How to pinstripe your car

A comprehensive guide to pin striping your ride, showing you the paint, equipment, laying out and different techniques used in the art of pin striping. Pin striping is accomplished by years and years of practice.

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Always buy the best brush that you can afford. The following link will show you the different profiles and size of brushes. http://www.kultureshoq.com/mack_brush/pages/original.html

TAPE and MASKING

GUIDES and RESTS

Pin striping is usually a freehand art form, but using a mechanical rest or MAHL stick to steady your hand is an acceptable practice. A wooden dowel rod of 1/2" or better with a styrofoam or closed cell foam 'donut' on one end will allow you to rest your wrist and steady your hand above your work, yet provide you with the freedom of motion to draw your creations. Freehand pin strippers, generally, use their 'pinky' or thumb to gauge distance when pulling a line along a body line of a vehicle. We'll get into this more in the Technique section.

A pounce wheel is used to make needle hole perforations in a mask that traces a form or design that you have rendered and it allows you to transfer that design to another area. After placing the mask down in another area, a talc bag is used to strike over the perforations, when the mask is removed; an outline of dots will be revealed to show your pattern.

For beginners, the best way to start is by drawing a grid of one inch squares on a plain piece of paper. You can make this as big or small as you want, a good size would be about 16 X 24 inches. Draw a defining center line with a darker pen right down the Center of the paper, this is what you will work off of. Next, get a piece of clear acrylic

sheet of approximately the same size or slightly larger, this will be your working paper. Tape the lined sheet to a solid working table and then tape the acrylic sheet to the table too. Using a non permanent marker, practice drawing lines that are equal distant off of the center line. Start with a large vertical teardrop in the middle and work off of that. If you goof up, just erase with paper towel and start over. Designs should be clean and simple to start, and with practice you can expand from there until you feel comfortable enough to advance to paint. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.

 

By using your 'doodle' sketches and a photo copier, you can blow-up your sketches to fit different areas you are doing on a vehicle. This will give you a better understanding of what size fits and makes a better impact on the vehicle. After you get your sketch to the size you want, use your pounce wheel to outline your sketches lines. Mask it down to the panel and dust it using your talc bag. Remove your sketch and start pulling lines over the tiny dots left on the surface by the talc. Don' t worry about the talc mixing with the paint, it will do no hard because most paint contains talc to thicken it. You just learned something new, talc will thicken paint. If you feel that some lines would look better by going outside the lines, then do it, making sure that the opposite side gets the same line technique. Yes, you can add or take away as the situation warrants it. Sometimes you can encounter obstacles take take away from the overall effect of the design and you must have the eye and knowledge to adjust for it.

In order to load the brush, we just don’t want to dip it in to the can and start painting, like you would if you were painting a house. Get some shallow plastic dishes about 3 inches across and 1 inch deep. In the past, I’ve used plastic fruit dishes or yard sale saucers to hold the paint. Using a spoon, ladle out an ounce of paint into the dish. Paint is expensive, so make sure to clean off the spoon too!  Cover your open can with the lid. Stroke the brush through the dish of paint and use the edge of the dish to squeegee off any excess paint. First, the bottom of the brush and then, either side. Repeat as necessary. As you draw it through the paint, you’ll want to use some downward pressure on the brush. This method does two things, it removes air from within the brush, and the other is, it distributes paint evenly throughout the brush. Never put paint back into the can.

 

 

 

 

 

Using a piece of 24 ga. satin coat or acrylic sheet the size of a license plate covered with primer. Scratch a center line vertically using a scribe, nail or pencil. Prepare your brush for work. Starting at a point on the center line near the top, shape out a teardrop, a spear head, and wide based arrow in any configuration that you desire. Put your initials and the date on the bottom right corner, drill a hole in the center/top. Hang it on your wall, so that you will remember where you came from and try to improve on this piece every time you pick up your brush. This is your inspiration.

So, you found out that a loaded paint brush would make a line only so far before the paint ran out. We'll try to help you extend that line forever. Take a long sheet of practice media ( sheet metal, acrylic, or what ever you want to use) and begin pulling lines the length of the panel. When you run out of paint, reload your brush and start not where you left off, but just before. This will allow to to reset your pressure and release paint in the same width of the line you were doing. Try starting and stopping your line. Avoid 'blobbing' your paint in one spot. Hover your brush over your line and make strokes with the brush, touch down when you feel comfortable in starting the line again. Avoid skip or dry spots by re-wetting the line as you move into new territory.

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