How to Paint a Giant American Flag on Your Hood

"FJ80WaitinForaLSV8" (fj80waitinforalsv8)
07/04/2015 at 12:11 • Filed to: cruisin, America, land cruiser v8

So the clear coat on my hood had started peeling really badly and I had to make the choice between trying to repaint it back to stock or do something rediculous. I chose the latter.

First thing to do is remove the hood from your car.

Get your sander out take off all the factory paint down to the primer. I had a couple of small dings which I filled with bondo.

Next go to home depot and get some spray paint, lets see you need red, white, and blue (and some self etching primer) oh and lots and lots of blue painters tape. In order to give this paint job some longevity I ordered !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to protect it from the UV.

The next thing you need to do is take out a calculator and plan out all the dimensions for your flag. There is this handy !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! which tells you all the correct proportations so that your flag is sized properly to your hood.

Now you can begin laying out the flag. you will paint one color at a time. I did the painting in this order: primer, white stripes, red stripes, blue rectangle, white stars, clear coat. For each of these steps you need to be meticulous with your tape. Pay especially close attention to any body lines on you hood as they are more difficult to tape.

Also of note, I put black boarders on either side of my flag as my hood is not a perfect 3:5 ratio rectangle. This is something for you to consider as this probably won’t look as good on every car.

Now for the hard part, the stars. This is how I did it. cover the quadrant with painters tape and make a grid such that every intersection of lines is the center of a star. Then make your star pattern out of something durable like a peice of carboard. To get the original star I printed one out on MS word using the shape tool they have.

Once you have each star traced you can sit there with an exacto knife and cut out each of the 50 stars. To put everything in perspective, while you are sitting there doing this and thinking how damn tedious it is, just think about Valley Forge and how miserable it was for our forefathers.

Then the last white.

AND WHAM now, just like a tomahawk cruiser missile, you have the incredible power to shower the world with America, except you just have to drive around!

Don’t forget the fancy clear coat at the end!

Also of note, if you don’t like having your picture taken I wouldn’t recommend this modification. I lived at DC at the time and in the summer tourists would take pictures at every stop light.

Stay tuned for !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and HAPPY 4TH!!

DISCUSSION (9)

$kaycog > FJ80WaitinForaLSV8
07/04/2015 at 12:14

You did a great job! Love it!

FlimFlamMan > FJ80WaitinForaLSV8
07/04/2015 at 12:20

Awesome work!

Also, in before the “That’s a dern Japanese (insert slur) vee-hickle it ain’t ‘Mericun” crowd jumps on ya’!

Personally, I don’t subscribe to that viewpoint.

Enjoy!

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > FJ80WaitinForaLSV8
07/04/2015 at 12:20

That's great. I should do USA things.

BReLp7dzHM3ytYsE > FJ80WaitinForaLSV8
07/04/2015 at 12:21

This is just awesome. Nice job

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > FJ80WaitinForaLSV8
07/04/2015 at 13:05

Nice job, I do graphics a lot for shows. I get to use a very expensive printer that cuts out any lines I want with a laser, I do remember the exacto days for intricate stuff we couldn’t get completely with the big cutters, its called weeding. Before my time they did it all by hand, insane! Nice use of the 3m tape, we use a low tac adhesive mask sheet for anything like that. My 240Z came with some damage to the front of the hood and I fixed it as best I could, but if I ever repaint I will probably go barbon and paint it with the car. I have thought of crazy stuff I could do too.

Brickman > FJ80WaitinForaLSV8
07/04/2015 at 14:19

Awesome! A star shaped cookie cutter would of worked too :)

Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious > FJ80WaitinForaLSV8
07/04/2015 at 14:52

I read the whole page in Bill Pullman’s voice. Awesome. Why isn’t this posted on Jalopnik yet? ^_^

FJ80WaitinForaLSV8 > Brickman
07/05/2015 at 21:47

Good suggestion.

FJ80WaitinForaLSV8 > FlimFlamMan
07/05/2015 at 21:49

I figured since the car was getting a Chevy engine and trans that I could avoid those opinions.