Pin Striping

[1967dart406]

bought one of the eastwood kits for doing pin striping.  A friend of mine is painting his brothers car and wants to give it a try.  my question is would we stripe before or after clear.  we want it to last and stay with the car over the years

[azz7772]

i think i would clear a couple of coats then pinstripe then some more clear then if you make a mistake or change your mind after you do it you can wet sand them off without affecting the original paint.

[mrspeeddemon]

Bingo!- unless you're extremely confident in your striping skillz- put at least one coat of clear over your basecoat.

[71 demon child]

What kind of striping kit is it?If you are realy worried about messing them up you could actually use tape stripes(and apply them after you clear).Personally i like paint stripes.If your doing painted  pinstripes you really should put them on after your basecoat and then clear over them along with the basecoat.If you put a coat of clear down and then pinstripe over the first coat of clear your going to have to wait for the clear to cure a day or so before striping which means your going have to wet sand the entire car first so the next coat of clear will adhere to it,and of course you can't wet sand the clear after you lay your stripes you would probably booger them up.It's really not as hard as you think.It's just tedious and time consuming.You just have to make sure everything is in it's place and exactly where you want it,and most of all make sure the edges of your masking tape are smoothed down so you don't get any overspray.That is if that's how it's being done.Not sure what kind of kit you are using.Let us know how it's going.good luck.
              carl

[1967dart406]

its one of the free hand kits they have comes with the little brushes and a video along with a book to help

not really worried about messing it up because i plan on taking my time.  and if i do i can always sand down and start over

[sweatybetty]

What kind of striping kit is it?If you are realy worried about messing them up you could actually use tape stripes(and apply them after you clear).Personally i like paint stripes.If your doing painted  pinstripes you really should put them on after your basecoat and then clear over them along with the basecoat.If you put a coat of clear down and then pinstripe over the first coat of clear your going to have to wait for the clear to cure a day or so before striping which means your going have to wet sand the entire car first so the next coat of clear will adhere to it,and of course you can't wet sand the clear after you lay your stripes you would probably booger them up.It's really not as hard as you think.It's just tedious and time consuming.You just have to make sure everything is in it's place and exactly where you want it,and most of all make sure the edges of your masking tape are smoothed down so you don't get any overspray.That is if that's how it's being done.Not sure what kind of kit you are using.Let us know how it's going.good luck.
              carl

   it seems that some of the tapes and vinyl stuff lasts forever. id go with the tape

[jamesdart]

that stuff is not as easy as they make it look on all of these shows. i tried it. i have a pretty decent hand with the airbrush, so i figured it wouldnt be too bad. its pretty damn tuff. bought a bunch of crap from eastowwod at a show and it just sits in a box. really my wife wanted it so i bought it.

[1967dart406]

it was a pain to start with but have practiced several times and messed up a whole lot more and have started to get the hang of things. not to say i wont mess this up however.  dont care for the stickers dont have any charactermost of the time

[71 demon child]

its one of the free hand kits they have comes with the little brushes and a video along with a book to help

not really worried about messing it up because i plan on taking my time.  and if i do i can always sand down and start over

Not to steal your thunder,but i did paint work for 13 years and i would not attempt freehand pinstripes.But i admire your persistence.If you a really dead set on doing paint stripes you can also use stripe tape with masking paper and paint it with a regular gun or  touchup gun.Same results,less difficult.Wish you weren't 600 miles away i'd give you a hand .Either way I'm sure you'll get it.

[PinkE]

Pinstriping a car is an art...I've seen a lot of amateur pinstriping that ruined a perfectly good paint job.  No offence, but you just don't buy the brushes and a video and get it...It takes years of practice to get it even, and straight.  If your insistant on doing it, I would do it over the wet sanded clear, so you can get it back off if it doesn't look right....I do Air Brushing, and I've done a lot of other forms of artwork in Pen and Inks, Oils, Acrylic's etc...I've tried the pinstriping a few times and it always looks like crap.....Good Luck...

[guzzimike]

   it seems that some of the tapes and vinyl stuff lasts forever. id go with the tape

Agreed. My car is being painted next week. After that, I'm taking it over to a shop that specializes in making custom tapes and stripping, and will have a satin black Bumble Bee stripe made and installed.

[1967dart406]

i ave a good friend of the family that has done it for years mainly on motorcycles.  he will be doing mine when it comes time but my car will also be in his shop for 99 percent of the bodywork.  he tried to teach me to airbrush but that was a lost cause.  i worked for about four hours with it yesterday and have gotten pretty decent with the straight lines turning a corner is a little difficult but i only have two turns to make on the back of the car so hopefully it will work.  guess its always best to experiment on someone else car and leave your own vehicle up to the pros

we are going to lay it on top of the clear so if there is an issue we dont have to worry about the paint job

thanks for the advice and hopefully it turns out good

will give it a shot sunday

[ls23h8b]

Make sure your striping paint can be clear coated if you go that route. Sometimes you can just put a few drops of the clearcoat catalyst in it and be OK but sometimes it doesn't work. HoK has striping paint that can be cleared over with no extra addatives. Either way make sure you apply some intercoat clear over your base before you start striping in case you need to wipe it off.