Agould650 wrote:

PainterDave wrote:

Agould650 wrote:I’ll be following your advise Chop. Will get the candy sprayed, then either top coat and sand or intercoat clear before taping out my stripes. I don’t know what I was thinking as there will be 2-3 coats of the gunmetal metallic base followed by 3-4 coats of 0.004 flake in intercoat followed by 5-6 coats of candy.. the line edge would be huge!

I will report back with the finished product!

now is a good time to pick up a striping brush and a aluminum panel buddy,

something i wish i has started trying to do, i still can not pinstripe

Like I said above, I didn’t mean pin striping with a brush. Poor word choice on my part.

I meant I’m trying to do some stripes on the sides of the tank with fine line tape.

I’m just trying to have a couple 1/16” or so stripes on each side.

I’m not using a brush to pinstripe, just using finelne tape to spray some stripes.

Yup, i am very clear what you are trying to do, that is exactly why i am suggesting you to pick up pinstriping, not necessarily for this tank you are doing but it is a priceless talent for bikes and cars, a very good money maker. i was just trying to be helpful buddy.

post up some pics when you finish we would love to see it

PainterDave wrote:

Agould650 wrote:

PainterDave wrote:

Agould650 wrote:I’ll be following your advise Chop. Will get the candy sprayed, then either top coat and sand or intercoat clear before taping out my stripes. I don’t know what I was thinking as there will be 2-3 coats of the gunmetal metallic base followed by 3-4 coats of 0.004 flake in intercoat followed by 5-6 coats of candy.. the line edge would be huge!

I will report back with the finished product!

now is a good time to pick up a striping brush and a aluminum panel buddy,

something i wish i has started trying to do, i still can not pinstripe

Like I said above, I didn’t mean pin striping with a brush. Poor word choice on my part.

I meant I’m trying to do some stripes on the sides of the tank with fine line tape.

I’m just trying to have a couple 1/16” or so stripes on each side.

I’m not using a brush to pinstripe, just using finelne tape to spray some stripes.

Yup, i am very clear what you are trying to do, that is exactly why i am suggesting you to pick up pinstriping, not necessarily for this tank you are doing but it is a priceless talent for bikes and cars, a very good money maker. i was just trying to be helpful buddy.

post up some pics when you finish we would love to see it

Right on, I just wanted to make sure I was being clear.. it’s obviously harder to articulate online sometimes. I appreciate all the tips.

I’ve been practicing a ton with the airbrush; maybe I will pick up a pinstripe brush and play with that.

Thanks again!

as an airbrush artist and custom painter for over 40 years I have learned there are many ways to skin a cat.
you do have many options of how to put stripes on panels.
one way it to paint the strip color 1st then use fine line tape mast off the strip how you wet it then paint the main color/s of the panel.
down side to this is if your doing multi stage colors you will end up with the pretty heavy edge on the strip. you can do the multi sand and re clearings to get rid of the heavy edge.
also you run a chance of a bad edge when you peal the fineline tape off.

you can paint the panels then using fine line tape mask off the strip/s and paint them on. either over a sanded and cleared panel or leave the panel in it's base then clear everything.
going over a already cleared and sand panel if you should get a blow out under the edge of the masking it's not the end of the world because you can repair the blow out unlike the material and labor to repair it if you get a blow out putting the strip just over the base coats.

you can do all your painting and then brush paint on the stripes or if you don't know how to pin strip have some one do the stripes for you.
hand painted strips have good and bad about them too.
but it's more about the look not all people want a hand painted strip.
with striping enamels if your looking to clear over them some times they will lift.
with striping by hand using enamels with out a catalyst ( hardener) the product is reversible. meaning with the solvents from the clear going over it that it could attach the enamel strip. letting the stripped panel sit for a few days or adding a little enamel hardener will combat this.
another down side to stripping enamels is if your looking for a dead match of a certain color code you may not get it. with my business 99% of the airbrush work we do is on crash helmets most are for auto racing. my latest customer wanted three 1/4" strips of the three team cars. in no way would I have matched two of the three colors to the factory paint codes. stripping paint just doesn't have all the tints to do that and having the color close but not spot on doesn't work!

there also is the option of using pin strip vinyl tape. this is very common for mass produced helmet manufactures to do along with motorcycle manufactures and others. Hell I have seen custom painted helmets coming from well known graphic places using lots of vinyl for graphics then clearing over them.

much of how and what you do is determined on a few things.
skill level as an artist. budget for the job. what the customer is looking for.
all these and more play a roll on what and how a custom paint job can be done.