1
For over a year now, I've been working at Belmont Park, the world famous racetrack, in the maintenance department. I'm a member of the paint crew and we prowl the grounds in this old Suburban...
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2
As you can plainly see, this vehicle is battered and bruised. It has holes in the floor, seats propped up with sticks and stuffed with rags, it stalls, leaks fluids of all sorts,and the doors fly open by themselves at the most inoportune times. In the recent "Cash For Clunkers" program, it would probably be ineligible. That's the nickname we've given this jewel.
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3
I've often considered trying automotive lettering, and I SERIOUSLY doubt that anyone would be upset if I tried my hand on this gem, so I broke out some One Shot and gave it the old College Try.
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4
First I traced the letters onto the side using a scheme laid out on my computer and transferred with carbon paper.
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5
Next I began to fill in the blanks.
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6
This is harder than I imagined, the paint was drying pretty rapidly, and often adding more thinner only made the paint runnier. This left me with drips and sags to try and correct.
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7
After getting the base blue done, I added a drop-shadow with Prussian Blue. I've been doing this on my lunch breaks, so the time passes by faster than I'd like.
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8
Although I didn't take any "before" shots of the drivers' side, which I did first, I actually went through the motions by giving it a quick wet sanding ( mostly to get the overspray off of it) a degreasing, don't ask why, and some pre-cleaner. I then used old fashioned carbon paper to place the lettering design on it.
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9
I tried a variety of different brushes to do the Prussian blue letters, with mixed results.
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10
Here's another shot of the progress I was making doing the darker blue drop shadowing. You can see the end letters aren't highlighted.
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11
This is the driver's side, which I did first. The "The" needs to be redone, it looks really horrible. You'll notice the letters slant back, as if the speed is pushing them back. The opposite side I did the same thing, but since the ends of the letters come first, they slant towards the rear of the vehicle, which looks a bit more awkward, since the end of the words are facing forward.
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12
Too bad I couldn't hide the rust, chips, dents and body rot with the lettering.
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13
Here's another shot of the second side I did. The letters are a bit larger, which made them easier to paint. I also got the hang of it, so there was less experimentation going on and it took less time.
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14
Here's the finished product. Now, where's the car show???
A new update, I finished the lettering on Friday October 2nd. Today, October 8th, I heard that the truck is being hauled to the junkyard. Timing IS everything!
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