Pinstriping
Pinstriping (/ pɪnstraɪpɪŋ / from English. Pinstripe pinstripes, the German ruling also) the decorative application referred ornamental lines on mostly vehicles to their contours to emphasize. In the English-speaking world, narrow stripes in fabrics (pinstripe suits) are also known as pinstripes.
Pinstriping as a craft
The craft is carried out by the pinstriper (dt .: liner), who applies the pinstripes free-hand using a special brush, the so-called sword tug. The color used is mostly synthetic resin varnish from the specialist OneShot or HouseOfKolor . The best-known manufacturer of sword tugs is the American company Mack, which also has a large pinstriping gallery. An alternative tool is the Beugler wheel, which is used to roll up the paint over a small wheel.
Until about the mid-1950s, many vehicle manufacturers employed full-time professional liners (often women); then linework began to become generally unpopular - except for bicycles, where it sometimes lasted until the early 1990s. Nowadays, decorative lines are applied ex works as adhesive tape.
Pinstriping as an art form
Pinstriping is a special form of custom painting and belongs to the large family of art forms known in the USA as Lowbrow Art . It has its origins primarily in the hot rod and custom car scene that emerged around 1940 , which is considered the only proletarian art form since peasant painting . Further influences of the Lowbrow Art are folklore from Mexico - here especially the Day of the Dead , Lucha Libre wrestling and Christian-religious motifs -, Oceania ( Tikis ), American trivial myths, traditional western tattoos and comics. Since the Lowbrow Art, with a few exceptions (e.g. Rat Rods ), always demands perfect craftsmanship, a pinstriper is judged not only on the originality of its motifs, but also and especially on the execution.
There are currently about a hundred professional stripers and a large number of amateurs in the United States. The second largest pinstriping nation is Finland with around 200 practitioners. Great Britain follows in third place.
Pinstripers occasionally meet at - often non-public - panel jams, where, in contrast to the car shows, panel paintings (panels) and striped objects are shown and made. Often several stripers work together on a panel in jam sessions .
history
Lining is one of the oldest handicrafts. Even the ancient Romans decorated their chariots with decorative lines. However, until the middle of the last century it practically did not develop at all. As they had for eons, the lines followed the contours of the object that surrounded them, from the book cover to the bicycle frame. Then, around 1953, a strange, bizarre tangle of lines appeared on converted young men’s cars in Southern California. At first only on the glove box lids, two years later they grew around the radiator grille, behind the wheel arches, over trunk lids, C-pillars and door latches. Freestyle pinstriping was born. The invention of freestyle ruling is generally attributed to Von Dutch ( Kenneth Howard , 1929-1992). Tommy the Greek (Tommy Hrones, 1906-2002) was Von Dutch's pioneer, famous for his championship and his teardrops. His stripings, however, remained classic despite all their complexity and had none of Von Dutchen's bizarre hectic pace. These two and Ed Roth (1932-2001), who started out as a pinstriper and later made it to immortal fame in the custom car world with his traveling sculptures, were the most famous pinstripers of this first golden age.
From around 1965 to 1985, interest in pinstriping was almost gone. With the arrival of the Beatles , the custom car wave was replaced by the pop wave. (Roth: Guys wuz buyin´ guitars instead of cars). Material possessions such as an artfully crafted custom car were canceled under the emerging ideals of the hippies and were considered un cool .
In the 1970s, various new custom styles emerged - Vans , Pro Street , Lowrider , Offroader , Billet - which were either completely unadorned or decorated with airbrush , often in the form of a mural (wall painting). Airbrush began to establish itself as the dominant form of decoration on car sheet metal, and it still holds that position to this day. Around 1990, a kind similar to pinstriping was added to the purely abstract motifs: the tribal . However, it is almost never painted, just glued, printed or tattooed. In the formal language of the art of various primitive tribes - mainly the Māori and the Celts - ajar, it continues to be found on cars, on the arms of their drivers and the rear part ( Arschgeweih ).
In the early 1990s, however, the early custom styles began to be rediscovered. These people - often retro-enthusiastic rockabillys anyway - no longer sprayed their old cars in shiny pastel or neon tones, but in a matt primer , and instead of hi-tech billet add-on parts, emphasis was placed on authentic, old accessories: SV engines, Steel rims, cheater slicks . Pinstriping became popular again.
Styles
Freestyle pinstriping
Usually, but by no means mandatory, such pinstriping is symmetrical and consists of a multitude of equally thin lines in one or more colors that result in a mostly abstract, ornamental motif of parallels, points, angles and arcs. A subspecies of pinstriping is the so-called scrollwork , which is done exclusively in ornate flourishes. Mixed forms with each other and with airbrush motifs are also known.
