There's one guy here that is at most of the car shows I've been to. People are always lined up for him to do something on their ride.
I had the chance to talk to Herb Martinez at length, and watch him stripe 1/18 scale cars at an indoor show back in March. Very cool, down-to-earth guy, does incredible work. He's published a book on striping also.
Take care of your One-Shot. I have a fair variety of colors, most of them over ten years old. Since they're kept in a workbench drawer along with the striping, lettering and artist brushes I run across them every couple of months. When I do I invert the cans. Make sure they're well sealed, screwed up on a pint of Process Blue and now the drawer bottom is blue. Didn't lose much though, so no big deal. Crazy as it sounds, every 6-12 months I get all the cans out, clamp the tops in the little lathe, put in the back gears and let a can of paint spin at slow speed for about 5 minutes each. I also do it prior to use. Mixes the paint quite well. Even made a face-plate adapter for quart and one gallon cans that goes to the big lathe. Although . . . if you let em go too long it takes more effort. Yellow seems to be the worst. I had a can of that that I'd let go and it like to never have come back. Ended up having to stir up the lumps with a popsicle stick. Popsicle sticks are great for a lot of things and when they're sold at craft stores and the like they come in a pack, but the best ones of all are gennie Popsicle sticks. Got a youngster in your family? Tell them it will be a big help if they save the sticks for you. My granddaughter started when she was five and in a year I had quite a collection of sticks. She was pleased to help, but for a while there I figured she was living on Popsicles summer and winter. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Anyhoo, here's a couple of pics. Not to show my great pinstriping - just trying to get back to being able to pull a line - but to show a really handy little workboard I knocked out of a particle board scrap. Size is large enough to hold a couple of brushes, a paint can opener - get those at Home Despair and like places - magazine for getting the brush loaded, a couple of holes the right size for the waxed Dixie cups (one for paint, the other for thinner, turpentine) rounded corners, sanded smooth and clamped to the 1000# scale or the tall workbench. So, you ask . . . what happened to the back of the 31? I tore a page off the magazine I was using to slap the paint filled brush on then left the page on the magazine cuz I was changing colors. With a door at each end of the garage the wind blew it onto the 31. It covered part of the pinstriping - which was well dried - as you can see, but a paper towel with lacquer thinner cleaned it up ok. Then a couple days later, I rolled the scale back and found where the paint laden magazine page had also gotten paint down low and it was pretty dry. Some more scrubbing with a lacquer thinner soaked paper towel got it off, but the interesting part was when I tried to clean some of the reputed to be lacquer primer off the body. Did quite a bit of scrubbing with no success. The body dates from 2000 and I was told it had lacquer primer on it. Along with being told the primer comes right off when you apply lacquer thinner to it. I'm beginning to wonder now. Either lacquer primer sets up pretty hard over several years or it's something else. Seems like Acetone may take it off. A guy on another board who's also building a Brookville A roadster ended up sanding his down to bare metal with a finish sander and used lacquer thinner to get the primer out of the nooks and crannys. Just another little problem in what's turning out to be a long build. That's ok, like Pat Ganahl said once upon a time, building a hot rod is just overcoming a lot of problems one at a time. And . . . it's a hobby anyway . . . right?
One other quick comment. Mixing colors works well for somewhat off the wall colors. Not too hard to match since most times just two colors are mixed. Fooling around with red and white gave me a Salmon pink a while back . . . not sure I'd ever use that on one of my cars. A little more red created a hot pink . . . that would work....
Been striping myself for years. A good Mack brush and some One-Shot will go a long way. I'm using brushes I've had for ten to fifteen years, clean 'em good after use (roll 'em quick to shake out the cleaner, don't pull on the hair), then i dip 'em in 30 weight and lay 'em flat for storage. Check with Eastwood co. for good deals on one-Shot or Dick Blick.
My boy (6yrs old) loves to pinstripe. Hes has only used crayon on paper for designs but is itching to do it with paint.
My fiance pinstripes. He says the best thing you can do is make friends with the brush. Practice, practice, practice, and then practice some more. I'm artistic and have a steady hand, it is NOT easy. Its something that comes with talent and lots and lots of time.
One shot paint, striping brushes and other materials are cheap if you consider what a pinstriper can make in dollars. i figure one good brush is worth $20,000, one can is worth 30 cars, overhead for a Pinstriper is really cheapo. The catch is you could spend years learning how to do it before you actually make a living at it. That's the greatest expense. I'll be doing another Pinstriping Workshop soon. PM me if you're interested. Mikey www.MikeysPinstriping.com "I've done many bad things to a few good cars"
I've got some Mack brushes and some other brands as well. I've been playing around it on pizza boxes, garbage picked sheet metal panels, etc. My wife got me some paints last xmas, I also have some 1-Shot. I've been using linseed oil on the brushes, got a decent book on striping from Borders. I agree with, practice, practice, practice! You have to get accustomed to loading the brush up with lots of paint and getting it to the point where you can make a uniform line with it. I use old magazines as pallettes. There is a good reason why everyone is not doing this.
I have been taking classes from local striper Gibb here in the Burbs of Detroit. So far so good. I have always loved the art form and wanted to do it. I bought the materials and the best advice is practice practice practice. It becomes very addictive and very realxing at the same time
An old sign artist gave me a valuable lesson.Get a pounce wheel and make some patterns.Pounce the pattern on bond paper on corrugated cardboard (to preserve the points on your wheel),hold the paper on something firm and lightly sand the blisters(opposite side of your pounce) and dust it on and go.You'll find your restrictions on your designs quickly.This helped me to learn my symmetry on my designs. Patterned designs are fun to effect with various colors for artsy-fartsy pieces too. Free-style (without patterns) is where you make your money and speed tho. Bobss396 is right;practice,practice,practice.... Oh,and enjoy doing it! Good luck!
hey, that's me! I was lucky enough to get some pointers from Dave Hightower a few years ago. He showed me how to load the brush, how to hold the brush, how to spin it and how to drag a long line. Then he said that he really didn't have any more to tell me. The rest was just practice. Prices of One Shot and good brushes aren't that bad if you consider it in relation to other fields. My main living comes from tattooing. Talk about expensive supplies.... Buy the best paint and the best brushes for your hobby/vocation. You'll never regret it. Cheap brushes aren't worth dragging home.
And a pain in the arse! I hate using that glop on a stripe. Looks cool when it's done right, but man, what a mess if it's not!
In the three or so years I've been learning I'm still on my first brush and first 5 cans of 1 shot...
Then you're not practicing enough! LOL .. Seriously, you should be practicing enough to go through a half pint in a month or two. I'm not practicing nearly as much as I should, so I don't have room to talk
Cool Thread! I took my first class last weekend and It was fun, plan on going back buying supplies this weekend. Practice is the key what book do most of you prefer Alan johnson or Herb martinez? I've been doing alot of research this past month and It's all on this thread pretty cool. well keep the brush wet.... Bcoupe
Here's what I tell future Pinstripers: Practice is key but you need to know what style of stripes goes on what type of vehicle, plus you need to be a bit of a psycholgist in order to know what the customer is telling you...in other words, listen to their input and then just do what you want to. People hire me for my style, not because of something they saw in a magazine. Once you get the hang of it, you're not done. You will have to do it in front of people, 'cause they love to watch your talent. They will be amazed at what you can do. There's an entertainment factor if you want to be a real Pinstriper. Hope this mentality lesson of being a Pinstriper helps, because if you become successful, insanity will rule your life. MiKEY Did it www.MikeysPinstriping.com "I do Bad Things to Good Cars"
I like to play at pinstriping and patterns aren't much of a problem, but for me it's pulling a good line that's the tough part. So . . . lemme ask the real pinstripers a question. How do you feel about symmetrical patterns? Say on the decklid where the guy pulls some nice lines, has a great pattern, but symmetry is a touch on the pitiful side. To an extent, a little off is understandable, it is a freehand art, no doubt about that, but sometimes.... The ones that really get to me are the patterns on both sides of the car that are real different. Comments from stripers I've gotten are usually, "you can't see both sides of the car at once." Maybe so, but I have a memory and it ain't all that hard to make both sides the same. A bit of a copout in my book....
I bought eight cans from Moon in L.A. last year when I was in S.F., but Homeland Security removed them from my suitcase when I returned back home to Denmark. Then I bought eight cans again in Sweden at the A-Bombers meet, think I paid around 25-35$ a can... talk about expensive! But hey, I think they are worth it!
Well Jay I would offer these following comments: Pulling a good long line as well as a good short one is the basis for everything in pinstriping.Inconsistent lines will stand out dramatically in any design but even more so in a side stripe.The same goes for a curve that doesn't flow smoothly.Another facet is having "heavy spots" or "light spots" in a design where too many (or not enough)lines are applied in one area. This can be readily determined by the same method an old sign artist told me about in regard to the proper spacing(optical rather than mechanical)of lettering:If the lettering is optically spaced properly,you should be able to stand back a short distance from the work and while string at it,gradually squinting(closing) your eyes until you cannot read the copy.At that point you should be able to see the lettering as a uniform density blur.Any mis-spacing will result in either light or dark spots.The same holds true for a design. As for symmetry;any mistakes in a design can usually be compensated for rather easily.The only problem with this is it tends to make the design a bit heavy in spots.What I look for mostly in a symmetrical(actually any)design is:line consistency;not only in all the lines being of relatively uniform thickness but the aforementioned smoothness of curves.The lines should also start and stop smoothly;beginnings should be squared if joined at sharp angles and ends smoothly tapered with no "over-runs"(two lines brought together having two points instead of one).What bothers me about designs is seeing a starting point that should be of consistent thickness with a taper to it.Over runs just shouldn't happen.Both of these are usually the result of someone in a hurry.It is nice to be quick but it shouldn't be at the expense of quality. As for one side of a car being radically different from the other;it shouldn't be.The only exception to this rule would be if the sides of the car are different such as a key lock one one side only or a gas flap door.The other exception is if a design is being painted around a piece of trim such as script where it is not possible to mirror image the design.I try and stay away from these areas to begin with so as to not have this problem. To forestall this problem,I would suggest the design be sketched on first to ensure symmetry. The saying that,"You can't see both sides at once" is normally said in jest.The only problem is when you get a customer who will get out a ruler and actually measure the design from side to side.If I see someone do that,I will likely as not tell them I will not be able to satisfy them and put my paint away because a person such as this will NEVER be satisfied no matter how good a job you may do.I usually refer to it as,"cutting your losses". Just a few thoughts. Ray Smith
Here is a great book of design every striper and wannabe should have. http://www.lazerlines.com/images/storeimages/PS-Book-1.jpg Lazerlines closed up shop but you can buy it direct from Bobbo himself.... and ask him to sign it! http://www.bobbosart.itgo.com/ GEET !
The Jalopy Journal
