In the world of all things custom who wants a stock anything? If you are a motorcycle enthusiast and want your Harley Davidson to stand out from all the rest then Smooth Customs from Becker, Minnesota, can accommodate you!
Smooth Customs has been in business for thirteen years and judging by the photos they have a lot of experience in paint and body. The owner of Smooth Customs, Caleb, will tell you they can do it all including fabrication work at various levels from mild to wild and their work is not restricted to just motorcycles either (hint-hint... mini-truckers). Smooth Custom's mantra is: "You name it, we can do it."
Fortunately, ESM just happened to catch Smooth Customs right before they began work on a small project that involves converting a boring stock Harley Davidson fender and tank set to custom and cool. The Harley tins received a gothic fantasy theme depicting a war field that has been torn up with fire, with a large mural on both sides of the tank and some weapon-like tribal flames over the fenders.
Read on to check out Smooth Custom's handy work and be sure to visit: www.smoothcustomsdesign.com for more cool custom work. Oh yeah, be sure to tell 'em ESM sent ya!
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Ken Mosier's brand spankin' new 2008 fatboy tins from Missouri... they won't look like this for long! |
The fenders are tapped up for protection against scrapes and the rivets are drilled out. The inner braces will be welded to the fenders, eliminating the need for unsightly rivets and creating a clean custom look. |
This is the tank and fender set after a little mud work, welding, and grinding. The leather dash pad, at the center of the tank, has been eliminated to make more room for some artwork. Next up... priming and blocking. |
With the blocking complete, Caleb lays down a black sealer as a base for a cool stormy airbrushed background. |
Here, Caleb has fogged a weakened red, orange, and purple, and is now tying it all together with black to make a smoky stormy sky. |
The finished background actually looks like a faded copper finish, but Caleb is just getting warmed up! A lot more cool stuff has yet to happen. |
The fenders are covered in 2-inch tape to provide a canvass for Caleb to sketch-in some killer tribal flames. |
The tribal design is sketched first with a ball point pen and then it's retraced with a marker to confirm where each line is supposed to be before any cutting is performed. |
After very carefully trimming the graphics out with a brand new blade, all the positive areas are removed leaving the negative space covered up, so the flames can be painted. |
Airbrushing the graphic colors, instead of using a bigger paint gun, lessens the thickness of the paint. Caleb started by sketching with silver and is finishing up with black. |
After finishing the sketching with white to finish the metallic look, the tape masking is all pulled to reveal the tribal pattern and it already looks like it could be cleared now. |
Here, Caleb is shadowing the tribal flames, and he also added a little fire in the clouds to go with the tank murals. |
The flames are pinstriped with a cardinal red striping enamel, with some maroon added in for just the right color. |
Viola! The fenders are finally ready for the clearcoat. |
Next, Caleb starts on the tank background for the murals. A fiery background sets the stage for what is to come. |
Caleb draws in the left side image in black to get the right dimensions first, so he can start on the details next. |
Details, details, details... and more details! |
Left mural good-to-go and ready to launch! |
The right mural outline and landscape is airbrushed in. |
White is fogged in for the highlight colors on the right mural. |
Black shadows are airbrushed in for depth and detail. |
Jump ahead a few hours and the right mural is complete! |
To tie things together, Caleb added some tribal flames on the tank. |
The tank is now ready for some clear! |
Six coats of clear later, all the graphics are buried. |
The fenders and tank are wet sanded with 1000, 1500, and then hand sanded with 2000 grit sandpaper to take any dust particles or orange peel out of the surface of the fresh clearcoat. This ensures a glass-smooth surface to polish. |
Smooth... like glass! |
After high speed polishing and a good hand-glazing, everything is ready for safe packaging and shipping back home to Ken Mosier in Missouri! Check out photos of the assembled bike at: www.smoothcustomsdesign.com. |
