The old paint job was starting to look pretty rough so I decided to repaint my tins and leaf the decal with Copper, silver and 24k Gold. I'm letting the size breathe for a week or so then I'll clear coat.

 

That is really nice. It will be even more beautiful with the clear. Please post when done.

 

Night and day diff!!! i have always wanted to give that a try man looks great!

 

Looks fantastic!

 

WTG! Looking really well done!! Can't wait to see it cleared! How much time you have in it?

 

That is some awesome leaf work - can't wait to see the finished product. Keep us posted!

 

Thanks guys, I should find some time to clear it this weekend.

It's my first attempt at leafing something and I'm pretty sure the process I used isn't the proper one but I think it turned out good enough.

As far as time goes, I took it apart on November 30 and had it stripped and painted before January. After that I only worked on it when I was in the mood and no one was home.
There was a lot of trial and error and some wasted gold, and I rather take an a$$ whoopin than do it again, but the results are worth it. I'd guess that I have 100-150 hours from stripping to final clear coat and a lot of that was staring at it scratching my head. Total cost around $350 for paints, masks, metals, and misc. items.

I'll post when its done.

 

Nice Job !!!!!

 

Outstanding work! If possible, please explain the process of transferring the eagle silhouette onto the gold. Did you apply the gold to the tank, then outlined the image onto the gold background and trimmed?

Thanks.

 

The eagle, the diamonds and the letters were all done with vinyl paint masks with the metals applied over them then the mask peeled off. Everything else was masked and airbrushed. The glue, or "size" is sprayed on after everything is masked.

I tried spraying, peeling the mask off, then brushing on the metal but I found doing it the way I did it below left a sharper line and I didn't mix the metals into each other.