At West Kelowna's Liquid Venom Customs You Dream it, They Paint It
When it comes to space-age, one-of-a-kind paint jobs and repair work, there is a place in Kelowna with no rivals. Liquid Venom Customs is in a league of its own - simply because nobody else in the Okanagan Valley does exactly what they do.
Liquid Venom is full-service shop, tackling specialized work such as custom painting projects, carbon fibre repairs, and a high-tech chroming process called Cosmichrome. It’s their over 10 years of expertise with hydrographic dipping, or hydro dipping, that Liquid Venom is best known for.
The Hydro-dipping Liquid Venom does is technical and challenging to perfect; it is not something that just anyone can pick up. It takes a skilled artist years to master the craft, but once you have been doing it for over a decade - like Liquid Venom has - the sky's the limit on what can be achieved.
Jenn Wood, owner of Liquid Venom Customs, has more than paid her dues. She started by learning the trade in Texas more than ten years ago, and since then, she has turned out countless jaw-dropping projects from their West Kelowna shop. Everything from fender flares, bike frames, hockey sticks, kitchen cabinets, to e-foils, surfboards, paddle boards, and parts for off-road vehicles has come through Jenn's shop for painting.
As well their team are highly skilled in carbon fibre repair techniques to fix those challenging-to-repair items (plastics, carbon fibre, fibreglass, and more) in-house - putting Liquid Venom in a different category then most shops.
With Limitless Possibilities Comes Great Power
Jenn always finds it fascinating that people come in with projects and tell her, "Just do whatever you want!" She says it is a genuine compliment to her talents, but it also makes her wonder if the clients fully comprehend the limitless potential of what she does. "I had one client drop off a dirt bike and tell me to just 'go ahead and do whatever I wanted' with it," says Jenn. "Well, it turned out fantastic, and thankfully, he loved it, but I can tell you there is no other dirt bike like it—let's just say that!" When it comes to hydrographic dipping and custom painting, if you can dream it, Liquid Venom can make it a reality.
What is Hydro-Dipping?
Hydro-dipping is a high-tech method of permanently applying printed designs to objects during a painting project. The end result is an extremely durable, hard-as-nails graphic paint job. Sometimes referred to as water transfer printing or immersion printing, this cutting-edge technique removes conventional painting barriers. Anything—literally anything—becomes possible.
Breaking Down Hydro-Dipping - How It Works
Here’s a quick explanation of hydrographic dipping. First, everything is prepped as you would with any conventional paint job. Next, Liquid Venom uses a specially formulated paint to paint the object so that a design is able to impregnate right into it. (If one was to use standard automotive paint, the image would just sit on top of the paint, and when you rinse off the residue, you would rinse off some of the pattern too!). Next, they take the desired pattern and print it on a water-soluble film that floats on water in a tank. The object is then dipped into the tank, and the surface tension of the water allows the design to curve around the object's shape. Finally, a clear binder can be applied if the customer wants to keep their base colour, or if we apply an automotive paint to get a colour match.
The process uses a variety of materials, including:
- Film: A water-soluble film made of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)
- Activator: A spray that liquefies the inks in the film
- Clear coat: The final artwork is coated with a top-quality, automotive-grade clear coat. This provides UV protection, scratch resistance, and other protective properties.
Making the Impossible Possible
Liquid Venom's work at their West Kelowna shop has opened up a whole new market. For example, getting complex graphic designs permanently adhered to challenging surfaces like magnesium or aluminum rims used to be next to impossible, but for Jenn, it is a piece of cake. "Specialty rims are a big part of what we do," she explains. From supercars and hotrods to motorbikes and boat trailers, you name it—Liquid Venom has applied its magic artwork. Plastic and carbon fibre pieces can be handled the same way. Once thought quite challenging to do technical painting on, carbon fibre car parts, plastic dash pieces and more are no problem for Liquid Venom to repair and paint.
Indestructible Custom Painting - Owner Verified!
Jenn took a fun and novel approach to prove just how durable her work is; she hydrographic-dipped the fenders for her Jeep and routinely crashed it through the bush. "The artwork I applied to the fenders is in better shape than any of the factory paint," she laughs. The fenders for her Jeep are a testament to what colours are possible, too. Glow in the dark, fluorescents, absolutely any colour spectrum you can imagine!
Limitless Potential Brings A Fascinating Mix of Clients
Part of the fun of being able to paint on almost any surface is watching the creativity of what people bring into Liquid Venom's shop. They have done custom painting on one -of-a-kind hot rod parts, giant plant pots, shower glass, doors to man caves, and even fishing lures. Jenn rattles off a list of some of her favourite projects, and it is a mind-blowing collection. Major-League baseball team helmets, skis, personalized hard hats for the oil field, custom cabinet doors for RV's, etc. We asked if Jenn has any favourite things to paint? "Motorbikes!" she answers enthusiastically. "Next to motorbikes, I guess it would be hotrod parts." It seems Jenn has a soft spot for adventurous and fast things.
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The Perfect Mix of Clients - Corporate Contracts and Passion Projects
Liquid Venom Customs has developed an enviable reputation; their top-tier rating has landed well-known clients (such as August Luxury Motorcars, Campion Boats, The Houston Astros, Hager Orthopaedic Clinics, and Best Lure Company) as well as her clients' passion projects. The reward she gets from seeing people's reactions to the incredible artwork the shop produces is a serious plus for her. With that success comes the inevitable, "just paint whatever you want" clientele, though, and I ask her if that worries her. "Not at all! I love it when people tell me that," she answers.
A Great Reputation Brings Interesting Challenges
Nothing leaves Liquid Venom unless Jenn is 100% satisfied, and that attention to detail has garnered some epic levels of client trust. When you can repair and paint pretty much anything, the standard goes pretty high. If it can fit in a 13’ by 13’ paint booth, or in their large dipping tank, Jenn can personalize it for you. Adding in the other specialized work they do, such as carbon fibre repair (for hockey sticks, surf boards, car parts, bicycle frames, watercraft, etc.) Liquid Venom does an amazing job.
To see the incredible work that Jenn's talented team at Liquid Venom Customs does, check out their Facebook profile or Instagram posts or give them a call. You can also drop by the West Kelowna shop to see the hands-on operation and speak with Jenn about your dream project. Call or text (250) 212-4510 for Jenn, or (250) 808-3911 for Kenny. For more info on Cosmichrome, click here.
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