Dave Dickinson Kustoms DDK
At 17 years old I enrolled at Scarborough Technical college and studied as a traditional Sign writer and after a lot of hard work and practice some years later I started up my own business in 1997. Whilst at college I had a big interest in graffiti art which had become a hobby and led me to discover the airbrush, very similar to a spray can but I found a lot more detail and control to was gained to refine my work on to Automotive panels.
Originally starting the business as a sole sign writer going around my local town of Bridlington sign writing shop fronts, menu boards and vehicles, all the while in the background I was practicing my airbrushing skills and combining them with my sign writing learning new ways to make lettering even more interesting and eye catching.
All the time doing small spray jobs on friends scooters and motorbikes and again linking in with the traditional sign writing.
Soon the sign industry started the vinyl revolution and the traditional writing was getting pushed to a side so I decided to change direction with my business and make my hobby of airbrushing and custom paint the main part of the business.
I was working out of the back room in our house at the time and need to expand. I knew a local car painter Mike “Rocky” Woodcock who I used for my clear coating and not before to long he asked me if I would like to rent a small paint booth off him and he would teach me paint spraying from bare metal prep right through to the final clear and machine polish, so that I could do the whole custom job from start to finish.
I started going to scooter custom shows and having trade stands and doing live airbrush demo’s to get a portfolio started. Around the millennium the orders for custom scooters started to come flooding in and I was getting my work featured in Magazines and started winning trophies and custom shows up and down the U.K. mainly for scooters and bikes.
In 2006 I moved into my new premises at Burton Agnes and at this point my partner Claire joined me in the business which brought along another dimension to our work. We now had more space and separate rooms for designing and setting out jobs, another room for prepping panel work before its ready for paint and a separate paint finishing Booth, keeping the paint and airbrush areas clean is a must so that you can achieve our very high standard in the designs artwork and paint finishes that we are well known for today.