Pit Stop with Yasmin of The Queen of Parts
Who is Yasmin Qartoumy? The founder, fabricator and powder coater behind The Queen of Parts, a one-woman shop in Huntington Beach that machines, welds and powder coats custom motorcycle parts, and teaches women to do it all, one student at a time.
Welcome back to Pit Stop, the corner of American Moto Co. where we pull over to explore the craft, the culture, and the creators who keep the raw, unfiltered soul of motorcycling alive. Today we're catching up with Yasmin, better known as The Queen of Parts, out of Huntington Beach, California.
The Queen of Parts did not start with a business plan. Yasmin's boyfriend works in the motorcycle industry, and she started helping him at work. The more time she spent around it, the more ideas she had, especially ones built around women and female empowerment. There was no obvious lane for what she wanted to do, so she carved her own.
"Honestly, I think I was mostly trying to make some friends and find my place in an industry that I really loved. Somehow that turned into a brand."
A year in, she still has moments where she looks around the shop and wonders how this became her life. Through all of it, her son has been her sounding board. She describes herself as painfully shy, and when she starts second guessing herself, he is the one who keeps her grounded.
"He's incredibly supportive and I think having him watch me build this from basically nothing makes it even more special."
The name came from her boyfriend, her biggest cheerleader. He treats her like a queen, so in his mind there was never any reason she should be anything less than The Queen of Parts. "And honestly," she says, "it's a hell of a lot better than 'Yasmin's Shop.'" She loves that the name never boxed her in. She is not just a powder coater. She welds, fabricates, CNC machines, laser engraves, and takes an idea and figures out how to make it into an actual part.
"I'm not a powder coater. I'm The Queen of Parts."
Her first powder coat job was gloss black, and black is boring. Before any of this, she did hair, and vivid color was always her thing. So she grabbed a damaged Harley rim and tried her first two-tone, nervous the whole time because she had a vision in her head and no idea if she could actually pull it off.
What came out of the oven was a raspberry glitter color bomb with a crazy color shift, and it became the most viral piece she has ever made. She ran an Instagram contest to name it, and the winner was "Shayna's Galaxy." Part of the reason was her friend Shayna Guy (@13thstreetcustoms), a respected painter in the motorcycle industry, who loved it so much she immediately wanted everything painted that color. Having another artist get that excited about something she created made it even more special. It is funny that boredom with gloss black is what pushed her into figuring out what her work could actually look like.
Walk into her shop today and the office comes first, more of a meeting space than a desk. The walls are covered in art, some gifted, some made specifically for the brand, some bought from local artists.
"Supporting local artists and small businesses is really important to me because I'm one of the little guys too."
There is a huge stone table where she hand tools leather and pours resin for custom gas cap inlays. There is taxidermy everywhere, including a punk rock duck and mariachi frogs. There are actual stadium seats from Pittsburgh, because she is a diehard Steelers fan. There is a chair hand painted by local artist Matt Smith (@mattsmithtattoos), who she calls "literally the nicest guy." And there is a custom holder for all her 3M respirators and welding helmets, made by her friend Jay from Whiskey Dicks (@whiskeydicksmotoco).
Above the door into the actual shop hangs a custom painted skateboard with a handwritten note from Shayna that means a lot to her, “thank you for being such a bright light in so many peoples lives, you truly amazing are an amazing and inspirational woman.” Through that door is the powder booth, hand lettered "QUEEN OF PARTS" in red, next to a custom pinstriped oven, both done by Shayna. Beyond that it looks like most shops: a Haas CNC machine, welding equipment, a hook-making machine, lasers, a tumbler, and racks of Prismatic Powders colors waiting for her Gema gun. Klockwerks and Prismatic Powders banners hang on the walls, two companies she says have been incredibly supportive of her and her little shop. She finally meets the Prismatic team in person at SEMA this year.
"You'll hear machines running, the tumbler going, and if I'm welding there's usually some punk music playing somewhere in the background."
And the smell is not what you would expect from a fabrication shop. She runs an air freshener so the whole place smells like candy instead of welding gas. "Girl stuff always smells good," she says.
Some of what comes through that shop carries more weight than others. A wife came in to powder coat parts for her husband's stunt bike, so every time he rides, a little piece of her rides with him. A woman came in after her husband passed away, mid-build on his last chopper, and asked for a custom shifter peg to finish it. "I was being trusted with a tiny piece of somebody's story," Yasmin says. But the one that got her the most was a resin-inlay gas cap with a monarch butterfly worked into it, requested by a woman whose parents had both passed away. Yasmin cried when she heard the story behind it.
"To somebody else it might just look like a shifter peg, a gas cap or a freshly powder coated part. But sometimes I know exactly what that little piece of metal represents to the person who handed it to me. That's a responsibility I don't take lightly."
Color is still her favorite part of the job. Her signature is that same raspberry glitter bomb, and lately she has been mixing Paint Huffer Metal Flake glitters directly into her powders to build custom colors in-house. She loves illusion finishes too, translucent coats with dormant pigment that stay quiet until the clear coat hits them and the whole color wakes up. One of her newest favorites is Illusion Candy Apple Red from Prismatic Powders, a collaboration with her friend Ashton Palmer (@palmerspowders).
"He's seriously a wizard when it comes to stencils and powder."
After building a world of color, the color people request more than anything else is still gloss black. "Gloss black all day, every day." She has sprayed so much of it that she could probably do it in her sleep, which is exactly why everything else still feels like an experiment. "I never completely know what something is going to look like until it comes out of the oven."
Teaching came from a simple realization. Once she had her own shop, she had a space to ask a question, mess something up, and try again with nobody making her feel stupid about it.
"And I thought, maybe other women don't have a lady friend with a shop."
So she is trying to be that lady friend. "I love to love people and I love to teach," she says. "I'm a super mom at heart, so I think that naturally comes out in the shop too."
"If your first weld isn't exactly beautiful, nobody has to know except you and me. And trust me, I'm not telling anyone. This is your place to try."
A workshop starts with fitting a student for her own brand-new 3M respirator, hers to keep afterward. "I always joke that now she has to come back because she already owns the mask." They talk through the project ahead of time, pick a part, and go through color swatches. Then the student preps it herself, sanding and cleaning the metal before it ever sees powder.
Yasmin sprays half the part first so the student can watch her technique and teaches her to check for bald spots with a light. Then she has her blow the whole thing off and start over from nothing. "It's just powder. If you don't like it, blow it off and try again. Nothing scary happened." That is usually the moment the nerves start to go, right before the student sprays the entire part herself and carries it to the oven on her own.
While it cures, they move to the welding table, though nobody has to weld if they do not want to. For the ones who do, Yasmin starts them on fusion welding with no filler rod, just learning to control the torch and the puddle. The first pass is usually a shrug. By the third, the student can see the difference in the metal herself, and she takes those welding coupons home with her.
Then comes the part Yasmin loves most. They open the oven door together.
"Almost every time I get some version of 'HOLY SHIT. I DID THAT!' That part is magic."
Nobody has to walk in already good at this, and she is the first to admit she is not good at everything. She is creative as hell but terrible at drawing. Her son made that clear at three years old, when he asked her to draw the Hulk and got a stick figure with giant hands. "Even my three-year-old knew I couldn't draw."
Students keep describing her shop the same way: no judgment, no ego, safe to ask questions. She traces that directly back to her own time coming up in shops, where she was often made to feel small for having ideas. So in her own shop, she does the opposite. She gives her full attention to whoever is standing in front of her and remembers what they struggled with and where it clicked. She never pretends to know something she does not.
"I'm building a community, not a company."
It is also why she now makes things nobody asked permission for, like heart-shaped sissy bars. And it is why her custom shifter pegs let a customer choose the color, the font, and exactly what it says.
"The details matter. The little things matter. I matter. And in my space, you matter too."
She still cannot quite believe people want to pay her to make things she loves making. She is a mom first, and the shop schedule is built around her son. She works while he is at school, stops when he gets home, and sometimes pulls him in to help.
"I built a business that gets to fit around my life instead of building my life around a business."
Her message to anyone who has had her workshop page open in a tab for a month is simple.
"Just bring me your idea. I believe in your vision, even if you're still a little nervous about believing in it yourself. And please don't worry about feeling awkward. I am super shy and incredibly awkward. I promise you're going to be fine. If one of us is going to look silly, it's probably going to be me."
So whats next? The Queen has built ‘Coat Punks’ Monthly subscription box for powder coaters. The important thing is making subscribers feel they’re restocking their shop, not paying for a mystery box full of cheap filler.
Example of a box…
Manufactured hanging hooks, assorted sizes
Manufactured silicone plugs, assorted sizes
Razor blades
Nitrile gloves
Ear plugs
Scotch-brite pads
Sandpaper assortment
Micro fiber cloths
Wire to hang parts
Mini flashlight
Mini measuring tape
“It’s all stuff we already use but because I’m the manufacturer, own and operate the machinery, the price will be more affordable. Trying to give back to my industry.”
She would also love to do more white labeling and production work, especially for female-founded brands. That means taking someone's idea from CNC to weld to powder to engraving, all in her little shop. And she is pushing past her own shyness to get out to more events. If something cool is happening in LA or Orange County, invite her!
Every dollar The Queen of Parts makes goes toward her son's college fund. He is currently in the Fire Explorers program working toward becoming a firefighter. Getting to build something that might help build his future is a big part of why all of this means so much to her.
"So I don't know exactly where The Queen of Parts will be a year from now. Hopefully the table is a little bigger, there are a few more women sitting around it and my son is still proud of his mom."
And she wants the last word to go to the people who got her here.
"Thank you to every single person who supports me, my little business and my little family. You're helping build something much bigger than motorcycle parts."
You can find Yasmin and The Queen of Parts on Instagram (@thequeenofparts) and at thequeenofparts.com
