The Art of Pinstriping - Hot Licks

Before letting me loose with a brush and my new Kafka Striping Kit, Styles laid down a couple of lines as an example for me to try and follow. You'll notice his grip, holding the handle between his thumb and the side of his first finger. The shortened handle he prefers allows him to rotate the brush between his fingers without the handle shaft lying in the web between his thumb and finger.

Next Styles set up the first of many practice sheets for me and let me try pulling a few lines myself. The idea is to use the template as a guide while pulling lines of equal thickness and lengths on the clear sheets laid over the template - easier said than done.

After practicing with the Kafka kit on my own for a while I was ready to watch Styles lay down a freehand design so I could just watch his technique. This is really something to see and watching a pro like Styles is a lesson in its own right, plus it's really good motivation to get back to work and practice, practice, practice.

Next month we'll be back with our second installment on striping, in which we'll watch Styles stripe our Speedway '32 roadster at the same time he walks us through his technique and shares some tips and tricks on the fine art of pinstriping, so stay tuned. In the meanwhile I'm gonna go home and practice.

Father and son, Jeff and Logan, pinstriping