As one of the editors of HOT BIKE, I have seen a lot of motorcycles over the years through the lens of a camera. One thing that I have noticed is no matter how much work went into getting a bike in the magazine or to getting it to stand out in a crowd, it was usually the paint job that got it noticed first. A good paint job can grab your eye from across a parking lot or snap your neck trying to get a second look. A builder could have countless hours in custom sheetmetal work, but it's not until the painter uses his or her creative touches that the bike really comes to life. From a stock Harley-Davidson to a top-notch custom one-off bike, it is essentially the paint that sets a bike apart from the rest.
As a raw metal canvas, it is up to the painter to give a motorcycle its own unique character. After all the work is said and done, the painter tends to get only one or two lines in a feature story and most of the credit goes to the builder. With that said, we wanted to give a bit more credit than a line to some of the top painters across the country. We also wanted to give our readers some ideas on what can be done with paint, and to let you know who and where some of these guys and gals are.
To get started with this project, we contacted David at Cad Works in Duarte, California, and asked for a few of his chopper gas tanks so we could send them out to each painter. We were hoping to get back tanks showing the painter's best work and what makes him or her the best at what they do. As soon as the tanks were done and we could ship them out, we already had a full list of painters who wanted to showcase their skills. The good thing was there were plenty of painters who wanted to participate in this; the bad part was we were limited to how many we could feature the first go-around. Hopefully we can showcase a new set of painters in future issues. So if you are a painter and did not make this one, hang in there, because we plan to do this a few more times.
To get started, we needed some identical gas tanks so that everyone had the exact same canvas to work with. We stopped at Cad Works and discussed with them what we planned to do and what we needed. In no time we had seven identical tanks that needed to be shipped across the country. Cad Works started by using 14-gauge (0.075-inch thick) certified American steel. | 
The material was placed in a 500-ton double-action hydraulic press, and then formed utilizing a process called "Deep Draw Forming." The Deep Draw Forming process prevents distortion and spring back associated with other forms of stamping methods. Once the part was formed, they were cut to size with Cad Works' six-axis robot. The result is a trimmed part ready to be welded. | 
Tank stampings were welded together utilizing the tungsten inert gas (TIG) process. The complete gas tank was composed of three sheetmetal pieces: left shell, right shell, and the tunnel section. They also welded in a pop-up gas cap, petcock bung, and sunk-in mounts. |
Then each tank was pressure-tested by placing it in a tub of water with the gas tank filled with over 10 PSI of air. This is done to check for air bubbles, which could be a sign that there is a leak. | 
The tank was held underwater for over 10 minutes. As long as there were no air leaks, and in our case there weren't, the tank was dried and marked "passed." | 
Here we have a perfect tank to ship out. |