Once the Caddy was cleaned up and parked in a comfortable space, it was time for the pinstriping to happen. Having not done many long line jobs before, this was both a huge challenge and a great learning experience. 1 Shot Ivory was the color used for the outlining of the scallops. Every line was pulled 100% free hand with a Mack 10 series 00 Pinstripe Brush. No guideline was used, no tape to follow, no magnet to ride. Nothing. Which made it that much more, fun, shall we say. And striping on this flat black was like trying to pinstripe a chalk board... very not smooth. I started with the hood because I thought that would be the easiest to get started. Wrong. I'm a bit short for the kind of reach necessary to pull the lines on the hood the way I wanted to. After I'd had enough of that battle, I moved onto the scallop on the passenger side hood edge, and then to the remaining scallops on that side from top down. The sides ended up being a bit easier (since I'm short) but still challenging (since I'm learning). But everything came out great. I resumed working on the hood so that i could get at least to a nice half way point. After several different variations on technique I decided i just needed to get on top of the hood and work like that. So I did. I held my body weight with my left arm and pulled the stripes gently with the right. And magically, cameras appeared! Oh we have fun. At some point I found that the best way for me to get the left side stripes was to pull it with my left hand. The first day of pinstriping ended shortly after midnight when my body couldn't keep up anymore. Day 2 of pinstriping went waaaaaaaaay better, smoother, faster. After a little sleep I was pulling longer lines with better seams and making very few errors that required correcting. When I was done Jake and I measured out the length of each stripe and added them all together. The total dinstance of pinstriping was around 2200 inches. Day 2 ended about 6:00 pm, thank god. My body was killin me from the bending, stretching- just general fun having. But i still wanted to go home and play drums as loud as humanly possible, so i did. When I got in today I cleaned off the remaining baby powder (used to allow the hands to slide across the surface) and the Caddy looks awesome! The ivory was just the right color- gave it a real classic feel and really finished the scallops off well. The last remaining touch on them was to take a little brush and go inside the door/fender edges a little to make the overall presentation better and cleaner. Next up is the deck lid pinstripes!
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