An easy way to paint the stripe yourself is to use stencil tape. This has spaces to paint between, then is removed... Start by wiping twice with a good wax and grease remover, then follow twice with windex. You should be able to hear a squeek when you rub your finger over it. The stripe is supposed to be 2/3 of the way down the belt line, not centered. It should pass through the wiper bezels. It should be 1/8" thick...the top line in this stencil. Order the pinstripe pamphlet for reference. Peel the backing as you go, leave the clear on for now. This is what the tape looks like... After aplying the stencil (I lined up the bottom with the bottom groove in the belt line) peel the clear backing, and go ahead and pull the bottom line, it isn't used. Take a razor blade and cut between all the door gaps, so you can pull sections as you are finished with them. Get a mack striper, this one is a 0. Should be around $10. Get 1/4 pints of 1 shot in the color you need, should be around $7. Juniper green gets a cream stripe. My cream was dried out....I use it so much...HA! So I mixed a little tan with polar white to get the color. Dip your striper in the paint and pallet on a slick magazine. I am using a Speedway catalog right now, but any slick page works. drag your brush back and forth through the paint to load it.... You can thin the 1 shot with mineral spirits, not too much, to get the paint to flow easier. Look on pinheadlounge.com for beginner tips on palleting, consistency tips, etc. Now take the brush and fill in between the lines. Start about 1/4" from the wiper bezels, leave a rounded tip to the line to look more freehand. fill a section at time, then peel the tape immediately so the paint can "lay down" on the edges and not be sharp, like a stencil... painted.... peeled.... Start each panel (doors, back, cowl) with a rounded edge, do not let the stripe go around the corner into the jamb, it will bleed under the tape, and a real striper would start and stop on the flat part of the panel anyway. You have now striped your truck! Mark another off the list....
If you where me... When I crossed off "stripe truck", I would have realized (too late) that my lower arm was in fresh pin stripe paint, and I just screwed up a _b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l_ striping job!!! But that's if you were me...
That's pretty slick. I absolutely will not put stripes, graphics, or even two-tone paint if one can feel the edges. We just tell the customer to take it to an air brush/striping place near here and have the guy sign his work. The usual practice is to put a thin coat of clear on the base coat so it can be cleaned after touching, apply the stripes or whatever, and then bury them by spraying close to but not directly on with one or two clear coats and finally an overall double coat. After color sanding and buffing you can see but absolutely not feel the art work and it's good for many years. The draw back is one must know whats wanted before the painting starts and a damaged area is a bugger to repair. Your way gets around both of these.
Other than the tape guide, thats how chevy did it. On a full custom job, Yes, burying the stripes under clear is the way to go, as long as you don't change your mind. Most of my work is after the fact, so I'm usually on top of the clear anyway. If you don't lay on the paint super thick and pull the tape as soon as you finish each panel, you don't have much of an edge anyway.
