Scott,
That's interesting about what your friends say about hand as opposed to sprayed pinstripes. Anyone familiar with bikes probably knows that hand stripes are proper and should appear slightly imperfect. The "too perfect" look just isn't right for a vintage bike unless that was the way it was done originally. The odd thing to me is that my hand striper is very reasonable, quick, and very easy to work with. I value him very highly. It is 10 times easier to have it hand striped than it would be to mask it. I don't see the point in masking the stripes at all. Every painter should have a good pinstriper on hand for the jobs they can't do themselves. Every painter I know has someone on the line; I have two available locally with lots of experience on bikes.
When it comes to clearcoating pinstripes, I'm generally in favor of it. If someone wants them on top that's fine with me; but I prefer to put them under just the final clear coat without "leveling" them with clear. That way they still have the "raised " feel of stripes on top but have the protection of the clearcoat. On things I do for my modern work, I'll bury the pinstripes with the rest of the decals so the final finish is totally smooth.
Brian Baylis
That's the deal on pinstripes in La Mesa, CA
>
> This might be slightly off subject...but not far. There is a pretty big
> difference in hand pinstriping and sprayed stripes. Hand striping is less
> consistent in depth of color and width and not as straight as sprayed
> stripes, which are extremely straight and consistent, but...as far as I am
> concerned, hand pinstripes look more original to me on a vintage frame. But,
> when I show off some of my bikes to friends, they will look at both jobs and
> think the sprayed on looks better. I just think that the sprayed on stripes
> look almost too good.
>
> Either way, I believe that either type of stripe needs to be clearcoated over
> for durability. I have restored Paramounts by Waterford, Brian Baylis and a
> local painter, Brian Pritchett of Cycle-Delic, and all 3 sources have asked
> me the under or over question. (BTW, if anybody has a Waterford catalog,
> that is my red pre-war Paramount in there).
>
> Now, with that said, I had Waterford repaint a 1962 Paramount that had
> "Disneyland font" decals (that is what Richard Schwinn called them). He had
> to have the decals made up. This bike has some pretty elaborate pinstiping on
> it. I requested Waterford to have their pinstriper redo them exactly as they
> were. They look something like the stripes on this bike
>
> http://www.bicycletrader.com/
>
> Well, Waterford sent the frame to Gary Prengy, the decal guru on the East
> coast, and not only did he make up the "Disney" decals, he also made up
> decals for the pinstripes on the toptube and the fork blades. They turned out
> great! I will post this frame up on my website when I get a chance.
>
> Scott "how many Paramounts do I really need?" McCaskey