| 2002 Ford F150 the Mural
When it comes to custom headliners, usually you think of leather or suede over the top of the factory slab. If you wanted a painted roof panel, you were talking about 'glassing and smoothing the flimsy factory board and hoping it stayed the correct shape so it didn't crack when you put it back in. Rich Evans from Huntington Beach Body Works (HBBW) had a brainstorm one night after sniffing paint fumes in the spray booth. Why not take a mold of the roof and make a paint-ready replacement headliner? After a few weeks, this idea is now a reality, and it's one of those things the custom market has been waiting for. Now you, the end user, can bypass all the messy resin and scratchy cloth and move right onto covering it in whatever your heart desires. Since Rich owns a high-end body shop and has extremely talented artist Terry "Kiwi" Stephens on hand, his truck's roof was going to get painted. Looking at the opening shot, you can tell they didn't just paint it-they painted the hell out of it.
| 2002 Ford F150 fiberglass Headliner
The CanvasIf you wanted to paint a stock headliner, you would have to resin and 'glass it out of the truck and hope that it doesn't change shape-not to mention the hours of sanding and smoothing it would require just to get it flat enough to look good. Huntington Beach Body Works has done all the work for you!
Rich's fiberglass headliner board can be ordered with or without any of the factory holes. HBBW offers these for Ford, Chevy, and Dodge trucks with more applications in the works.
Perfectly smooth and ready for painting, the HBBW fiberglass headliner makes the perfect canvas for any true custom paintjob.
Editor's Note: There is no way we could teach you in five pages what took these guys years to perfect. This story highlights the order and what materials are used, as well as some basic settings to complete the job, instead of a traditional how-to story. If you want a full education from priming all the way to the finest airbrushed line, Rich offers a 6-hour video of Terry and himself applying this wicked design. Rich also has a full set of stencils that were used on this project, with an available video showing how to use them properly.
The Final WordWe don't expect you to paint this good from this story, but with the parts, stencils, and training videos Rich sells, you can feel confident enough to at least try, so get to painting!
