Roaddawg
Well-Known Member
Went to a nearby restaurant / saloon the other day because I was always seeing motorcycles parked in the lot. Ended up meeting the owner, who is also a rider. He mentioned his bike, an older HD was stripped down for service and that he was looking for a shop to paint his tank and fenders. During the conversation he mentioned that what he wanted to do was to barter, that being he would provide a tab at the saloon for the price of the paint job. The tab would cover food and alcohol.
The owner said he was just looking for a gloss black paint on the tins. The present paint, which was old, faded, chipped and deeply scratched in a few places, had an odd color scheme that the owner did not like to much. It was previously painted with a kind of purplish base coat, with faded yellow and red flames, pinstriped with a lime green. Plus there were some decals on it, that had nothing to do with HD, riding or anything like that.
I mentioned I did paint and was willing to trade services. So, I prepped, primed, sealed and base coated the bike in black. Did a color sand, added more black and began to clear. I quickly saw that there was a lot of black on this fatbob tank and fenders. I was able to convince the owner to let me add a graphic to offset all the black. Of course this also increased the "fee", hence a larger tab.
The owner said that he would like something that identified the bike as a Harley, but he didn't want Harley Davidson on it. He also said he would like to have it blend in with the black and not be "sparklie" (if that's a word). But he would also like it to be red. Plus he didn't want it to look stock, standard or a typical HD decal.
So, what I did was to draw out the HD logo, the bar and shield, in a number of different sizes. I finally decided on the outline of a large logo, canted forward. It definitely did not appear stock or standard, yet was immediately recognizable as Harley Davidson.
I then sanded the clear and laid down the logo with silver marbelizer. I topped this with a couple of coats of Kandy Brandywine, which set it back into the black. I added a coat of Kandy Apple Red to bring out the red color. I then cleared, color sanded, re-cleared, color sanded and buffed it out to a nice smooth high gloss finish.
The result was exactly what the owner was hoping for. In most conditions, the bike almost appears entirely black, but in regular lighting, low lighting and street illumination, the graphic is barely perceptible, almost ghosted in. Yet in bright light it starts to emerge and in bright direct sunlight, it can be seen clearly.
Here are a few pics. In normal lighting the logo is somewhat visible:
With more light, the graphic starts to become noticeable:
In bright direct sunlight it can be seen:
Mostly though, it appears black:
Here are the fenders:
The owner said he was just looking for a gloss black paint on the tins. The present paint, which was old, faded, chipped and deeply scratched in a few places, had an odd color scheme that the owner did not like to much. It was previously painted with a kind of purplish base coat, with faded yellow and red flames, pinstriped with a lime green. Plus there were some decals on it, that had nothing to do with HD, riding or anything like that.
I mentioned I did paint and was willing to trade services. So, I prepped, primed, sealed and base coated the bike in black. Did a color sand, added more black and began to clear. I quickly saw that there was a lot of black on this fatbob tank and fenders. I was able to convince the owner to let me add a graphic to offset all the black. Of course this also increased the "fee", hence a larger tab.
The owner said that he would like something that identified the bike as a Harley, but he didn't want Harley Davidson on it. He also said he would like to have it blend in with the black and not be "sparklie" (if that's a word). But he would also like it to be red. Plus he didn't want it to look stock, standard or a typical HD decal.
So, what I did was to draw out the HD logo, the bar and shield, in a number of different sizes. I finally decided on the outline of a large logo, canted forward. It definitely did not appear stock or standard, yet was immediately recognizable as Harley Davidson.
I then sanded the clear and laid down the logo with silver marbelizer. I topped this with a couple of coats of Kandy Brandywine, which set it back into the black. I added a coat of Kandy Apple Red to bring out the red color. I then cleared, color sanded, re-cleared, color sanded and buffed it out to a nice smooth high gloss finish.
The result was exactly what the owner was hoping for. In most conditions, the bike almost appears entirely black, but in regular lighting, low lighting and street illumination, the graphic is barely perceptible, almost ghosted in. Yet in bright light it starts to emerge and in bright direct sunlight, it can be seen clearly.
Here are a few pics. In normal lighting the logo is somewhat visible:
With more light, the graphic starts to become noticeable:
In bright direct sunlight it can be seen:
Mostly though, it appears black:
Here are the fenders:
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