Step 16 - The white coat

There's actually some pics left from the last round, but I was too tired to upload them. this is how the Angel Eyes go into the headlight housing. We actually modified the instructions and drilled 2 little holes as you can see in the next two shots to help hold the unit in place. Works really well actually.



This is what the housing looks like all pulled apart. Waiting on the replacement bulb to get here today so I can wrap this up. According to UPS it is on its way over right now. I'm hoping there aren't many Saturday deliveries so it gets here fast.



So, last night was probably the most exciting night of painting yet. That's because the actual graphics show up in this step. It also was the longest step. I started masking at around 4:30pm. Stopped for about 10 minutes to throw some food down (no, I didn't chew, they were noodles, they are already soft..shut up, I know what you are thinking) Then continued to mask until around 9pm.

The next few shots show what it looks like all masked off.



Then the painting starts. I was anxious to get the white paint going. I couldn't wait to see the white on the black. So I start painting and Dad chases me around to each piece with the blow dryer drying them off as I'm going. That's the beauty of Auto Air Colors paint. It dries really fast. It also helps with the dust since it dries so fast there isn't a lot of dust that can settle on it. We did still have a dust issue though and had to deal with shit on the surface a lot. It's just impossible to get a dust free environment unless you actually create a sealed spray room. So I have resolved to a less than perfect finish on the surface. It's not bad, but it's not perfect.

The clear coat is really what I'm worried about. I should be doing that right now but I can't because the wind is horrible out side and I can't really seal myself up in the garage even because the clear coat is extremely toxic. And they recommend using a fully enclosed air fed mask to avoid it touching skin, eyes or accidentally inhaled. It's pretty scary stuff. Even the really nice carbon filters we have now aren't really enough to protect you according to the instructions.


As it started going on, the white, I mean, I realized that it was going to take a LOT of coats. After about 10 coats it was still very gray and just approaching silver. You can see in the pics that it looks very silver. The Pearl aspect of the paint reflects so it adds to that with the black showing through.


After about, oh I'd say approximately 30-40 light coats, I realized that it wasn't getting any WHITER. Maybe I should have played some country music, that might have helped. =) So I put on about 5-8 more coats after that and called it quits. I resolved to accept the silvery color although it had gotten whiter than before when it was really silver. I also figured that it would look a lot more white when it was contrast on the black anyway and that it was hard to see that after so many coats and all the surrounding area the same color.

I cleaned up all the paint shit to give it some dry time and then blow dried it a little more and started pealing the tape off... around 2:00am. That was a long night of hammering away at it. And I loved every second of it. Would have been nice to not have to put so many white coats on though, had I known how transparent it was, I would have gotten another primer type paint from AutoAirColors so that I could cover the black faster and work on top of a neutral.

Anyway, peeling off the tape was awesome. its great to see that contrast. I actually had to take the Exacto knife and retrace all of the mask lines because the amount of paint was sealing the mask tape and it started to pull it off the black when I removed the tape. So that took a little longer as well. Just one more thing to slow me down from seeing the finished graphics.

But it looks really nice when I did get it off. and it did look whiter than I thought it was going to after seeing the silver. It's not as white as I expected it to be prior to starting, but it is really nice and I do like the way it came out.

Here's the front fender and the top front fairing:



The Tail...


And the best part... the windshield with the skull. (it looks really cool when its inserted into the top fairing but I can't hold it and shoot it at the same time, so y'all are just gonna have to wait a bit longer for that)