Art & Inspiration Acetylene Smoke images

For all of my friends who laugh and scoff and act all skeptical when I mention this art form, post up some images of your work or those of others so my friends will believe it does in fact exist.

 

Don, there are a couple of pictures of a green '37-'38 Chevy coupe on the Maryland HAMB board from the Timonium car show last weekend. That car was done that way by local Maryland painter Tom Downey back in the early '70's. Gene.

 

......Thanks, Gene. I remember that car, but didn't look closely enough to see it well. I will look back through the images that I've seen. I was helping my friend, Tom, with the set-up of his Green 1930 Model A.

 

Personally, I like the look. Even did a little bit on my bike. But I can't convince any customers to use it on their paint jibs!

 

That looks great @chopolds. I like it as well, especially in small areas like your bike tank. Too big an area kinda minimizes the impact.

 

This is probably a stupid question but is it permanent? Or does it fade after time? Snowman ⛄️

 

..........The way that I understand it, it's permanent. Apparently the process requires a base coat (often White or Gray), then the acetyline smoke (low pressure) is wafted over the piece while the base coat is still tacky. Once dry, the piece is then cleared to complete the process. Pro painters please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Hello,

If I knew this would someday be a topic of discussion or considered hot rod artwork, we would have saved our white sawhorses. During the 58 Impala days and definitely the 1940 Willys build days, we made an outside work table and painted it white. It was small/large enough to do some heavy mechanics under our outdoor tarp on good So Cal weather times. But, the matching wooden benches also had white sawhorses to extend the table for longer projects.

Or gas/acetylene welding was always done outside of our backyard garage. So, the saw horses saw most of the action and consequently, had tons of black smoke on the white paint. But, back then, who knew there would be someone that would take the side effects of black smoke and design some artwork with them.

Time exposed 35mm color slide photography during our 1940 Ford Sedan Delivery with a 327 days...

Jnaki

During our crazy 20 something days of photography, loud rock music and a custom flickering candle flame, caused us to make some black smoke patterns on white matte board for art work. We had seen some in an art gallery and they looked interesting. It takes some adjusting the paper over the black smoke coming off of the flame to create some art.

The welding black smoke is another story and to us, it was a by product of welding or cutting with our oxy/acetylene torch tips during our early hot rod/drag race days.

You mean to tell me the white sawhorses with some errant black smoke designs are/were an item? Sheesh!!!

 

............Art is where you find it.

 

That is how we did it in a bike shop where I worked in 1971.

 

I have been in a few bar rooms that the mens rooms had some elaborate painting on the ceiling done by "bic" lighters.

 

This is true....

 

My 47 was carbon striped back in the mid sixties.

 

My dear departed Dad taught me that trick when I was a kid (long fkn time ago!). The paint base doesn't have to be sticky but you can't touch it once you're where you want it. The kool part is if ya don't like it wash it off and do it again.

 

First time that I've heard it referred to as "Carbon Striping", but I like it.

 

Just because you can doesn't mean you should re: acetylene smoke imaging.

 

Dave Shuten just did a video clip on IG of the technique

 

I am sure it takes years to master this art form, I have seen some work using this medium along with highly skilled airbrush work to produce some flames that actually look like you would get burned if you touch them.

It's like any custom work, this offers something different from the norm but it's not for everybody, personally I think it's cool. HRP

 

I was talking with a young but very accomplished painter recently and asked him if he had ever tried the technique. He looked at me as if I had two heads. That's when I decided not to ask him about cob-web painting. Guess it's all a generational thing.

 

NOPE, it is super easy, just gotta work fast and understand less is more. I picked it up from my dad in about 30 seconds when I was prob 7? Once you see it you go "oh! ok!!"

 

........I think what Danny was referring to is getting the job to actually look good. I've seen some that just were terrible. I do believe there is an art to getting it right.

 

That tank is beautiful.

 

The dash in my first hot rod looked similar to this..but it was mostly due to leaving roaches in the ashtray

 

I just saw a video on the cost of a new RR, it would cost a 100 K to have the dash in your new Rose Royce look like that, but they would surely do it.

 

Used to do it on model cars when I was a younger kid. It takes a little practice to make it look right and not all globbed on.

 

Well, I guess that answers the question about whether it's permanent!
The gearshift (?) lever on the left-hand side of the steering column is a neat trick too. Seen that done a few times before, but please refresh my memory - why? Does it reverse the shift pattern? Should be a super-duper anti-theft device, I would guess. Dig the spurs on the bumper guards too!
Mid-1970's a buddy of mine panel painted his '65 El Camino using that technique. Burnt orange color and the panels were gold with the smoke pattern under clear. I had never heard of that before either and I remember looking at him slightly askew as well! It looked great but sorry, no pics.

 

The story of why, that I got with the car was that the guy who did the interior back in 65 liked to put his arm around his girl freind, and she couldn't shift.
Yes the pattern is backwards, you get used to it, you can slide through the gears and your elbow never leaves the windowsill. It was an old farm car from the Beloit Kansas area, thus the trailer hitch and twenty tons of gravel I pulled out from under it, it kind of has a Dodge City ***** house vibe.
The Amber Toad shift knob is a little different.
I just pretty much left the car and the iterior the way he put it together back when, other than the mechanical TLC it needed when I bought it.
The piston ash tray knobs and hood pull were done by the same guy.