Thread: Who wants to follow along w/ my flame job?

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Ok- here we go.This is Friday. We rolled into the booth at 1:00 pm. He wanted me there to critique the fade & color choices as they happened. Wow, was this time consuming! I had to leave at 5:30 & he was just getting ready to clear. He got down 4 coats of clear after I left w/ a 30 minute flash between coats- and left 3 hours later). As soon as last coat of clear was laid down- he starts removing the fine line tape next to flame only- and the rest stays for now.
Remember- most of what you are looking at is overspray.


1st pic. Adhesion promoter has just been shot after a day of careful sanding. Pay attention to flame pattern- that's the only part that matters. The rest is overspray. Everything's been taped off & entire car is taped to floor.





This shot shows how symetrical the lay-out is.




1st step? White primer.




Primer is down.




On goes the yellow.




Car is all yellow now. Dennis shot a pale yellow up front for fade but I didn't like it so we went w/ the single yellow. This is straight toner.




Dennis lays on the orange we mixed & I approved.
It's about this point I about had a heart attack!
Looks like too stripy to me. Dennis said to have patience & let him work the yellow/orange fade some more & quit looking at the overspray- and concentrate only on the open flame area. After awhile- I got the eye he was talking about.





This side is nearly perfect now. I had him move the fade forward some.




Close up of the fade. This is before he goes back & plays w/ darker shades in teardrops of flames.

10 pics maximum so I have to split the posts.





On goes the red. We lightened it up a bit so it would pop agains't the black car.




Here's the fade so far. No clear yet. No highlights yet either. I give the thumbs up. We nix the deep magenta fade feeling it would be too dark so reserve that color for the final shading on ends of tips. Dennis mixed a little magenta w/ the red & faded that in the door. It's so subtile, doesn't show up much in pics.




Dennis doing what he does best (besides the fade), adding the shadows that give it depth. He spent alot of time on this. Pics don't do it justice.




More of his work. He's tweaking as I'm taking pics. I'm in the booth the entire time w/ him except when he shot clear. Too nasty.




This is pretty close to done. Dennis continues to tweak.




4 piece hood panels are removed from car to be cleared tomorrow morning. No way can Dennis remove all the tape in time so he removes these & clears the car in 4 coats after I leave.

Saturday morning 9am.



Dennis is all ready to go. The clear actually melts the fade even better. Dennis has removed the fine line tape last night & one of their guys who used the booth later last night rolled the car out of booth.
I saw it & my jaw dropped. Friggin awesome!



Driver side. The flames are more obvious now.




Passenger side. This side has better lighting & is more represenative of the color & fade. In person is waaaaay better!





Grille shell. You can see the orange shadows on top from base of flames on hood.




Dennis starts shooting the clear. We decide to shoot the sides 1st- he's afraid he won't be able to get the tape off in time if he sprays all 4 at same time. Good decision as it was getting close to hard when he worked the tape on the 2nd panel.
4 coats of clear, sand & buff Monday.




Removing the fineline tape. Probably took 1 1/2 hours to get all the tape off on both panels.




Pulled the side panels out of booth after 45 minutes & put on shelf out of the way. They won't be re-installed on car until after the motor is detailed for the open house.





Dennis just finished last coat of clear & it's about 4pm. Pulling of the tape.





Removing the last of tape. Dennis removed a few sections of tape for the camera. Taped it up when I was done.



That's what? About 14 hours?

Can't wait to see the finished product Steve!

Never had any idea that this process was as labor intensive. Many, many hours to get 'em right.

As I've said above, I'm not a real lover of flames painted on a car, but this thread has convinced me that there really is a place for them. While at NSRA York this past weekend I took a bit more then a passing interest at the variations. There are some that are excellent and some that should have never been considered with most of them somewhere in between. I haven't had a chance to download and clean up what few pictures I took, some were of flamed cars. Might post a few in a day or so just for comparison's sake