Painting a Decal on Hood

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 24, 2021 9:57 pm
Hey guys,

Some of you may be familiar with me. I am in the process of restoring a 1997 Firebird and right now I am doing extensive mechanical work on the car. So I am trying not to put too much effort or time into cosmetic stuff until it is fully mechanically sound.

Having that in mind, I do like to do some research on other things from time to time to take a break from some of the other stuff. So something that I constantly think about is painting at least the hood of this car and some of the bumpers/rocker panels. I would really like to paint a Phoenix or something on the hood to stay true to the "Firebird" design.

The car is white right now and with the help of this forum I think I have came to the conclusion to keep it that way. Anyway, before this gets too long what would be my best bet for painting something like this on the hood of my car? There are a lot of groves and curves on this hood as well. So I was thinking some kind of 'rubbery' material would go on best with a heat gun or something.

I have seen people put square decals on cars with the image they want 'open' in the middle. So they basically just cover the rest of the area to protect from overspray and just spray on top of the square. So then you just remove everything and have your end result and clear coat over everything. I am making this more complicated than it is, I think this is probably the most common way.

I have seen it done other ways too but they seem like they are more complicated and could create issues. Especially since I am thinking I want my Phoenix black and the rest of the hood white. I was trying to look around for easy ways to do this and places to purchase decals but cannot find any. So I was hoping this community may be able to help me figure this out. So I have a game plan when tackling this job.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 24, 2021 10:20 pm
Well, even when I found the right vinyl appliques for what I wanted I kept running into static electric problems that were pulling my fine details aside as I was putting the decal down so this is what I did.... Go midway down on this page on my truck build.....
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=27971&start=100
There are a lot stencils out there bouncing around the net. I just downloaded that ram and blew it up. I then used what is called Sticky Micky roll stock which has continuous adhesive on it. Put that down where I wanted it and used some spray contact cement to put the printed out stencil over that, then simply razor cut open the stencil on the car. After you've got it sprayed (I used basecoat in my case), then you can concentrate on burying it with more clear. On mine, I wanted it to feel more like a decal so I feathered my edges slightly but cleared it before removing the tape. Large patterns can be done with most home printers by running them in poster mode. That allows you to make a fairly large pattern.
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 24, 2021 11:10 pm
STICKY MICKY :rotfl: we use to call it FRISKET PAPER.
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 7:48 am
Here's how I handled doing a Firebird hood "flaming chicken".
The owner had me restore the body and paint it in real Candy Apple Red paint. He then said he wanted to put the vinyl decal on the hood, well, over my dead body!
I had him buy the decal, then we traced it out onto masking paper. Using a pounce wheel, we punched tiny holes along all the edges of the design. Laid it on the hood, and tapped a bag of powdered chalk on the paper, so it made outlines of all the edges on the hood. Then we masked and shot it in 3 colors of pearl. Took about 40 hours of masking, but the results are fantastic! In pics it's a bit hard to see, but when the light hits it 'just right', it lights up like a Christmas tree.
Attachments
firebird_3 001.jpg
firebird_2 002.jpg
firebird_2 001.jpg
Firebird_1 002.jpg
Firebird_1 001.jpg

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 8:00 am
Man, nice work....my pounce stuff is still out in the drawer on my finish bench. I've even done some furniture where I had to do duplicate patterns.....pounce wheel and contrasting powders were a life saver....
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:15 pm
Thanks for all the great replies. I am trying to find something similar to Chopolds though, but I may not be capable of such art. Similar in that it covers a larger area. Also unfortunately my Firebird is the fourth generation so that hood is a lot more flat than mine. Nonetheless that looks amazing. So which one is the finished result? So it is sort of hidden in a way until you get a certain angle? It looks really really cool.

I am trying to decide what color it should even be. I believe the original phoenix art was gold which may be a good idea. However, I also thought about black or blue as well. Because black would be a good bet because there are already black accents on the car like the hard removable top or black door handles. However, the original gold would probably look really nice as well.



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PostPosted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 3:30 pm
Top pic is finished. The pearls lite up when the sun hits them at the right angle. You can see the blue, god and purple there. Next pic down, is all the colors sprayed, not final clear. Next two, are during the masking.
This project is NOT beyond your means. If it were me, and I didn't have the tools and such to do it again, I would do this. Take a picture of what you want to do on the hood. Bring it to Staples, and have it blown up to the right size to fit on your hood. Then, cut out the individual shapes, leaving just a thin piece of paper between them to keep them all connected. Lay out the pattern on the hood, and trace it out with grease pencil. Now you can mask it, first with some 1/8" Fineline, then use wider tape to finish. If you do multiple colors, like I did, once you do the Fineline work, you can "finish mask" each color separately, and spray. Unmask and proceed to the next color. If you are going to take more than one day to complete it, I'd lock down each color with intercoat clear, so you can scuff it at the end, right before final clear.



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PostPosted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 8:33 pm
Nice Job Chop!
Love to see that in its own write up thats cool!

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 9:15 pm
hood job looks great :goodjob:. i have a dumb question though when you use the pounce wheel and powder, how do you get the tape to stick with the powder all over. you can tell that in all my years i have never used one.
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 26, 2021 7:43 am
badsix, IF you do it right, you only get a little bit of powder going through those tiny holes. The small amount is not going to prevent the paint from sticking. You do have to use the powder sparingly. I used to use an old sock to apply the powder, but it put on too much and wasn't controllable, When I got a real pounce pad, it was much better.
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