• LESSON 1 - Learning How To Learn
• LESSON 2 - Materials You'll Need To Practice
• LESSON 3 - Taking Care Of Your Pinstriping Brushes
• LESSON 4 - How To Hold A Pinstriping Brush
• LESSON 5 - Recognizing Good Swordsmanship

Material You Need To Start Practicing

The following is a list of bare essentials that you will need to start learning the art of pinstriping.

A Pinstriping Brush

First off you need to get a pinstriping brush. There are lots of pinstriping brushes on the market these days but the overwhelming majority of professional pinstripers use a Mack Series 10. Mack Series 10 brushes range in size from 000, being the smallest, to size 2. I�d suggest you start out with a 00. If you have small hands or the 00 feels too long give the 000 a try. These brushes will run you about $12 a piece from most online stores. If you give N Glantz & Sons a call you can get them for around $10 each.

1-Shot Paint

When it comes to paint, I�d suggest that you get some 1-shot enamel. This is also an industry favorite for pinstriping. Other brands include House Of Kolor, Ronan, and Kustom Shop paint. While these other brands are great products in their own right and might be a better choice, when other factors need consideration, 1-shot is the easiest to learn with.

Odorless Mineral Spirits

Depending on the color of 1-shot you are using and the environment you are going to be practicing in you might need to thin the paint out just a little. I�ve found that there is some variation to the thickness of paint among colors in 1-shot. Most of the colors are perfectly fine right out of the can, especially when you are working on glass, like we will be for doing our drills. However, there are some instances that you�ll have to thin the paint a little to keep it flowing. The environment you�re going to be practicing in will play a part in how quickly the paint start �gumming� up too much. Odorless mineral spirits is the recommended reducer for practicing with 1-shot because it�s readily available and less expensive than other options. Mineral spirits is also used to clean your brushes when changing colors or once you�re finished practicing.

Brush Oil

After you�ve cleaned you brush out for the day, you�ll want to oil the brush and put it away. Oiling the brush keeps any paint that wasn�t cleaned out from drying and ruining the brush. I like using 3-n-1 because you can buy it just about anywhere and it�s cheap. If you�re very diligent about cleaning your brushes you really don�t need to oil them, but if you don�t you�d better clean your brush really well or it will not last. I figure it�s easy enough to oil them up and not worry so much about cleaning them perfectly. You might hear that you can use motor oil or transmission fluid to store your brushes. This was pretty common back in the day, but today these products contain harsh detergents that won�t be good for the health of your brush. Also, I�ve heard folks talking about using vegetable oil or olive oil. Be careful using organic or lard-based oils, they are likely to attract mice to come chew up your brushes for you.

Palette

You�ll need something to palette your brush on to load it with paint. Just about anything will work for a good palette, like an old magazine or phone book. I�ve been using these little real estate advertising books that you find near the exit of just about any grocery store. I like them cause their small enough to easily fit in my travel box, free, and the pages are glossy so they don�t bleed though.

Practice Surface

Glass is the perfect surface to practice pinstriping on because you can put your drill sheet on the back and pinstripe right on the front. Not only that but even if you let the paint dry you can razor blade it off and start from scratch. Also, glass is so slick that once you get the hang of striping on glass other surfaces will seem easy. I recently got my hands on a storm window and painted the backside black and I use it regularly for practicing now. The drill sheets available on for download below are sized to put behind a standard 8x10 picture frame so if you want a bigger surface to stripe on you�ll have to create your own drills.

Drill Sheets

The following is provided to help you practice all the standard brush strokes. The template is designed to be used as background on an 8� x 10� glass picture frame. Be sure to practice each pattern in all orientations, up, down, left and right, or horizontal and vertical in the case of striaghts.

• C's
• Left S's
• Right S's
• Straights

Stir Sticks

Of course you�ll want to make sure that you stir you 1-shot up really well before you start striping. You can use whatever you want, but you can get stir sticks from some place like hobby lobby really cheap.

Paper Towels

Just about any paper towel will do fine while you�re just practicing on glass. I�ve been using the blue shop paper towels for a while now because they�re lint free and won�t damage painted surfaces like cheaper paper towels can.

Razor Blades

Get a few razor blades to clean the glass after your paint has dried.

NOW GO PRACTICE, PRACTICE PRACTICE...then practice some more

Click Here To Leave A Comment

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"man this is my new favorate site lots of great info thanks alot"

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"This is amazing. I've been looking all over the internet for lists of materials and some basic instruction on how to pinstripe. Thanks for all the wonderfully useful information."

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"Thank you for this site"

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"what a great site. These are good tips, also. glass is what I have been practicing on, although I was told to practice on aluminum panels. the garage would be full of 'em by now if I would've done that. I'm a house painter so I know quite well that paint comes off glass easy. it surprised me no one else had the same idea, til I saw you're site. thanks for the good work."

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"Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us!"

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" I found this site and author very helpful. The one question I do have is do you have to prep the surface before you pinstripe?"

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"Rocko, First off thank you for all your hard work you have put in on the development of this site. I am new to the word of pin striping and your site is a great start. Great vibe throughout the site, postive message about craftsmanship and how true skill is learned for learning from the masters of their craft. I look forward to gathering my tools and learning the art of striping. JM San Antonio Texas"

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"Thanx alot I'm just starting out, I ordered a Mack 0 and black 1 shot, but know I know what else I need, I agree on the note "Take pride in your work""

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"Great post... I am already a pretty decent artist, mainly focused on pencil and paint photo-realism pieces but have always loved airbrush and pinstriping.. so decided to have a go and enjoy the long learning curve.. The drill sheets are brilliant, I understand the process of learning and how long it has taken me to develop my current skill and also how much better I am yet to get, so these are a great tool to get you started!"

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"Rock, thanks for blazing the trail for the new stripers."

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"I got the bug..I cant wait to get started... Good thing I have a Friend to guide me as well as here...I am pumped.."

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"fn a thanks bra"

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"You are simply a pinstriping angel. I have been struggling with this art for quite some time now, and even gave up. I once had a mentor, who sadly fell ill from cancer and couldn't mentor anymore. After a few years of giving up, I decided that I need to give it one more shot. Today, I found this website, and I can't tell you how thankful I am for you to share your knowledge with the world. From the bottom of my heart I thank you."

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"Thanks for the info. I did some searching for a starter kit to learn with, I came across the below link. (it also has 3 mack brushes!) It just showed up so I'm off to grab a picture frame. Hope this helps someone else who's low on cash. http://www.eastwood.com/pinstriping-kit-with-video-and-2-cans-of-1-shot.html "

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