Gunslinger Flake Job part 1

Sorry for not having posted for so long, I broke my arm and that slowed me up for a while.
I went to visit a fabulous shop this week, Gunslinger Custom Paint in Golden Colorado. I would love to share some photos with you but they asked me not to take any pictures and of course I complied.
I went out there specifically because they completely flacked a custom motorcycle. They used the Old School Flake F-19 Chrome .064 this is the largest size OSF makes and in the sunlight it was dazzling the next step for this project will be to candy over it and I hope to have photos of it as a completed project to share.



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Favorite Colors and Art Cars

Everybody has favorite colors it's one the things 5 year olds say to each other "Whats your favorite color?" orange? purple? Today at the paint store a guy came in and wanted to paint his car white. I asked "which white?" I mean there are dozens if not hundreds of whites. He had no opinion but was stunned to know I had a favorite white. It's Ford ZR ultra white it was used on 1999 Mustangs it's a very pure white with just a touch of blue.
Do you have a favorite blue, red pearl or green metalic please let me know.
A friend of mine is working on an art car. One side has a Japanese riseing sun in the background and Godzilla in the foreground I hope to get some photos soon if you have any please send them to me I would like to post some




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Neil Slade's How to Paint Your Car

If you have read this blog for any length of time you have figured out that I work for a retail automotive paint store in Denver Colorado, Allen Paint. We are a small store and really specialize in hobbyists, restorers and back yard painters. We have taught many people to be painters.
Neil Slade came in one day angry and confused about bad advise he had gotten in the past. Neil became a good painter but more than that he has written about his experience, Thats what he does he's writer, musician and creator of new media.
Neil has written a book and set of movies that he is selling from his huge web site. Neil gave me a copy of the book to review and he has incorporated the important points that was in Jim Wallen's short paper " The Absolute Basic Guide to Painting Your Car"
Neil does not come at this from the point of view of as a seasoned professional but as a self taught amateur and that is really quite refreshing so if you have been doing this for a long time you are going to have some points that you will differ with Neil, I certainly did but nothing of substance.
Here is a sample of the video's that accompany the book



Whether you download the book or get the printed version I think this book is well worth it





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PPG Waterborne at NACE

If your going to NACE this year stop by the PPG booth and see their line of waterborne basecoat system or their seminar "Introduction to Waterborne," on Friday, Nov. 2.
PPG has had a lot of expericnce in Europe with their NEXA AutocolorAquabase and we will be compelled to use it soon.
According to Doug Beuke, compliant segment manager for PPG North America,
"Shops in California and Canada are converting to PPG waterborne systems right now. PPG waterborne basecoat systems are as easy to use as solventborne systems, require no special additives, and feature non-stir toners that make mixing colors particularly fast and easy. PPG waterborne systems also provide consistent color and metallic control across a variety of different application techniques"




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The 50 Worst Cars of All Time

Time has this list the 50 worst cars of all time. The the 1899 Horsey Horseless to the 2004 Chevy SSR. Some of my favorites are on the list the Renault Dauphine, the Ford Edsel The Pinto The Corvair The Gremlin, The Yugo and many others see if your favorite is on the list.




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BMW's Hydrogen 7

Cnet has a review of BMW's Hydrogen 7 The car runs on hydrogen by default but can switch to gasoline. A nice car but I can't imagine that this will be the model for the way most cars will be powered in the future. Sure would be nice to play with one for a week or so though.






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The 50 dollar paint job

I can't really believe this is going to last very long and I could think of a lot of things I would do to improve it but maybe in the interest of fairness make up up your own mind. The 50 dollar paint job



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The new Jaguar XF

Pictures of the new Jaguar XF are out see lots of them at 4hweelsblog.com, and I have read that the first one will be actioned off for charity. The auction will be September the 7th just four days before the car makes it's debut at the Frankfort car show September the 11th.



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Icar rumors?

There are rumors of Apple and Volkswagen getting together will it be the icar? Will it be all white, have propitiatory gas connector, scratch real easily, you wont be able to take it to a regular mechanic, the parts will be very expensive, none of the parts will be avalible at NAPA and you will not want a first generation. (Thanks to Tom and Molly at Buzz out loud)


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Mind your CO2

When out shopping for a new car consider the carbon foot print you will be leaving. The British goverment web site Act on CO2 has a ranking of cars by their carbon emissions per km. The top cars are the hybrids and the diesels with top marks going to the Volkswagen Polo Blue Motion.

The Polo Blue motion is available now in Germany it was first seen at the Geneva Auto show and gets 62 mpg.
Thanks to Tree Hugger for the photo and their good work.



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Bumper Repaired

I repaired a bumper today using the Evercoat system I talked about in my last post. Now I want to be clear I don't work for Fiberglass Evercoat, they don't pay me to write this and have never taken any money or gifts from them. I do work for a retail store that sells their products. But I love this stuff.
I repaired a 2007 Mitsubishi bumper that my friend Sal had discarded. Sal felt it was too badly broken his customer too picky, it seemed like a good piece for me to practice on.

The bumper has a piece broken out making it more challenging. At this point I have cleaned it and trimmed the ragged edges and sanded it.


I' m pretty happy with the result I had to use some glazing putty on the area that was broken out but I kept the lines the same.
Incidentally The material for the repair cost about $60. Sal paid $280 for a new bumper from the dealer but the bumper they gave him was not exactly right this is the bumper for the rally model so he'll have to go back to the dealer to see if they can locate the correct one for him.
I could have this back on the car and painted today.





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Fiberglass Evercoat Maxim System

Yesterday I attended a class given by Fiberglass Evercoat promoting their Maxim repair system. I'm a fan of Fiberglass Evercoat they have a good range of products and they are a very forward looking company.
The Maxim (click on the video icon for and overview) system of plastic repair, seam sealers, foams and adhesives are all packed in two part cartridges that use a standard caulking gun. There are four good videos on door skin replacement, bumper repair, bumper tab repair and body filler and putty. The video's showed me some mistakes I was making using the products and I will be changing some of my in store discussions of how to use them. I recommend that you take a look even if you have years of experience or if you are just getting started.
As with all product promotions they want you to use every product in their lineup but you should pick and choose as it fits your needs. There are good suggestions here and it is worth checking out


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Chrysler sold what's next for American Cars

So what are we to think of the sale of Chrysler?
Damler Benz has cut loose the Amaerican car maker for the bargin price of 7.4 billion dollars a company it bought in 1998 for 36 billion. Billed as a merger of equals Chrysler was a drag that DB was no longer willing to support. Yesterday it was announced that the Chrysler division lost 2 billion dollars in the first quarter of this year.
With Ford and Gm also running up huge losses can automobiles be produced profitably in the United States? Toyota seems to be able to do it. Maybe if the big three started making dependable, economical, fuel efficient cars that people fell love with there can still be a domestic auto industry.
Here's the thing that strikes me when I sit down and watch TV which admittedly is not that often, the advertising is for big trucks. Expensive gas gusselling trucks, that has to be a dead end I mean how many big trucks can Americans drive now that 4 dollar a gallon gas is looming



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In 1941 Chrysler made only 5 Newport Phaeton duel cowl roadster. These cars pushed the envelope of design of the time. They toured the country showing design features that would be coming in the next five years. The war intervened and many of the design and styling features were not followed up on. The actress Lana Turner bought one and painted it red, the fifth was used as the 1941 the Indianapolis 500 Pace Car. Later repainted from the original gold to Walter Chrysler’s favorite color green and was kept by Walter P Chrysler Jr. as his personal car.







Ralph Roberts designed the car an aluminum body on a New Yorker frame at the LeBaron factory. The Newport and the smaller Thunderbolt introduced the envelope theory of design that is a single flowing surface from the front of the car to the rear. Before this fenders were bolted on to the body. The car also incorporated hideaway headlights an aircraft style cockpit, an electrically operated convertible top that folded automatically into a compartment behind the rear seat but in front of the trunk that also was electrically operated. It was powered by a 137 H.P. straight eight and a 3 speed manual transmission.

We made touch up paint for the car that was the lead car in Denver’s St Patrick’s Day parade. I would like to thank Karen Floyd for her photos of the parade.


I had a chance to see the car after the parade and it is one of the very most impressive cars I have ever seen

For more information and pictures see
The Imperial Club
The Walter P. Chrysler Museum
The Detroit News
and my Flickr page




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Anti Trust Settlements

The Pittsburgh Tribune Review has reported that Sherwin Williams and PPG have preliminary approval of their part of the class action price fixing lawsuit. PPG will reportable pay 23 million Sherwin Williams will pay 16 million. DuPont has already settled for 36 million and BASF for 12 million.
Visit Auto Paint Litigation for more information.



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Automotive Paint Code Locater needs your help

I am stating a new project and would like your help. The car companies have not made it easy to find the paint code. The paint code is not in your vin (vehicle identification number) the dealer can call up your paint code by entering it into their database but it is a pain for you and them.

So where is your paint code? Now it would be logical for the manufactures to get together and standardize where the paint codes are but they can't even standardize them selves. General Motors has at least 19 different places that they hide their paint codes.

So I'm starting to make a web page where you put in the year the make and the model and it will display the resulting location and photo of the tag or sticker that contains the code.

Now this is where I would like your help. First is there a web page out there that already does this, if there is I'll save myself all the work. Second I have pretty good access to where the paint codes are in cars from 2007 back to about 1996 before that the information is much more sketchy if you can contribute to the knowledge base please do. Third take a picture of the paint code of your car and send it to me. Include the make the model and I'll credit you for your help

So far I nominate Honda for the most sane paint code sticker it’s on the driver side door and it simply says color and the code. Volkswagen for the most illusive tag often in the well where the tire is stored and once you’ve found the tag you would never know which number you need.

So please e-mail me at jlyons47@ gmail.com if you can contribute or if you would like to see an advance look at the site.

Right now I have a design that is still a sketch on a napkin and allot of data that I am transcribing and am trying to get into a logical form.

Please send paint code locations you know of, criticism or photo to jlyons47@gmail.com.

Thank you

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