RR_v65-3.indd - PPG Industries

T R A I N I N G U P D A T E
Cheri Judkins (left),
operations manager
for Harley-Davidson
University, poses
with Don Dunbar, a
SkillsUSA computer
science instructor at
Idaho State University,
who sits astride the
2005 Harley-Davidson
Dyna Super Glide
Custom motorcycle
he won in a raffle to
raise funds for the
SkillsUSA Conference.
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PPG and Harley-Davidson get all fired up
to raise money for SkillsUSA
Most collision-shop owners and techs are familiar
with SkillsUSA—the nation’s premier
organization for the promotion of excellence in
technical education. In fact, if you’re working in
the collision industry today, there’s a pretty good
chance you’re a SkillsUSA alumnus.
And if you
know about
SkillsUSA, then
you know that
the Super Bowl
of vocational
education is
the SkillsUSA
Championships,
where students
with talent
ranging from
baking and
carpentry to computer science and
collision repair gather to compete
for national honors.
This June, during the SkillsUSA
National Leadership and Skills
Conference, PPG and Harley-
Davidson got together in a very
special fundraiser.
It all started during one of the
planning meetings for the event,
when Cheri Judkins, operations
manager for Harley-Davidson
HOGWild
I N K A N S A S C I T Y
University, offered on behalf of her
company to donate a 2005 Harley-
Davidson Dyna Super Glide
Custom motorcycle, to be raffled
off as a fundraiser. When Cheri
made her offer, Steve Lehner,
of PPG, who was also on
the same committee, said,
“That’s a great idea. I’ll tell you
what—if you’ll donate the bike,
we’ll paint it.”
The result—a genuine
American legend, done up in a
super-trick, color-changing,
faux three-D flame paint
scheme—was enough to quicken the
pulse of any motorcyclist.
It certainly did that for Don
Dunbar, a SkillsUSA computer
science instructor at Idaho State
University. Don, who had toured
the Kansas City Harley plant
earlier in the week, and has
ridden motorcycles for years,
had always dreamed of owning a
Harley-Davidson.
Don had also never won anything
in his life. Still, he bought one ticket
for the raffle (out of the 30,000 sold),
because he wanted to show his
support. And as he videotaped
the motorcycle being
ridden into
Kemper Arena for the prize
announcement at the end of the
awards ceremony, the thing going
through his mind was not, “I hope I
win,” but, “Wow, what a beautiful
bike; I hope whoever wins it will
appreciate it.”
When his name was called as the
winner, Don recalls that he “got so
excited I almost threw the video
camera away.”
As Cheri Judkins said, “It’s always
great when the winner of something
like this is a rider who can really
connect with the Harley mystique.”
And it pleased everyone at PPG to
learn that, for the first week after Don
picked the motorcycle up at High
Desert Harley-Davidson in Emmett,
Idaho, the motorcycle was on display
at Idaho State University’s auto body
shop, where students perfecting their
paint and refinish techniques could
take a good, close look at what a master
custom painter can do with products
from PPG’s Vibrance Collection TM
. ■
AllFired
Up
C R E AT I N G A P A I N T J O B W O R T H Y O F A L E G E N D
The custom paint on the tank and fenders of Don
Dunbar’s SkillsUSA Harley-Davidson Dyna Super Glide
Custom is the creation of Paul Stoll, instructor at PPG
Refinish’s Seattle Training Center.
Paul, a custom painter for more than 35 years, first
started painting in a vocational/technical training
environment, much like that fostered by SkillsUSA.
He says that he was “fortunate enough to find custom
painters willing to share their secrets in an era when
most custom painters were not,” and that inspired him to
not only learn to paint, but to share his knowledge. With
techniques that betray his Southern California custom
roots, Paul teaches Vibrance custom painting classes
around the country for PPG.
Here are the steps he went through to create the colorchanging
True Fire paint scheme (all products available
through your PPG jobber or distributor):
• Obtain OEM body parts in e-coat
(electrodeposition primer).
• Seal e-coat with DAS 3025 Sealer.
• Apply three coats DBC Black Basecoat DMD 1683.
• Apply two coats Vibrance Liquid Crystal Glacier VM4104
(this finish will change color, from emerald to blue,
depending on the angle at which the light strikes it).
• Apply one coat DBC 500 Base Clear to protect work.
• Apply flame motif using airbrush in the True Fire
method created by custom painter Mike Lavallee:
a base of DMD 618 Moly Orange, DMD 639 Chrome
Yellow and DMD 1684 White, with candy topcoats in
Vibrance Radiance ®
II DMX 213 Red, DMX 211 Orange
and DMX 210 Yellow.
• Hand-cut mask of Harley-Davidson logo to create faux
metal appearance with Vibrance VM4201 Liquid Metal.
• Apply DC 4000 Clear atop all work.
• Sand with 600 grit paper and a dual-action (DA) sander
to level topcoat.
• Apply two coats of DC 4000 for final gloss.
Total hours for job = approx. 100
Retail value of similar paintwork = $6500.00
If you are a PPG certified painter who’d like to become
hands-on familiar with the technique used to create this
effect, as well as the products, you can learn from Paul
or one of his peers in the PPG Vibrance Collection Real
Fire class. For details on how to enroll, contact your PPG
distributor, look online at www.ppgrefinish.com, or call
the PPG Faxback service toll-free at: 1-800-450-2654.
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