JH Choppers, Road King Custom Paint

Welcome to the JH Choppers Road King Custom Paint Project.

Below you will find some of the steps in painting a bagger. No fairing on the Road King, so it makes this job a little easier. The goal for this project is Candy Blue and 2 layers of ghost flames...

Remove the Rivets: Stock Road Kings and Glides have large rivets that hold the fender to the mounting braces. We wanted a clean look, so we removed the rivets and replaced them with welds, then smoothed out the welds for a trick look. The "Electra Glide" logo was also removed and holes filled in (this fender is going on a Road King, not a Glide)

Complete Fender Prep: With the rivets removed and the holes welded, Metal Glaze was added. This is sanded and more Metal Glaze is applied until the sides are smooth to the touch. We see so many custom bikes/paint jobs with these rivets left in, this is simple trick to make your bike stand out from the rest...

Tank, Bags, Lids, Side Panels Prep: The plastic Harley logo must be completely removed or it show through the final paint, this is a breeze with a DA and 80 grit. The stock pin stripping is also removed from the tank and bags. All surface's are sanded smooth with 180-200 grit. A small dent was also repaired in tank using metal glaze.

Direct to Metal Primer: HOK makes this nice Direct to Metal Primer that bits into raw metal and stock OEM finishes. 5 coats are applied to the Tank, Front Fender and Bags for high build up where the Logo and Pin Stripes used to be. The other parts only have minor scratches so 2 - 3 coats are used.

Guide Coat and Wet Sand: A guide coat is applied to help guide us though the wet sanding. As the the guide is slowly removed, the imperfections are revealed. Starting with 220 grit and finishing up 500 grit, only the supper smooth primer is left. No more rivets on the front fender either!

Sealer: 2 Coats of White Sealer is used to seal the porous primer and Metal Glaze layers from the base colors. White is used to help the Silver Metallic pop after it is applied on top of the Sealer.

Orion Silver Basecoat: 3 Coats of HOK BC-02 is applied over the White Sealer. This really makes the Silver "pop", 1 coat medium wet and 2 wet coats for full coverage.

Candy Cobalt Blue: 5 Coats of HOK UK-05 is applied over the Silver Basecoat. Starting with 3 medium wet coats first, with 75% spray overlap, then finishing with 2 full wet coats with 50% spray pattern overlap.

Clear Coat: 3 Coats of HOK UC-35 Clear Coat is applied over the Candy Base Color. We use clear to lock in the candy and give it additional depth. Cobalt Blue will bleed out into the flames, this clear will protect the flames from the evil cobalt chemicals. In the Sun, you can see the metallic shine through the candy.

Wet Sand the Clear Coat: The clear is now wet sanded with 600 grit, this gives the flames and the final clear something to stick to. This also removes and minor orange peel, thus providing more depth.

Flame Masking Part 1: Since we are doing 2 layers of overlapping flames, both layers will have to masked out individually. Starting with 1/8 inch fine line masking tape, the flame outlines are placed onto the sanded clear coat by hand. Then the remaining parts are covered with masking film and cut with a razor blade. The cut film is removed leaving the flame pattern for air brushing.

Airbrush Flames Part 1: Using an airbrush, Silver is lightly applied onto the tape lines. This creates a thin ghost like flame with the over spray thinning out across the flame edge. The masking is removed with in 10 minutes, as airbrush applied paints dry quickly. Then scuffed down with a white scotch bright pad knocking down the paint edges.

Harley Logos: Using our Roland RX24, we cut out paint mask with the Harley-Davidson Logo. The mask is placed onto the rear fender and tank. For the fender, silver is air brushed on then covered in candy blue. When riding at night, head lamps will hit this and shine for a cool look. Only silver in air brushed onto the tank. Now the logo is on top of the first layer of flames, while the second set will be on top of the logo.

Flame Masking Part 2: The second layer flames is created using the same 1/8 fine line tape and masking. The flames are designed to overlap the first layer for full set of flames.

Airbrush Flames Part 2: Silver is lightly applied onto the tape lines creating a thin ghost like flame with the over spray. Then Candy Blue is applied to give the second set some color and add depth to the paint.

Final Clear and Flow Coat: Three coats of clear is applied to the tank and fenders. The final coats has just a little additional reducer for a flow coat. The front fender rocks with the chrome bolted to it.

Repeat for Bags, Lids, and SIde Panels: The tape layout and masking steps are repeated for the bags, lids, and side panels. Below are how the bags look just before the final clear is applied.

Final Clear and Flow Coat: Three coats of clear is applied with just a little additional reducer for a flow coat. All parts are painted and cleared.

Final Assembly: The Candy 2 layer flame job turned out great. Now that the parts are back on the bike, the chrome and black make the paint look even better. Click on the images to make them bigger.