Pin striping
Encyclopedia
Paint
Paint is any liquid, liquefiable, or mastic composition which after application to a substrate in a thin layer is converted to an opaque solid film. One may also consider the digital mimicry thereof...
or other material called a pin stripe, and is generally used for decoration. Freehand pin stripers use a specialty brush known as a pinstriping brush
Pinstriping brush
Pinstriping Brush is the tool of traditional free hand pinstripers use for pin striping. Freehand pinstriping is the most difficult method of pinstriping and the brush is an important tool for design. Pinstriping brushes have several different designs, Swords, Daggers, and Flats, as well as...
. Fine lines in textiles are also called pin stripes
Pin stripes
Pinstripes are a pattern of very thin stripes of any color running in parallel found in cloth. The pinstriped suit has become associated with conservative business attire, although many designers now produce fashionable pinstripe patterns for fashion-conscious consumers...
.
Automotive, bike shops, and do-it-yourself car and motorcycle mechanics use paint pin striping to create their own custom look on the automotive bodies and parts.
Motorcycles
Pin striping can commonly be seen exhibited on custom motorcycles, such as those built by Choppers Inc., Indian Larry, and West Coast ChoppersWest Coast Choppers
West Coast Choppers is a lifestyle brand that began selling screen-printed t-shirts and stickers with the company's Iron cross/Maltese cross logo while founder and "master marketer" Jesse G. James was finishing high school, packaging the accoutrements of the chopper lifestyle long before any...
. The decorative use of pin striping on motorcycles as it is commonly seen today was pioneered by artists Kenny Howard, (aka Von Dutch)
Kenny Howard
Kenneth Robert Howard , also known as Dutch, Von Dutch, or J. L. Bachs , was a motorcycle mechanic, artist, pinstriper, metal fabricator, knifemaker and gunsmith...
and Dean Jeffries
Dean Jeffries
Dean Jeffries is an American custom vehicle designer, fabricator, stuntman and stunt coordinator for motion pictures and television programs based in Los Angeles, California....
, Dennis "Gibb" Gibbish, Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, are considered pioneers of the Kustom Kulture
Kustom Kulture
"Kustom Kulture" is an American neologism used to describe the artworks, vehicles, hairstyles, and fashions of those who drove and built custom cars and motorcycles in the United States of America from the 1950s through today....
lifestyle that spawned in the early 1950s, and are widely recognized as the "originators of modern pin striping."
Vehicles
In automotive body work, pin stripes are a thin vinylVinyl
A vinyl compound is any organic compound that contains a vinyl group ,which are derivatives of ethene, CH2=CH2, with one hydrogen atom replaced with some other group...
tape or paint. The tape versions are adhered directly to the painted surface in the pattern desired, whilst painted ones are done by skilled artists with 'sword' shaped brushes. The paint used by the vast majority of stripers is a lettering enamel made by 1 Shot although companies such as House of Kolor and lately Kustom Shop also make striping urethane.
The goal of pin striping is to enhance the curves of the surface, and the lines are generally of a complementary color
Complementary color
Complementary colors are pairs of colors that are of “opposite” hue in some color model. The exact hue “complementary” to a given hue depends on the model in question, and perceptually uniform, additive, and subtractive color models, for example, have differing complements for any given color.-...
. In any other form of decorative pin stripes, the goal is the same.
Pin stripe décor is also applied to motorcycles, trucks, boats, and surfboards.
Whilst stripers such as Lyle Fisk, Von Dutch
Von Dutch
Von Dutch is an American multinational clothing company named after artist Kenny Howard.After Howard's death in 1992, his daughters sold the Von Dutch name to Michael Cassel and Robert Vaughn...
(Kenny Howard) and Ed "Big Daddy" Roth are possibly the best known early practitioners of 'modern' pin striping, many of the early stripers cite Tommy "The Greek" Hrones and Dean Jeffries
Dean Jeffries
Dean Jeffries is an American custom vehicle designer, fabricator, stuntman and stunt coordinator for motion pictures and television programs based in Los Angeles, California....
as their major influences.
There are countless brush artists who carry on the tradition, not only in the US but across the globe — The Doc in Compton, Preacher (Peter McDermott) in San Antonio Texas, Steve Kafkain Arizona, Alton Gillespie in Fort Worth, Texas, Victor in Nebraska, Morkel Snorkel in Amherst, Alan Johnson Blairstown, New Jersey, Cliff Anderson Minneapolis, Minnesota, One Arm Bandit in New England, Anthony White in Florida, SCORCH (Lee Daniel) in Central California/ Oklahoma, MWM from Hot Rod Surf in San Diego, KONG in San Diego, Brando in Chicago, Tommy "Itchy" Otis in Los Angeles, Von Hot Rod, and Herb Martinez to name a few of the US stripers. Tramp Warner in Canada...Neil Melliard and Tootall Paul in the UK, Tom Plate in Germany, Simon Watts from Australia, Makoto in Japan and Eduardo Bignami in Brazil show that pin striping has become a worldwide art form. In addition to that, Mark Court of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is a British manufacturer of luxury automobiles based at the Goodwood plant in West Sussex, England. It is the current producer of Rolls-Royce branded automobiles, whose historical production dates back to 1904. The factory is located across from the historic Goodwood Circuit...
still pinstripes the "coachline" of that company's cars by hand.
The technology used by contemporary stripers has changed little since the '50s. Mack still makes brushes the same way they did when Andrew Mack started the company, although their product line includes more than just swords. Stripers such as Steve Kafka and Mr J have designed brushes suited to their striping styles; the Kafka brushes make the swirls and complicated designs, which make up Kafka's signature style, much easier to do, and Mr J's Xcaliber brushes have shorter hairs than the traditional Mack, making them more suited to beginners.
Recommended reading
- Fraser, Craig. Pinstriping Masters Techniques, Tricks, and Special F/X for Laying Down the Line
- Johnson, Alan. How To Pinstripe (Motorbooks Workshop)
- Martinez, Herb. Pinstripe Planet: Fine Lines from the World's Best (Korero Books)
- Martinez, Herb. Herb Martinez's Guide to Pinstriping
- Mehran, Mark W. Basic Hot Rod Pinstriping Techniques With Hot Rod Surf