pin striping near Washington DC

[Melville]

Does anyone know of a place that will do painted pinstripes near Washington DC? And by near I mean only sort of near. I'd be willing to drive quite a bit to actually get it done. I'm generally not a fan of pinstriping but my car has them and it's faded on one side. It looks like the previous owner tried to have it removed but couldn't get it all off. I've looked into getting it all removed but I've been warned that doing so might damage the clear coat. And I've called a billion places in the DC area and none can do it. I've even tried places that do full restos of muscle cars and hot rods - places that actually say they do pinstriping on their web pages - but no one actually does it. It seems it's a lost art.

 

[sheward]

Years ago I knew of two or three. Detroit and Atlanta. Not even sort of close. I do think it's probably a dying art but I bet you'll find someone still. Have you ever considered having them painted over in your exact body color?

drew

 

[skikrazey]

In Reading, PA I know 2 people that do hand painted pin stripes. Did you try Phantom Works in Norfolk, VA?

 

[Melville]

Thanks Guys. I'll reach out to Phantom Works. It's about a 3.5 hour drive from me but maybe I'll take a road trip down the coast and check them out. Do you have contact details for the Reading PA guys? Per google that's about an hour closer to me than Norfolk.

 

[Spruce500e]

Did you find someone to do this? If not I have a resource in PA that did a car I bought a number of years ago even had price list on the card from 2005. Lol

 

[Melville]

Did you find someone to do this? If not I have a resource in PA that did a car I bought a number of years ago even had price list on the card from 2005. Lol

Thanks for the follow up. I reached out to one or two of the suggested places but didn't get a response. I think no one really wants to do the hassle of pinstriping. Eventually I found a place closer to me called Blackwolf restorations. http://blackwolfauto.com. They could do it but they are very confident the striping is sitting on top of the clear so it can be removed without much risk to the clearcoat. So I will probably just get the stripes removed. Maybe in the spring.

 

[Klink]

I probably removed, or had them removed, from at least 20 cars without incident. Another thing that always came off on day one, along with the model badging...

 

[Ntrepid]

They should definitely be on top of the clear unless the car was repainted, right? If the car came from MB and was immediately pinstriped, they should be on top. A paint thickness meter should be able to tell you if any panels have been repainted (so you can proceed with caution on them).


Robert

 

[Melville]

They should definitely be on top of the clear unless the car was repainted, right? If the car came from MB and was immediately pinstriped, they should be on top. A paint thickness meter should be able to tell you if any panels have been repainted (so you can proceed with caution on them).


Robert

I agree. Right after I got the car I took it to Speed Freak Detailing to do a good detailing. One of the guys there said he was pretty sure that the stripes are over the clear but he said that there was a real possibility of damaging the clear in his attempt to remove the stripes. That scared me to try. But subsequent opinions have me more secure. Both at Blackwolf auto and after another trip to Speed Freak Detailing when I talked to the main guy there. Both felt confident they would come off easily and with little or no damage.