that will hang on the wall inside the van.  Last Dec. I was visiting my buddy Jimmy C. in San Clemente, and we went to his favorite Mexican restaurant to eat.  Hanging on the wall was a surfboard with a carving on it. This idea was born and Jimmy took me to the supplier where he gets his surf stuff and I got a board blank. Hauled it back to Ohio and put it in the to do pile! Been meaning to work on this for the last 10 months but other stuff got in the way.  The foam carves like butter. When it's done, it gets coated with glass resin and then painted.  I cant wait.

Occasionally, I get the chance to go to a football game. Last time I took my grand daughter Vada.

Ok,  Funs over,  back to work!

Before I took the SURFINK  to the paint shop, I needed to get the exhaust system made. I wanted a stainless steel exhaust .It was going too be tricky since I had to have the tailpipes come out in front of the rear wheels, due to the gas tank location, all the other stuff around it and the fact that the van is 3 feet shorter than it was. 
     I took it to my son Vance who has become a skilled welder. He fabricated the entire exhaust from scratch. We went to the supplier and bought a bunch of pipe bends and straights, we were trying for a throaty sound that wasn't to loud. I got him 2 stainless mufflers 2 resonators and some v band clamps. and he went to town.    I didn't believe he could get all that into the small area we had to work with. 

   He cut the collector from a set of stainless headers and made his own. The exhaust goes into a  resonator


  
  then OVER the cross member down UNDER the trans, into a hand fabricated cross pipe and out thru a muffler.

 The v band clamps were installed in several places to allow the entire exhaust system to be removed with just a  wrench

and don't forget the cool dual pipe tail pipe just in front of the wheels.

  He even fabricated stainless hangers and welded them to the pipes.. no clamps and no rattles

I will remove the whole thing and polish it some time after the interior is done   The whole thing will polish up to a nice shine.   I couldn't be prouder of him.    He did an awesome job!!


 On the work front I got a call from one of my regular customers, Mr Green.  He has restored a horse drawn trolley car from the 1880's, that is going in a museum and needs it lettered.  

   this is how it turned out.  not bad if I don't say so myself.

 

so back at the ranch.....

I added the light blue outline.   lettering is done.  but,  it's gona take a fortnight  to do all the striping