Stripe Specific Please

Hi all,

At the final stages now before paint and am getting anxious about painting the stripes. Saw the Factory Five information about the width and taper but, and this may sound stupid there is not a straight edge on the Roadster! How do you measure for accurate center, mark it before laying on tape, what tape do you use for a fine edge, want the pin stripes on the side how do you lay those out without error???? Intend to paint blue base, clear coat with two coats, let dry and color sand, mask off and paint stripes followed by three more coats of clear - sound about right?

Thanks for any replies!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bhanshaw

Hi all,

At the final stages now before paint and am getting anxious about painting the stripes. Saw the Factory Five information about the width and taper but, and this may sound stupid there is not a straight edge on the Roadster! How do you measure for accurate center, mark it before laying on tape, what tape do you use for a fine edge, want the pin stripes on the side how do you lay those out without error???? Intend to paint blue base, clear coat with two coats, let dry and color sand, mask off and paint stripes followed by three more coats of clear - sound about right?

Thanks for any replies!

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I can't offer you much other than this...had my car painted at Whitby who has done a lot of cars. They paint the stripe color first then tape over that and paint the body color. I've seen other painters mention doing the stripe color first as well. Why this is preferred I have no idea but just something else to consider.

My GTD40 was done a long time ago - 1992 - but they used precut vinyl sticker that someone made specifically for that car. Is that not in vogue any more? It worked great and stuck for the 60,000 miles I had it.

With the number of roadsters out there I'm amazed there isn't a specific roadster stripe you buy and have minor or no trimming. But like I say, I'm 20 years out of touch of paint ;)

Stripes are a little subjective since none left the Shelby Factory with stripes. If they had stripes they were dealer installed. Google shelby GT350 stripe dimensions and you will get something that you can get close with.

Here is a cut & paste of my reply in this thread:

http://www.ffcars.com/forums/17-fact...enterline.html

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Oh boy, this one is hard to explain because there is a lot of fudging involved and not a lot of science but here's how I do 'em.

First thing to understand is that the bodies are not perfectly symmetrical. You've got to hit some benchmarks but keep in mind what my friend Batman Miller said many years ago--- "trust your eyes more than the tape measure" :bat: The benchmarks are the center of the radiator opening, center between the rollbars if there are two and the middle of the license plate lamp "eyebrow". You are also shooting for the center of the hood scoop opening which is easy when working with Mk4s with the loose scoop but on Mk3 and earlier cars with molded in scoop there is a fly in the ointment---the scoop is crooked on the hood. Anyway... I do the centerlind with the body on the chassis after I have final gapped and fitted all the panels and completed the bodywork. Measure the radiator opening and put a tic mark on the nose. Then do the same measuring between the headlights. The marks will probably be close but not dead on each other. You can pretty much eyeball the center of the plate lamp. Now pull a string between the lamp and your center marks on the nose. You may need to move it a bit to hit the scoop or roll bars properly. It's OK if it has to "bend" a little across the cockpit opening to hit center on the front and rear cowls. Walk around it and move a little as necessary keeping in mind that the obvious places where an off center will show up are at the lamp on the trunk, between dual roll bars and at the scoop. Once I'm pretty satisfied I make some reference marks and run 1/4" tape down the middle like as can be seen on this one:

http://i1101.photobucket.com/albums/...C242D3B728.jpg

After I put the tape down I look at it for a while from different angles and adjust as needed. Finally before tearing the car down for paint I put some reference marks in the body so I can easily get back to the center again while painting; 1/32" holes in the front and rear of the hood and trunk flanges (which ultimately are hidden by weatherstrip) and under the radiator opening as well as a small "V" on the hidden back edge of the front & rear cockpit opening.

One last thing has to do with the trunk lid. The hole for the handle is often offset from the plate lamp (more common with Mk3s than Mk4s but it still happens). I've seen quite a few cars where the painter ran his centerline from the lamp to the latch hole but if that hole is offset the stripes "lean" to one side on the vertical part of the trunk lid. In those cases I jump the center over as needed (it's generally <1/4") under the plate lamp. Along with this one of the stripes will be just a touch narrower at the bottom than the other (half the distance of the offset, or <1/8") Once the license plate is on these differences are totally hidden and not noticed by the naked eye...but if the stripes run off to one side when viewed from behind that is pretty easily seen.

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/j...1/100_5449.jpg

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/j...1/100_5453.jpg

Hope all that makes some sense and helps!


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I always spray stripe color first, tape & mask, spray body color then pull the tape and shoot clear. Use a vinyl tape like 3M Fineline to get sharp crisp edges. Outer stripes are your call; some like 1/4" with a 1/4" gap, others 1/8" with 1/8" or 1/4"...whatever looks good to you. Most I've done get 1/4" by 1/4".

Good luck

Whitby did mine. Painted the whole car in the stripe color then laid down the main color.

We have an excellent local shop do all of our painting. Laying out the stripes is tedious at best. Ours was particularly difficult as we have three colors. Take your time in laying out the stripes...it's pretty easy to move tape and far less expensive that changing paint. The rational for shooting the stripes first is that it is much easier to mask the stripes that the entire body. There invariably will be some compromises. We ended up widening our a bit so that they weren't right up against the hood scoop as a tiny error is obvious if you are right up against another feature. Best of luck. post pics...always interested in how everyone else addresses this challenge.

Chris,

That is a cool color scheme. Wish i hadn't seen that. I can't change my mind again.

I hope this doesn't break any forum rules, try the following link.
http://www.erareplicas.com/427man/stripes/stripes.pdf

I used the ERA measurements as a start. Let me say this, nothing is going to measure out perfectly. Not only is there nothing straight on the car, nothing is symmetrical either.

Remember this - It doesn't have to BE straight, it has to LOOK straight. You have to target the parts that your eye will pick up and fudge the rest. On the nose, cockpit opening, trunk handle. If you have two roll bars, center there. Then a little fudge factor to the trunk handle. I had to fudge a stripe a little to have the front corner of the hood scoop inside of the stripe on both sides. I can't tell and I know it is there.

I do a couple larger Cobra cruises a year, so spend some time looking at the rear of other cars. Where I see a LOT of stripes look crooked is coming over the trunk and down the rear. Superformance a little, Backdrafts are really crooked. You can get a little bit (1/4" - 1/2") of correction by not lining up the "center" of the rear cockpit opening with the front. It is far enough away where you can't tell. Then the stripes coming over the rump will look straight. I started by popping a center line down that whole car. It just wasn't looking right on the rear.

It was a VERY long late night with a few panic sessions when I did mine.

The ERA diagram and Batman's eyeball advice are good guidelines. They are what I would use.

These days I can layout and mask my stripes in about two hours....the reason I can do that it that fast is because A. I do it all the time. 2.I have figured ways to beat the clock and 4. CAN'T SEE IT FROM MY BACK YARD !!!!!!!!! The way I do my centerline these days (totally cheating) is tape the hood and deck in place. Tic mark on the center trunk light, tic mark center of scoop opening using the two front mount holes to find the center, Tic the center of the mouth. I run blue 1in tape over the center of the car landing the center of the tape on my marks. You have to lift and set the tape a few times alternating front to back to get the tape centered. Mark the rest of the stripes from the edge of the blue tape. Run your first fine lines right on the edge of the blue tape...da Bat

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Originally Posted by j.miller

These days I can layout and mask my stripes in about two hours....

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I did mine in two hours!

...and another two hours!

....and I think one more!

With MUCH freaking out over the realizations stated above. I know that two hours was how much I slept before shooting the main color base coat. My 24 hour window (I used PPG which said 24 hours to get clear on) was ticking down from when I shot the stripe color.

Like a lot of the guys said trust your eyes, my wife and I did my whole paint job and the stripes with the pin stripes. After settling on the center line measure outboard evenly on both side.I used a ton of 3m fine line tape in different widths and marked the tape with what color it was going to be just to keep myself straight. Spray a big wide area and tape away. I did the pattern you talked about with tapering widths and happy with outcome. Good luck.Attachment 67945Attachment 67946

Chris,
Can you please advise what method you used to attach the scoop to the hood? Is it the scoop provided with the kit? Would like not to use rivets.

Jim

For the scoop I use #8-32x 5/8 with nylocks. I have never riveted a scoop on.

I assume the screws are counter sunk flat head style and fill is used at the scoop/hood interface to obtain a smooth transition? And you use the ABS scoop as well?

Most people use button head screws. They have a dome head that uses an Allen key.

Back in the day, people went to great lengths to cut the molded in scoop off so they could get the bolted on look. Now some people want to mold them back in.

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Originally Posted by Avalanche325

Back in the day, people went to great lengths to cut the molded in scoop off so they could get the bolted on look. Now some people want to mold them back in.

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Same way they used to gripe about the beak on the perky butt---then after FFR did away with it they found out that without it the license plate wont fit and they're still not happy ;)

jwebb, as Miller and I told ya' in the other thread you don't bond ABS to fiberglass (unless you're looking to be disappointed later on).

Jeff

When I bond fiberglass to fiberglass there is no hardware left behind or filled over,,,that is a sure way to have things picture through. 99% of the scoops I do are bolt on (as they should be).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jwebb

Chris,
Can you please advise what method you used to attach the scoop to the hood? Is it the scoop provided with the kit? Would like not to use rivets.

Jim

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I can fill in some details. We did bond the ABS scoop to the hood which we know is contrary to most of the advice given on the forum here. Our owner, Chris, has a materials engineering background and one of our technicians owned his own body shop. Both of them, plus our painter, felt that by using panel bond adhesive and by keeping the filler to a minimum we would be successful. The scoop came out terrific. At this point we don't have a lot of miles on the car, but based on their expertise I expect it to hold up well.

There are a few more details on our process in our build thread here.

Chris,
can you please tell me the colors used on this build?

Jim

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jwebb

Chris,
can you please tell me the colors used on this build?

Jim

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Jim,

Chris is in Vegas for Barrett Jackson, but I can help on the colors. They are:

Main color - Dupont Chromabase 782248K Carbon Flash
Main Stripe - Dupont Chromabase 767186K Greystone
Accent Stripe - House of Kolor NE508 Chartreuse neon