Today I'm going to talk to a guy about painting stripes on my car. I don't know a thing about what all is involved so I am asking for advice on what kind of questions I should ask when I get there. The only questions I've asked so far have been "How much?" and "How long will it take?". What else should I be aware of and ask?

Thanks!

How does he intend to center the stripes? If he doesn't line them up properly they might look off-center or crooked.

How many coats of paint? The more coats the thicker the stripes wil be.

Will he clearcoat just the stripes or spray the whole car? If he clearcoats just the stripes there will likely be a slight ridge separating the different color paint. If he clearcoats the entire car you'll have a more uniform coat AND it'll provide better long term protection for your paint job.

Thanks Marty!

However, now you have put the fear of off-center stripes in my head and I don't know if I will be able to get it out

If he's a good painter the risk is minimal... and its the same risk when installing vinyl.

He has the reputation of being the best painter in town, so I'm not too worried about that. I have to take my dog to the vet and then I'm going to go talk to him. He did tell me it would take 3-4 days and I don't want to leave my car for that long

If he has a portfolio of his previous work, check it out in detail. In terms of the time involved I'm guessing thats not unreasonable. Remember it takes time to mask the car properly and get the lines perfectly straight. And since we're not talking one coat of paint he needs to give the paint time to dry and to cure.

Unfortunately TV shows like Overhaulin' tend to give people the impression that they can easily re-paint and stripe cars in 8 hours. While it may be possible with thousands of dollars worth of heat lamps I'm guessing that its more the exception than the rule. And you really don't want to end up wth a glorified Earl Sheib-type paint job.

I definitely don't want it rushed. I was thinking 3-4 days, but of course his estimate is based upon getting the car first thing on a Monday morning and not having any type of emergency pop up. Then there is the decision as to how wide, what kind of gap, blah, blah, blah. I'm not going to stress over it unitl I get down there this afternoon.

Every place I've checked out said 3-4 days also, so the time frame sounds reasonable.

It sounds reasonable and I'm sure I can make it through the separation. Janet, how wide is the center stripe on your car?

Not wide enough! It is 14 inches now. When I get them painted on it will be 19 for the middle stripe. Have you decided on a style yet?

No I haven't. I don't know if I want just regular stripes or a style like yours. The man I talked to seemed very patient and said he'd sit down with me to throw some ideas around. We'll see what we can come up with.

Cool! That sounds really neat. It's fun to get ideas and come up with something to make your car unique and yours. Have you used the stripe painter for ideas?

http://www.spectrummarcom.com/mustang/stripePainter.html

Yes, I've played with it and have decided to get everything I want I need to buy about 3 more Mustangs!

I'm leaning towards the style like your's Janet. Now, on to the color. I know I want a shade of blue just don't know exactly what yet.

Oooh, blue would be awesome! There are so many pretty blue choices. I thought about blue for a while too, even on silver I thought it would look nice. I ended up getting about 20 samples of colors from the graphics place and lined them up on the hood of the car, at various times of day and light conditions so I could see what would look best. In the end I choose the metallic black and I like it.

Just a question, how come you are going for paint right away? I mean, I was scared shitless to paint my car without knowing what it was gonna look like. Especially with the design I have. At the time I got it done I hadn't seen any other cars like it. I learned a lot from having the vinyl on there and now know what I want for the final paint design. Nothing personal, I was just curious.

I was thinking about stripes at first, but now I think I might want to paint the entire section of the hood black the same width of the grill and then also the spoiler (after I get an aftermarket hood and spoiler). Kinda like how Steeda did the paint on their hood.