DIY: Hundred Dollar Paint Job

     I'd been wanting to shoot a "fancy" paint job on my gas tank for awhile now. I'd shot it in red primer just to get it on the road and it'd remained that way for some time. With the date for the Hunnert Car Pile Up approaching, I found some motivation to get busy. I purchased some choice colors of DupliColor's rattle cans: Orange and Purple Metal Cast, Green and Silver Metal Specks,  and Standard gloss black. I also bought some painter's fine line tape and some lace. I prepped the tank first, and in hindsight I wish I'd have stripped the tank to bare metal as I'd done every other time in the past. But, since it already had primer on it, I chose to just fill in a dent and fix some nicks in the primer here and there. Prior to doing so, I did a light sanding to rough the surface and remove any blemishes in the primer.

     Once I had the surface how I wanted it, I shot the entire tank in Metal Specks Silver. I let that coat set up overnight before I taped off my panels/designs (planning for my fineline tape lines to remain silver). I used 1/4" and 1/16" tape to do this. After the design was laid out and I was happy with it, it was time to start with the lace. I began by doing one panel at a time, masking the entire rest of the tank from overspray. I laid my lace down, which proved to be an art in itself, and once I had it flat against all surfaces, I lightly misted the area with Gloss Black, building up to a darker black as I laid each coat down. You don't want to get too heavy or the black with saturate the surface and the lace and you will lose some detail of the pattern.

   
      I then let the black coat sit for about a half hour before spraying my Metal Cast color of choice over the top of the silver and black. Once I acheived a nice even coat of color, I let that finished panel dry before masking over it. I then uncovered the next panel to be done.

     Once all panels were shot I masked off the entire tank except for the negative space between my 1/4" & 1/16" fine line tape. This left fine lines of silver between all of the panels that I then shot with Metal Specks Green. Keep in mind that the fine line tape is still in place and when it is finally removed, those lines will remain silver.

     After allowing the final spray of green to dry, I removed all tape and masking paper. Remember when pulling tape to do so at an angle. I did have a few blemishes, as would be expected, none of them catastrophic and I touched them up as best as I could before clear coating.

     Originally I had planned to use Engine Enamel Clear that Dupli Color offers, but after spending many hours on this, and it coming out better then I had expected, I thought better of it.
     I took the tank to my friends Dad down the road who is a professional painter/body man. It didn't hurt that he is also into old cars and bikes. After explaining how there would be no UV protection to my paint job and some other characteristics and chemistry of PPG paint versus rattle cans, he agreed to lend me a hand.
     He shot some nice coats of clear on it, wet sanded it and buffed it. Here is the finished result as it now sits on my chop.