We Custom Paint Bicycles!

Its always interesting when people ask me about painting carbon fiber bicycles. They wonder if it can be done. The answer we give them is of course! We do it all the time and the results are always incredible. Last year we had the opportunity to paint Heather Jackson's Cannondale Slice. It was the bike she was going to ride in the Ironman Championships in Kona. 

Heather's racing kit colors were a bright green and black. So we used PPG Deltron to come up with an amazing neon green. And this neon green won't fade. Using SATA Spray equipment's SATAminijet 3000 B HVLP spray gun made it easy to get smooth, even coverage. That gun has been redesigned and the results are mindblowing. I even used the Ladies Edition Minijet. 

Heather had a great design, and I cut out the stencil on a Roland Plotter and used FBS Distributions Promaskers to get the job masked off fast! We had a brutal deadline on this job and we had to save minutes wherever we could. The ProMaskers are the best time savers in our shop! That's a SATAgraph 4 airbrush I'm using. Its a workhorse that can spray a fineline and it never lets me down. Its the best airbrush I have ever used. 

Clearcoating the finished frame with a SATAjet Mini 3000 B. Man, it felt great to see this finished! 

 

Here it is with the forks mocked up. Now it was ready to be packed up for shipping out to Heather! We put as mch care into packing our projects for shipping, as we do in painting them. The parts are wrapped in cotton flannel so keep that clearcoat pristine and then we wrap plenty of bubble wrap around the parts. Then they go into a box with lots of foam peanuts. We pack those boxes so survive almost anything, especially being dropped. We have over 20 years of experience shipping painted parts.

Here's a closeup of the artwork on Heather's bike. 

Here's Heather on the road in Kona competing. She finsihed 5th! We also painted Heather's helmet. Got a bicycle you need custom painted? Send us an email and we'll happy to answer any questions! joann@crazyhorsepainting.com

Whats New!!

Its been a long time since I posted here on this blog, but there's been a whole lot going on. I'll be posting every week, trying to catch you all up on the wicked cool projects  that are coming through the shop. One thing we did, we built and painted a totally badass 1967 Firebird. Check out that purple color. The car looks black but the sun hits it, it lights up purple! I love painting real fire flames, so of course I had to paint them on our shop car! And we get a lot of comments on the Rocket Booster Wheels and the Coker Redline Tires. I fell in love with those wheels the first time I saw them and knew I had to have them on the car. 

This 1950 Merc is another sweet real fire flame project we did last year. We had a blast doing this one. Our customer, Capt Larry is super fun and he had us cracking up laughing most of the time we were there in Florida doing this paint. Yes, we travel to paint flames and graphics, so if you have a paint project and don't live in the Carolina's, we can come to you. If you have your car in the body shop getting painted, we just bring our paint and airbrushes to that shop and work with them to get the job done. 

This is my buddy Bogi. She's awesome! You might know her frm her tv show, All Girl Garage. Bogi is the real deal. She is an ASC certified mechanic and much more. She owns her own shop in Arizona. I don't get to see her as much as I'd like to. We are both so busy. But I did get to work with her on the project in the next photo. 

This is Karen Salvaggio. She's another awesome friend of mine. And that is one wicked cool motor in this picture. Its going into her 1969 AMX. Last year we were working her car, we started the project working on the car in Florida, doing the paint and body. Then it made a stop here at our shop in Waxhaw, where we installed the motor and tranny. That's a Keith Dorton Motor you see hanging off the hoist with a Tremec Transmission hooked to it. The AMX project was very intense and I'll save the details and more pictures for another post. 

Here are my favorite rally stripes I have ever painted and they are on that AMX. Oh the stories I could tell about that project! Man, it was unreal crazy. Well that's all for now. its getting late, and I have to work on some drawings for a real fire flame paint job for a 32 Ford. I have a ton of insane paint project pictures from last year and this year that I will be posting. I also have a Pinterest page now. 

Wow what a year! It went by so fast and so much happened. The SEMA Mustang Project, working with Ford Motor Company, working with PPG, getting to work in the wicked cool Hot Rod Garage at Source Interlink this summer, the amazing projects we did this year, the Musclecar TV show, and of course the wild ride that was this year's SEMA Show. There's lots of new pictures on the website, up to date info on the Facebook page, great advice I'm giving on a really great website with Forums on all things auto paint and body. The Factory Five 33 Hot Rod we painted, seen in the picture above is on tour with the Autorama Shows. Plus we are now the official custom painter for Factory Five Racing. Dave Smith is a great guy and we are excited to be working with him. I have lots of new things coming up and I'll try and post them there as well as on FB and Twitter. 2013 is going to be amazing year.

Hot Rod Flames on TV

Next weekend, Saturday Sept 15, 10:30 am on SpikeTV, be sure to watch PowerBlock TV's Musclecar Show. Want to see some wicked cool flames that were painted with waterbased paint?

Its not the car above but its even cooler looking. I can't post any pictures of the car until after the show airs, but these flames are brutal cool. You will have to tune into the show to see them. In July, Powerblock filmed us as we painted and flamed a Factory Five Hot Rod using PPG's Envirobase paint. The car was in primer and we sprayed a rich, deep black, and painted brutal hot rod flames over the black, then clearcoated to a mirror finished. If you wondered about the reality of waterbased paint as a custom paint, then be sure to see this show. Set your DVR, your Hopper, and see us in action. They are unlike any hot rod flames you've ever seen due to the wild glowing effect of PPG's Envirobase paint. We had a great time filming at Musclecar's Studio at RTM productions. It was an amazing week that has been condensed down into a 30 minute tv show. Until then check out out work at Crazy Horse Flame Shop

Adventures in Custom Paint

2011 has been a very intense year for our shop. We got a great deal of paintwork done and out the door. but there was cery little time off. Very few weekends at the lake. One thing we did this year is custom paint Corvettes. We airbrushed real fire on Corvette and airbrushed flag graphics on another. The only thing better than working on Corvettes is working with the people that own them. My Corvette customers are some of the best people I know. But we've got some pretty incredible hot rod paint work lined up for 2012. Some very cool projects. If you have one, chekc our website and give us a call. We'll be happy to discuss your project.

Chekc out website www.crazyhorsepainting.com for more pictures on our latest work. Those pictures can be seen in the Hot Rod Callery. I've got many more pictures to post so check back. Thanks for reading Crazy Horse Flame Shop!

We love to Flame Hot Rods

If I had to pick my absolute favorite thing to paint, it would be flames on cars and trucks. It is pure creativity. Even though I always do pre paint drawings for the customer in order to plan out the flames and fine tune them to the customer's desires, once I am airbrushing, the flames decide exactly where they're going to go. I just let the airbrush start working its magic and the flames start to dance across the surface of the car or truck. I just watch it happen. It always intregues me.

This T bucket was a pure example of that idea. Painting these flames for Paul Reeves was a pure joy. Paul's little shop down in Alabama was peaceful yet full of fun. Paul and his family were awesome hosts and their fun attitudes definitely affected my mood when painting these real fire flames.

Jerry Pigg was another customer who pretty much let me loose to create something very powerful. His rose colored street rod needed something to wake up the color. I tried out various kinds of flames and colors in the prepaint drawings and found that traditional hot rod flames gave the car the impact he wanted. He took home a First Place trophy in the first show he entered after the flames were done.

The goal of our custom paint is the make the hot rod, street rod, classic car or truck as impactful as possible. To make people walk across a parking lot to get a better look. And no other factor in a custom car or truck will have the kind of impact that custom paint will.

Is custom paint affordable? It sure is. We work with our customer's budget to try and get the most bang for their hard earned dollars. Give us your budget and we'll see what we can do for that budget. Email us at joann@crazyhorsepainting.com and see what we can do for your custom project.

We will be adding many more hot rod and street rod photos to the website. Including new photos of Lee Novakoff's '33. Lee has another very interesting project in the works and we look forward to working on it's artwork design.

We have some wicked cool projects coming up in the next few months, including a brutal cool Corvette with Lambo doors. And adding photos of another Corvette that we flamed with real fire. This vette belongs to a fireman.

Hell yes, Spring is in the House!

Unless you are skiing your ass off, winter sucks. The cold zaps energy and creativity goes out the window. But the shop was busy and somehow work got done. I kept a good attitude about the cold for the most part but by the end of Jan, I had an insane yearning for warm weather. And my prayers were answered. Winter here in the South is over. No more frost in the morning. No more trying to keep the studio warm. We had some amazing projects we worked on over the last few months. We've been painting quite a few baggers over the last year and the past month was no exception. Painting a bagger is a whole lot different than simply painting a tank and two fenders. Think about it, the surface area of one saddlebag is bigger than the average tank. plus you have the lid. if you are painting murals or artwork, that's three artwork areas. Plus there's the insides of the parts which have to be carefully masked off. Add two saddlebags, two lids, and two sidecovers more than doubles the amount of work than painting just a tank and two fenders. Add a tour pack, tour pack lid, fairing and the amount of work as well as paint, has tripled.
We've become bagger painting experts here at Crazy Horse. So check out some of the paint jobs we did below. There's more to come. I feel renewed thanks to this incredible weather and the work is flowing. We've got some pretty interesting projects coming up, including a very cool Corvette and a very rare 69 Camaro SS RS.
Right now its time to let the dogs out, have a breakfast and then into my sweet little studio. I am digging this weather!!!!

This is a wicked cool paint job for a Marine. Check back as I will be posting pictures of the assembled bike. I can't wait to see this bike together.

This was a wild job. We had 5o hardhats to custom paint in 4 days. Ths shop was crazy. But we got the job done and delivered the project by the deadline.

The flying eye ball grill shell gets flamed. I'll be posting pictures of Bill's T bucket once he sends them to me.

2010 SEMA Pictures

SEMA 2010 was pretty intense. It was 4 days of sensory overload for the anyone who digs cars. The show this year had something for everyone. We have a pretty intense week here at the Flame Shop. We're setting up this weekend at the CBA Bike Swap Meet at the Metrolina Expo just north of Charlotte, NC. Its one of the biggest bike swap meets in the South. So time is short this week. Next week, I'll be posting more pictures and more news about this years SEMA.

Gene Winfield painted this incredible Caddy from Austraila. It was in the PPG booth.

Killer cool retro paint at the Iwata booth.

Beautiful real fire flames at the PPG Truck.

Digging the matte finish paint on this sweet Corvan.

Where else but SEMA will you see something like this rolling down the city streets? More pictures next week.

The Sweet Fall Season

Ok, its a quickie post today.

1) Spent the morning doing a photo shoot on Dave Tuttle's 46 Ford. We did the woodgrain work on Dave's car, the dash and all the window trim. Many who see it, think its real wood. But no, its painted.

2) Getting ready for SEMA, plane tickets are paid for, plans are made. Gotta do some work on my buddy's Ron's 50 GMC truck while we are out there. Its a wild ride. But there is more work to do, a couple of hoods for our good friends at SATA Spray Equipment. They make the best paint guns, filtering systems, and their airbrushes rock. Using their equipment makes my jobs much easier.

3) Getting ready to try out House of Kolor's new Shimron 2. Its supposed to be the bomb, I'll find out this week.

4) It will be awesome to see all our Vegas friends, Ron, Robert, Joe and Mary, Ed and Leslie. We are so blessed to have such great friends. Plus Robert's La Mexicana Restaurant is wonderful. The SEMA Show is always a blast. And we get to see my stepson Josh and our grandbaby Preston.

5) Ok got to get my old butt on my mt bike and do about 8 miles. Trying to shed 10 lbs over the next 3 weeks.

A Flaming Good Time in Alabama.

We just got back from painting flames on a '23 t bucket down in Alabama. The customer lives out in the country and has a nice little shop next to his house. It was one of the totally surreal yet wonderful experiences that make life worth living. And makes the work we do, so very worthwhile. Not every job we do is fun. Unexpected things pop up and you have to deal with it. That is the difference between an artist and a painter who is also an artist. A painter knows how to deal with paint problems. There is no way to have a career in painting, and not have dealt with the unlimited issues that come up.

But working on Paul Reeve's '23 was fun. Paul and his family are wonderful people and it was a pleasure to be around them.

The one problem? The squirrels. It was actually pretty funny, there are all these oak trees above Paul's shop and the squirrels sit up in the high branches and snack on the acorns. But they only take a few bites of each and then throw them away. There was a near constant pinging of the metal roof over the shop as the acorns would fall. You could not work in the driveway without getting nailed by a half eaten nut. We'd call out "incoming!" And then whack, a big acorn would hit. They landed everywhere, in the soda cups, in the paint mix cups, on the car.

But now we are home and getting ready for SEMA. Painting up a few things to display there. I'm looking very forward to working with House of Kolor's new Shimron 2 line of paints. Coast Airbrush Supply has been busy bottling up the new Shimrons and shipping them out to painters. I'll let ya'll know how it goes working with it. They say its the easiest to use custom paint ever. I guess I'll fnd out next week.

And I'm working on a major update to the website. We're launching two new gallery pages, one exclusively for hot rod paint and a page devoted to our Military themed paint jobs. And there will be a big overhall for the Customer Comment page. And new additions to the award and magazine article pages.

And finally the long awaited How To Section of the website will be launched.

I'll be posting here as the website updates are posted on the site. But for now, its Friday afternoon, I have to look over a flame job we finished and get it ready to ship out next week, then I'm working on a drawings for a customer in Idaho.

Tomorrow, I'm doing a photo shoot for American iron magazine featuring a wild, vintage dragbike at the Rockingham Dragway. Then its off to Chester, SC for an overnight campout with my 6 yr old godson. It will be his first Cub Scout campout.

Sunday we let the dogs run and its back to work creating beautiful and durable paint jobs!

Never a dull moment here at Crazy Horse Paint.

Back to the Blog

When the shop is busy, I stay in the shop and work. Here's a quick rundown on my usual day. Up at 7am. Check emails and the weather. Maybe have a cup of tea. Black tea not that green stuff. Then I get dressed on workout gear and ride my mountain bike about 8 miles. The loop I ride goes through the countryside, lots of horse farms, cattle ranches and endless fields. Its just beautiful, plus it has alot of hills I have to climb.

Then its back home, wash up and change into work clothes. Have a quick breakfast and go into the shop about 8:30. I'll work till about 6 pm. then its back for another 8 miles on the bike, then play with my german shepherd and then back until the shop until 9pm.

Most weekends I work. Not as long of a day but I'll put in some hours. And then there's traveling for work and trade shows, car shows, cruise nights, anyway to promote the business.

Doesn't leave much time for blogging. That's why there haven't been many blog entries lately.

Plus there has been alot of work being done on the shop itself, trying to get ready for winter. Plus getting ready for SEMA. And of course Halloween stuff with my godsons. That is the biggest holiday around here what with the hayrides, the trip to the pumpkin patch, making jack o lanterns, baking seeds, making cookies and decorating. Christmas is a breeze compared to Halloween.

I take my work very seriously. I like for each paint job that come out of this shop to be incredible.

But things are slowing down a little, so I'm going to try and make more time for this blog. We have done alot of incredible work here this summer. Right now I have got to get in the shop. The big dog is yipping, he wants to play. But Mom has to work right now. Its a gray, windy day here in Waxhaw, but there still is a certain beauty listening to the wind in the tall trees.

Ok into the shop I go and be sure to check back for more updates soon.

Back From the VTwin Expo

Chris Callen, editor of Cycle Source does the Capt Morgan with Dave Nichols, editor of Easyriders and Vtwin.

Despite the gloom and doom many in the press has been saying about the custom motorcycle industry and the fact that some great companies have closed down, there was this intensity in the air, a purely positive feeling.

Sure the VTwin Expo was smaller this year, but it did fill the main hall of the Duke Energy Convention Center. And I did not see many sad faces, instead people were smiling, talking, working. There were new products, in fact, there were alot of new products. There was this upbeat energy that you could feel.

It did not matter that it was freezing cold outside, we all had a great time. The Kris Krome/Tony Schumacher bike was amazing.

I still have to go though the pictures and then I'll post some and write more about the show. Check back this weekend for the pictures. Right now I gotta have some breakfast and get in the shop. It a sunny day here in the Carolinas.

First Place at the Easyriders Show!!!

A crew member here at Crazy Horse has won a First Place at the Easyriders Show here in Charlotte. The Chopper Farm is the bike shop and fabrication facility for Crazy Horse and Jim Bortles is the man behind the incredible bikes that come out of it. Last year, Jim picked up a stock sportster for less than $2000.

He has turned it into a badassed little hardtail bobber and now it is a show winning bike. His little low buck sportster beat out a whole crop of big buck bikes to take home that First Place. Jim's creations can be seen on our Custom Bikes page. http://www.crazyhorsepainting.com/custombikes.shtml

The Chopper Farm offers many services for bikes. From service and repair to customizing stock bikes to full on custom bike builds. And you won't find a btter price on custom work. Call 704-771-6405 to talk with Jim.

And 3 of our bikes, bikes with our paint and Jim's fabrication are featured in the 2010 Karney Law Firm Custom Bike Calendar.

That's it for now, Its almost Febuary and here in the Carolinas that means winter is half over. We have a full schedule of work for Febuary into March in the paint shop. So we'll be putting in some long hours so when the warm weather comes, our customers will be riding.
Check back to the blog for pictures of Jim's evil sporty bobber, the before and after pictures.

Hope ya'll are keeping warm out there.

15 Degrees

The thermometer is currently at 15 degrees here in old Waxhaw Creek. The forecast says it will get down to 10 next weekend. It might get to 35 today. Lovely weather for painting. Not! Our normal high is 50, the low is 30 for this time of year.

Long week of work ahead so this will be the only blog post this week. The shop is full of work and we have some amazing paint jobs for the months of January and Febuary.

Keep warm out there. Meanwhile I will be riding as I am still testing Harley's FXRG Riding Gear for Cycle Source magazine. Of course we would have to have to coldest winter in 30 years, the winter I choose to test riding gear.

Hoping for Merry Christmas For All!

Its a cold rainy Christmas morning here in the Carolinas. If it were a bit colder, there'd be a foot of snow out there. But instead the wind chimes are singing as wind and rain pelts The Chopper Compound. Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday season. And hope everyone has a wonderful and safe New Year!

The sun threatened to come out for a little while this morning. But no, the clouds are taking over once again. And it is colder than yesterday. I really shouldn't complain as I talked to my buddy Tony with SATA Spray Equipment up in Minnisota and it was 23 below zero there.
Today I'll be finishing up the paint sample for Tony Schumacher's bike and airbrushing real fire. The other half of the shop will be finishing up the prep work for the Constitution bike. That bike is going to be so cool. I like doing projects that make people think about things. I'll be posting updates about that project here as it gets worked on. Some very classic and timely words will be airbrushed on that bike.
So for now, I'll share a few cool pictures I've collected.