Laying out stripes essentially means masking everything that is not the stripe. Since the tape form represents the body color around the stripe, it's easy to get confused. Just remember that the unmasked areas are the actual stripe.
Stripe It
Many of our favorite muscle machines featured stripes and graphic treatments that complement their high-performance intentions. Many of these packages consisted of decal appliqus, while others were originally done with paint. While the factory finish was always single-stage, with any graphics or stripes applied right over the top, modern basecoat/clearcoat systems allow other options. Stripes can be applied over the top of the paint, in the OEM manner, or applied over the basecoat, to be captured seamlessly beneath the clear. Decal stripe packages can also be duplicated in paint in the same way.
Striping begins with laying out the design in tape, however, the tape works in reverse of the final stripe scheme, blanking out the base paint that will remain, and leaving the stripe area open to paint. Special fine-line striping tapes should be used for this purpose, since the edge is far sharper and lends itself to less edge build-up of the paint. A light scuffing of the surface with a very fine abrasive pad is usually all that is required for adhesion, and the stripe or graphic color is applied just as in the overall paint job. Peel back the mask, and revel in your work. A good hint here is to wait until after the paint has passed being tacky, as to avoid "goo strings" along the edge. Waiting too long before removing the mask, however, may cause the paint to chip at the edges. You'll want to do this soon after the paint dries and before it cures completely. For stripes set below the clearcoat, apply the contrasting color at the basecoat stage, and follow with clear as usual.
This stripe will be painted in the basecoat below the clear, so the black base of the stripe color on this '69 Camaro is sprayed right over the main basecoat prior to clear. | 
Parts like the valance and spoiler are painted separately, using an identical technique. These pieces need to be laid out with extra care to ensure the stripe treatment will line up with that of adjacent panels when all is bolted together. | 
With the stripe buried beneath the clearcoat, the effect is smooth and seamless. We like the look. |
Turn Your Garage Into A Paint Booth
You've read it dozens of times before, and by now that line carries about as much cred as "Build A Space Ship In One Weekend!" All the other rags have screamed the headline, "Turn Your Garage Into a Paint Booth" more than once, and it's never really been true, until now.
Dupli-Color's new Paint Shop finish system is designed for the DIY enthusiast with modest skills and even more modest equipment. No, we're not talking about spraying your pride and joy out of a can-we're talking pro-quality bulk products sprayed out of a traditional HVLP gun. The Paint Shop product line consists of eight vibrant colors plus primer and clear coat (making it a two-stage system). You buy Dupli-Color Paint Shop products in quart cans from your neighborhood auto parts store, and they come pre-mixed and ready-to-shoot. You don't have to add reducers or thinners, although Dupli-Color does give you the option of thinning with acetone.
With traditional bodyshop products, you're tied down to a re-coat window. Wait too long to add another coat and you're screwed. With Paint Shop, you can stop mid-project on a Sunday night, ramble through your day job all week, then get cranking again on Friday night, and suffer no penalty. That's because Paint Shop is lacquer-based.
Paint Shop is easy to apply, it dries quickly, it can be re-applied at any time, and it can be buffed to a brilliant finish. The product handles easily, and is designed to be used by the novice in a garage environment. In fact, Dupli-Color has created an e/Learning video module that's available on Dupli-Color's website (www.duplicolor.com). In the video, they paint a Ford Focus step-by-step in a real garage. (You can even see the plastic taped to the garage walls.) One word of advice: Paint Shop is not a free pass to get out of all the hard prep work. You'll still have to strip, clean, hammer and prep your ride before you pour the first drop of primer into the gun.-Johnny Hunkins
Bring On the Buff
Ok, say you come to the conclusion that hammering out your own dents, priming and blocking the panels ...and, yeah, shooting the paint too, is a little too much to take on. You even realize that about the best you're going to afford is to get the car painted by one of those cheaper chain shops that basically sell the quick blow-over job. So does that mean you'll necessarily have the ugliest car around, even after it is painted? Even if you can't afford some of the equipment needed for paint and bodywork, most anyone who is out of prison and employed can probably afford all the stuff needed to wet-sand and polish a car. As we pointed out earlier, even a mediocre paint job can be made to look great, so it's reasonable to suggest that with enough care, a cheap paint job can be cut and buffed to look pretty good.
Let's take a detailed look at the minimum in equipment and supplies to do the job. The buffer should be specifically designed for automotive refinishing, and though there is a great deal of variation on quality and price, here it pays to step up to a decent name-brand unit. Don't be tempted to save cash here by using goofy drill adapters, orbital waxing machines, or an angle grinder. Excess rpm can easily burn the fresh paint, so these buffers typically run at 1,800 - 2,200 rpm. Accessorize the buffer with at least one cutting and one polishing bonnet. Wool is the traditional material, but foam is favored by some, especially for polishing.
Automotive paint buffers work at a relatively low speed, typically around 2,000 rpm. Don't make the mistake of using a similar high-speed sander or angle grinder. Polishing bonnets, like compounds, come in a variety of grades, from coarse cutting to ultra-fine buffing pads.
The buffer is about all you'll need for equipment, but you'll still need the supplies. The color-sanding process takes a water source, which can be a slow-running hose, or a sponge and bucket. The sandpaper used normally varies from #1000 to 2000 grit, but the grit that's right for the job will depend on the type of paint, and how much leveling is required. Naturally, the rougher the paint, the coarser the grit that will be required. Too fine a grit will just tend to float over the flaws, rather than cut them. The downside of coarser paper is that it will take much more work to polish the sanding scratches out later. The grit also depends on the paint type. Some very hard urethanes can be almost impossible to buff if sanded too coarse, while even #600-grit scratches can be easily buffed out of old-school lacquers. If forced to use a grit coarser than about #1500, going back over with a light sanding of a finer grit will usually make polishing easier.
Finally, we have the compounds. There are probably more products for shining up paint than for any other automotive purpose. While the photo here shows more sauces than a French buffet, really at minimum you'll need a two-step process: compounding, then polishing. Compounding will remove the visible sanding scratches, but in sunlight the finish will show horrible-looking swirl marks. Literally the buffing pattern of the compound will show throughout the finish. Polishing (or glazing) compound completes the job, eliminating the swirl marks, and polishing the paint to a super shine. Always wash off the coarser cutting compound before beginning with the polishing.-Steve Dulcich
Online How-To Videos
You can find anything on the internet these days, and we're not ashamed to admit that sometimes the web offers more than magazines in some areas. Try as we might, we can't actually show you a car being painted, although the promise is tempting. While kicking around, we found this interesting site at Sherwin Williams (www.sherwin-automotive.com/reference/bdp.cfm). It's chock full of training videos designed to show paint professionals the preferred, or "best demonstrated practices," for using the full line of Sherwin-Williams product. We found all the nitty gritty specifics, with product recommendations, photos, videos, and instructions. The training is broken down into sections like blending, repairing metal, painting new metal, jambing, and painting both primered and unprimered plastics. Each section has valuable technical instruction, followed by tests, which we figure is a heads-up move by Sherwin Williams to ensure their dealers are using the product correctly.-Johnny Hunkins
