FLAMES!!! Finally painted them on my bus! Pictures!

[KC10Chief]

Well, after months of waiting, I finally had a chance to paint flames on my bus! I was either at work or the weather wasn't cooperating. Oklahoma is a windy place and I don't have access to a paint booth big enough for a bus. Finally this weekend, there were light winds and no chance of rain! Masking the flames was pretty easy. It only took me about 20 minutes to do the outline of the flames. I used some blue vinyl tape that I bought at O'reillys auto parts. I had to use two rolls at $9 each! Ouch! But it was worth it. This stuff bends around curves really easily. Then I filled in the areas around the flames with regular masking tape. After that, I drove it out to my dads house where he has 15 acres. I didn't have to worry about over spraying my neighbors cars. I'm sure I wouldn't have been very popular then! Once there, I removed the mirrors and headlights and used a giant roll of red paper to mask the big areas and the front tires. The roll of paper was only $5 at Home Depot. I could mask the whole bus a couple times easily. Here's some pics...

All masked up ready for paint!

Mixing the DuPont Imron paint. This stuff is NICE! But it can kill you if you breathe any of it in. Make sure you use a good respirator if you're spraying.

Spraying the yellow.

Glad I didn't do this at home! Look at the yellow fog. My neighbors would have been super pissed I'll bet.

Adding red highlights on the flames.

All finished and masking tape removed! It took almost as long to remove the tape as it did you put it on! I am also going to add a thin gold colored pin stripe around the outline of the flames. Should give them some more depth! There's only a couple areas to touch up. One of my dads cats walked across the left wheel well, but it's not too bad. I can touch it up with my airbrush.

My teeth are falling out! A couple had fallen off already. They were white plastic and I epoxied them on. But the sun breaks down that epoxy glue I guess. A lot more came off when I pulled the masking tape. I am going to replace them with some chrome diamond plate teeth and screw them on! They'll stay put then I'm guessing. I'm also going to add some red LED lights behind the grille so the "mouth" glows red at night!

I'll get some better pictures in a few days when the bus isn't sitting in a shadow. I'll also have the pin stripe put on and hopefully my diamond plate teeth!

 

[behappystupi]

You sure made that look easy . Nice paint! Is that the 700$ yellow paint you were speaking of or did my sub-conscious spit up the wrong price?

 

[KC10Chief]

You sure made that look easy . Nice paint! Is that the 700$ yellow paint you were speaking of or did my sub-conscious spit up the wrong price?

You're right! The guy that gave me the paint told me that it would be over $700 if I had to buy it! Geez. I can't imagine paying that much for paint! Glad I got it for free! I'd use Rustoleum if I were to buy paint. Thanks for the comments guys!

 

[the_experience03]

:golfclap:

 

[Abbott-SKO]

Heh, nice work. It looks good, especially the hood.

 

[lapeer20m]

it's looking great!

i wish i had a bus

 

[phillbus914]

It's looks great!

Nice work.

 

[Griff-SKO]

Nicely done, and fast too! WOW!

 

[DizzyIzzy]

I would look into the local laws pertaining red lights on the front of the vehicle. I know many states have law about red lights on the front of a vehicles and blue anywhere. They pull over cars in GA. for any red other than taillights. I would go with a yellow instead just to be sure. For if you ever did a road trip to GA a red grill light would get you a ticket.

Now the paint job is awesome. I want blue flames on a green bus, Now that would rock. If you ever convince everyone to do the gathering at your spot I want painting on hand lessons.

 

[KC10Chief]

I would look into the local laws pertaining red lights on the front of the vehicle. I know many states have law about red lights on the front of a vehicles and blue anywhere. They pull over cars in GA. for any red other than taillights. I would go with a yellow instead just to be sure. For if you ever did a road trip to GA a red grill light would get you a ticket.

Now the paint job is awesome. I want blue flames on a green bus, Now that would rock. If you ever convince everyone to do the gathering at your spot I want painting on hand lessons.

I've heard that too. I'll have a switch so that I can turn them off. They're pretty relaxed on vehicle laws here in Oklahoma. We don't have any kind of inspections. I'm not going to do it anytime soon. I have a lot of stuff to do to this bus! Thanks for the comments!

 

[lapeer20m]

I've always left the red lights on my buses. even with international traveling I have never had an issue.

i sure like the flames up the hood!

 

[Demonknight]

Oh sure..has it dawned on you yet that you just got RID of the yellow .....then put it back on? Nice job though

 

[KC10Chief]

Oh sure..has it dawned on you yet that you just got RID of the yellow .....then put it back on? Nice job though

That's what my dad was telling me. When I bought the bus, the hood was pretty terrible looking. All of the clear coat was peeling off. I did a LOT of work to get the hood cleaned up and ready for paint. You can kind of see it in this photo.

Here it is after I spent hours sanding on it.

 

[behappystupi]

I think it's an International thing with the clearcoat flaking off. Just about every International I see with that type of hood have the clear coat flaking.

 

[lapeer20m]

i always thought that it would be cool to use the stock school bus yellow for the flames on my buses, but like yours the original paint wasn't good enough to keep.

 

[KC10Chief]

I went out today to some local soccer fields and took some pictures! I have been doing a little touch up. I also added some gold pinstripe around the edges of the flames. I made some new teeth out of plastic again and used some industrial strength double sided tape to stick them on. I'll leave these on there until I can get around to making some metal ones out of diamond plate. I also put my mirrors and headlights back together. I'm pretty much done with the outside. There's a couple spots on the left side where I didn't put enough red paint on and it's kind of flat looking. But I'm not worried about that now. I'll fix it in the spring! Now it's time to start on the interior!

You can kind of see the gold pin stripe around the flames. It took 4 rolls of 1/8" pinstripe to do the whole bus. $3 a roll at O'Reilly's. It's super easy to apply.

I added some "accessories" to the rear bumper too!

I'm planning to paint the bumpers with some Rustoleum Hammered paint. It looks like that will be an all day job.

 

[Steve-SKO]

That is a great shot, nice job.

 

[behappystupi]

I think that shade of yellow goes better with the red. The original school bus yellow wouldn't look right with that red..

 

[KC10Chief]

I think that shade of yellow goes better with the red. The original school bus yellow wouldn't look right with that red..

Actually, the yellow I painted on is almost exactly the same shade as the original yellow. I could tell when I was painting around the headlights. That was the only yellow I had left on the bus. There was almost no difference in shades. But the new paint is of course a lot nicer. It's not peeling and crappy looking! I think the black makes it appear brighter.

 

[behappystupi]

maybe it was the shade of light in the picture..