The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Pinstriping???

Has anyone taught themself to do pinstriping? I've done a lotta stuff to my cars and trucks but never any kustom painting or pinstriping.

I'm just curious if anyone has done anything of this nature and what's required as far as equipment and learning/practice/technique.

it requires the right tools and paint["one shot"] and not only practice, but talent

Bill

Pinstripping!!!!Check This Out!! My 14 Year Old Son Dereck (FLYING D)Is A Pinstripper.He's Been At It For A Couple Of Years.This Boy Is A Natural!!He Has Had His Picture In Five Magazines So Far,And Has Met All The Famous Guys Like Barris,Watson,Starbird Ect.Now!! I Do Know That It Takes Practice!!!Being A Artist Helps,BUT I Feel If You Want To Do It Bad Enough,You Can Do It!!Strait Lines(like around the cab)Is The Hardest.There Is A Company Called EASTWOOD That Sells Everything You Need To Get Started.GOOD LUCK!! Practice-Practice-Practice!!! GMCJOHN

Custom graphics are a lot of fun.

I've been learning over the past year - pinstriping and airbrushing. It takes much practice.

As others have pointed out there are specific tools (sword stripers in multiple sizes, outliners, lettering brushes, etc.). Paints are important too - one shot is good stuff - you can also get striping and lettering enamel from House of Kolor and other companies. Be warned - the type of paint you use does make a difference - base coats tend not to flow out at all, so make sure you get striping enamel.

There are many ways to go about learning - but grab a brush, some paint http://www.coastairbrush.com , some metal signs http://www.rjsign.com/ and go to work!

A book may be helpful as well - Eastwood has a pinstriping how to book that's OK.

- Ryan

Aloha, yeah I am not an artist at all, well, my wife say's I draw flies!! Anyway got some good brushes and "one shot" paint from my brudda as a gift and gave it a try! I'm good at it, I mean I can not draw a straight line but the brush does that for you, the hardest part is keeping the width uniform. I suggest you try it, practice, it's fun, and I think you'll be surprised at the results. And keep this in mind, "It's attitude not aptitude"

I saw a paint stripe thingy which was a feed bottle that had a wiper and a metal wheel that you used to pen stripe. It rolled along the surface and you tipped it up a bit to make the lines wider or thiner. Almost bought one at the state fair. Anyone heard of or used one of those?

As far as bike projects went, I just used pen stripe tape and trimmed it accordingly. When I did 2 color paint jobs and the seal on paint grip weren't so great, the pen stripe tape went on and a top coat of clear, and then it looked very good. You can use a heat gun to help it bend around and not wrinkle.

Yeah i bought one of those pinwheel gizmo's, the guy selling it was an artist and made it look easy, to be honest I really havn't practiced with it much since I got the brushes, i did try it and I wasn't happy, the wheel ended up sliding instead of rolling, i'll stick to practicing with the brushes. another pinstriper that did 1 of my bikes pinstriped on the base coat, PPG, prior to my clear coating and said to use a little of the same reducer for the clear coat in the striping paint, which he did, and it's been 10 years since and still looks great. ALOHA

Pulling a straight line is not as easy as it may seem at first.

Three things need to be controlled in striping - pressure, angle, and speed - they all need to be constant to pull a straight smooth line. All of these require aptitude not attitude. That being said - it is easy to pull a line - but not easy to pull a perfect line.

As for stiping graphics:

should go like this: bare metal; primer; primer sealer; basecoat; intercoat clear; graphics (base coats), intercoat clear, stripe, clear coat. You can stripe on the basecoat itself - but you better not screw up - it cannot be fixed without loads of work - in other words you can't just wipe it off. Striping on the intercoat clears will allow you to wipe up mistakes and also gets rid of ridges between colors if you are doing graphics - which when striped over will show the color ridge right in the middle of the pinstripe (usually the color even peeks through).

If you are going to clear over the stripe then you need to make sure you use a small amount of the clear CATALYST, not REDUCER in the striping material. Reducing with the wrong will cause a reaction unless the reducer is designed for 1-shot or equivalent (House of Kolor U-00 striping reducer for house of kolor striping materials).The idea here is that you cannot thin two chemically differnt paints with the same thinner. Buy the correct stuff.

The catalyst allows the striping material to not be reactivated by the clear and cause lifting.

*** experiment from last weekend - tried one shot on several different panels - some times it was mixed with some catalyst for the clear sometimes not. Then cleared the project panels. No lifting anywhere. Rule of thumb - use the catalyst anyway. It can't hurt. ******
As for tapes - there are dozens of different types of tape that can be used. I use the "old green - 3-m fineline", which is more like a gray, striping tape. Can do small bends, but nothing drastic. For sharp curves I'll pull lines with 3m blue fineline. If using wide tapes to pull lines - remember the outside edge the tape being pulled around corner is the only smooth edge you can work off of. The remaing tape will wrinkle - has to go somewhere. The small blue fineline will stretch around bends really well unless of course it get's too sharp.

I recently painted a 75 Gold Wing - had several different colors of wide stripes done on a basecoat. I taped these off. Followed these stripes with a pinstripe on their edge using the Mack 00 sword striper trimmed down by about half.

- Ryan

Thanks Ryan for the correction about catalyst not reducer, even when I typed it i didn't think that was right. I couldn't remember! Tee many martoonies! I'm not apt at art or drawing but I go into pinstriping with the attitude of knowing what makes a good pinstripe and I'm able to pull it off and get offers to do others cars, so I'll stick to "attitude, not aptitude" CHEERS and Aloha

Oh yeah, I prefer XCALIBER brushes, Aloha nui loa

If your getting solicited to do cars I'd say you have skills!!! Practice, practice is what get's you there.....

I haven't tried the xcaliburs - do the cover all brush types or just stripers?

One question - what kind of outliner have you used? I'm not very comfortable with mine - may be lack of practice though.

- Ryan

Aloha, Ryan, 1st thing I think I need to say is I don't mean to say striping is easy, I don't want to offend pro stripers, every year when I go to the "rat fink reunion" i won't even mention that I pinstripe, there are stripers from all over the world there and I feel like a kindergardner around them, watching them pull long, straight lines is amazing and it makes me realize how much I SHOULD practice. When 1 of the pro's saw my work and I asked for suggestions he said "darn! you just need to do a lot more". I honestly believe I have just got lucky. It's also very, very stressful for me, it takes forever and I do a lot of wiping and redoing before I'm happy, and I'm never really happy, but others say "stop man, thats perfect!" I could never do it professionally, I would go mad and i wouldn't make money it takes so long!! LOL. Now for your questions I'm not sure what you mean by outliners and as for the xcaliber brushes, keep in mind I got a "starter kit" from my brother, Dad and him are signmakers, I got 2 xcaliber's that I can't read the #'s on anymore and mack 00, 0 & 1 and 1 I trimmed that I can't read the # on anymore. I have no idea about other brushes for graphics, (that scares me, and handlettering no way, i won't even attempt that!!) I've never looked into it. So I'm such a newbie i can't answer, I just recommend others to try it too. Aloha!!

`A`ohe lokomaika`i i nele i ke pâna`i.

No kind deed has ever lacked its reward.

I understand the stress! I have a hell of a time setting the brush - it's really a pain for me. Once it's down I do OK - sorta.

Outliners are used for outlining things - like graphics or lettering where very sharp lines (corners) are needed. They are tapered to a point in a circular fashion - not like a sword striper.

Problems with the stripers are pulling around sharp corners without kicking the short bristles out. One can trim the short hairs off - that was my solution - to get sharper corners. Of course this is exactly the idea of the outliner. And you don't need to modify a good brush if you own one!

- Ryan

yeah I do have one of those but don't use it much, if ever?. Maybe thats where my xcaliber's prevailed, and thats also when you need to roll the brush between your fingers, which adds more drama, huh? clockwise, counter-clockwise!!!!LOL, someone, or a book, suggested taking a,,, whats that fancy handwriting called? again tee many martoonies, you know, wedding invitations and diploma's are writen in it with the weird tips and because you twist the pen it helps develop a bit of dexterity, that helps for pinstriping,,,whats that called? calligraphy? This may be boring other reader's so I tell ya what, ChevyAsylum, pick up some brushes brother, i know I said i stress but practicing is soothing, and after I finish and can finally walk away it gives great rewards, get the "oderless" mineral spirits and do it in the house, tell the wife the refridgerator NEEDS pinstriping, toilet seats too! (if you like pinstriping EVERYTHiNG looks better with it, phone,coffee maker,battery charger, it's addicting, you'll be hooked) and finally for those that havn't seen ORIGINAL pinstripes on a 47-53, theres 3 per wheel, (probably '54, but my '54 didn't get 'em) email me and i'll send a bitchin picture of the one's on my '51 Burb. CHEERS and ALOHA

P.S how long does it take to get your photo's you send in to get posted in the "gallery? I sent 'em a week ago at least

Hi, Kimo,
Thanks for sharing all your pinstripe experience.
Unfortunately, it can take a while to get the pictures put up in the gallery. This is a volunteer run site and our board librarian is a busy person, so be patient. If you have an image host you are free to post the pictures right to this board. Just try to keep the resolution down since a lot of us are using tin cans and string to connect to the internet.

As for straight body lines and outlining features you can get tape that outlines the width you need, (like used in body shops to redo factory pin striping) and paint them yourself. This is fairly easy and only takes a sraight eye... I've done many factory stripe jobs when I worked in the body shop.

As for custom designs you could go to some car shows and if there is a pin-striper there you could have them do it, usually reasonably priced.

Or,
If you have time to practice and feel like purchasing a stripe kit, I would go for it yourself.

Just a few options, hope they help.

~j