Chevy HHR Custom Paint Job - Automotive Arson

Jeff said, "To get a nice fade, all I can say is take your time, as you start into the fade area step the colors back like from yellow to orange. Just don't try and fully cover the area, slowly add a little orange to the yellow, add a little bit more and more until you are faded into orange."

It's the same procedure with the orange to red, but that fade is a bit easier and goes a lot faster.

For the tips that cross over into other tips you will need to lay some more tape and spray the area with the dark red. Make sure the base coat is dry before you start taping.

Jeff likes to spray some gold pearl over the entire job as the last step before unmasking. He mixes powder pearl in the Mid Coat Clear and lightly dusts the flames to give them some pop in the sun. After that the flames can be unmasked. Jeff passes on this tip: "Unmask carefully, as to not mess up all the hard work you have just done. Don't get in a hurry. Take off all of the masking paper first and then carefully remove the 1/4-inch fine line, pulling it slowly."

After everything was unmasked, he did another quick coat with the powder pearl/Mid Coat Clear mixture and then he sprays two coats with straight Mid Coat Clear. This will even out the edge build up from the flames and will provide a better edge to stripe against.

To add some more old-school style to the lettering on the side of the truck, Jeff will be adding some silver leaf. The first step is to apply some Gold Size varnish...

Carefully unpack the leaf and start sticking it to the area. It will only stick where the Gold Size was painted on.

After all the leaf was applied Jeff came back with a rag and rubbed the area. This will remove any leaf that is not stuck to the glue.

Once the extra leaf was removed, he used a velvet turning device from Coast Airbrush to lightly spin the silver to produce a machine turned finish, which is a cool look when the light hits it.

The edge on the silver leaf will be a bit ragged and uneven, so Jeff came back and outlined it with some red.

The flames will also get a pinstripe border in white. Jeff uses a Mack series-10 size-0 brush. Jeff says, "If you are not up to striping your finished job, contact a local striper and he will come out and stripe it up for you. Or you can contact me and I will give you a class on how to stripe because pinstriping is tricky the first time around."

Now it's time to bury the whole design in a few fresh coats of the Kustom Shop's 2K Super Flow Polyurethane Clear with a DeVilbiss gun.

Here is the finished product in all its old-school glory. As you can tell, the wheels do add something to the style, but the flames really turn this stocker into a scorcher.