Re: [CR]Pinstriping help/info needed

(Example: Production Builders:Pogliaghi)

Date: Mon, 12 May 2008 11:06:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Fred Rednor" <fred_rednor@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [CR]Pinstriping help/info needed
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org, Nick March <nicbordeaux@yahoo.fr>
In-Reply-To: <866414.46311.qm@web28003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>


> Just been looking into pinstriping. Brushes galore, > those I can see the need for. But paint ? Special > "one shot" and others... > > In the 20's - 60's, did bike pinstripers use > special paints ? Looking at my bikes, seems they were using > standard paint suitably thinned .

Nick, My impression, from looking at old bikes, is that some painters used the special one-shot/striping paint, while others simply used their normal paints, pehaps with some of the thinners/spirits allowed to evaporate. The one-shot/striping paint has a higher lead content than the ordinary finish, which is why it's more opaque, and that's why it's used for striping. That is, you don't have to try and lay down a second coat which, in the case of a stripe, is difficult to do with real precision. The problem with using partially thinned paints, is that - although they will be more opaque than normally thinned paints - they will not flow as well as properly thinned striping paint. The ability to flow off the brush nicely is what's really required for a good striping. Now, I gatehr you're looking a fair number of French bikes, and to me one of the inconsistencies that is sometimes seen on even high-end French bikes is the quality of the striping. For example, I've only seen a handful of Herse bikes up close, but my feeling is that sometimes the striping was done with really "watery" enamel. From all the photos I've seen, though, this seems to have been a common sitution. Of course, all this applies to enamel finishes. Weren't some bikes finished using lacquer, and if so, was the striping also done using lacquer? That would strike me as really difficult, since lacquer always requires many coats. But I have no idea how this sort of thing was done in the pre-War days (WW2 that is.) Cheers, Fred Rednor - Arlington, Virginia (USA)

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