The Tribal Challenge

Now this match job was quite the challenge! Matching a custom paint job done by another painter is not always the easiest task. I’ve matched quite a few but as you can see, this was a difficult match to do. Fuel had spilled out of the bung and down the right side of the tank and basically ate all the way through to the metal. All the paint that has the fuel has to be stripped off so I had to match the base, marbleized area as well as the flames, outline and blue shading. Alot of steps involved in order to ensure that all colors blend together before clearcoating.

The first step required is that the repair has to be done. A job like this is quite thick to begin with, so it had to be stripped to metal and “feathered” in good. Then coated with 2K primer. Once dried it then has to be blocked to ensure it is level. One thing to remember on a match job, the area needed to be done is almost always twice the size. So I wasn’t for sure how much would be left once everything was feathered, primed, and resanded. Now on to the paint matching!

Since this paint job was done by another painter, all the steps have to be figured out before starting, and thinking the process through.
Once a game plan is thought out, the ground coat is the first step, which on this job was a solid black.
Then the marble effect is the next step. Marbleizer does not have good adhesion properties so after I did it, I clearcoated to protect this step before proceeding to the next.
Once clearcoated, it was resanded the next day, then the masking and airbrushing of the tribals.
Matching the consistency of the silver and the color of the blue shading was a challenge by themselves. The tribals on this tank were not symmetrical so this made the job a tad bit easier, and I saved enough of the original ‘tips’ that I could blend in the graphics. “Before” pics were also taken just in case I needed it for reference.
The outline was ‘painted on’ and not hand striped like the original. Matching the width along with making it look hand pinstriped help blend the tribals in nicely.

As you can see in the pics, it all worked out.
All left to be done was to clearcoat the tank, and a little wetsand and buffing.

Back to par! This came out very nice. The customer was very happy!
See more pics of this job here in our “Spot Job” Gallery

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