Looking Ahead to...Pinstriping?

Despite owning a professional quality Beugler striping tool for years, I have never striped a carriage wheel. I could never quite figure out how to draw a straight line down the middle of a "pregnant earthworm" shaped spoke.

Suddenly, however, I find myself keenly interested in getting the hang of using the tool.

I tried an elaborate masking project to make a sort of stencil, and that was a complete fail.

Then I figured out how to use just one short strip of tape on the spoke to follow as a guide.  As it turns out, a carriage driver should be the perfect candidate for a pinstriping hobby, as it requires a following hand and a supple wrist!

Using the striping tool is not "cheating".  It's real striping, real paint, and requires real skill.  It certainly is a lot easier to get the hang of for a hobbyist than the High Art of using a striping brush.

The use of the tape as a guide was a breakthrough for me and has me very excited about learning more techniques for not only striping the wheels, but perhaps creating some simple designs for other parts of the carriage.  I have lots of boring evenings on my hands to practice.

And who but a true carriage lover would have a carriage wheel on the kitchen counter! :o)

This is a temporarily unemployed cart wheel (the cart is currently set up with sleigh runners).  It has a beat up old paint job on it and is scheduled for refinishing.  Since it is not striped, it's the perfect victim..er, candidate, for my practice.  Like the Karate Kid, "stripe on...stripe off."  I have striped this wheel three times so far,and will keep striping it until I get good at it.

The stripes, including the "reverse arrow" point near the hub, are 8" long.  So the tape is 6" and is placed slightly to the left of center,stopping 2" from the hub.  Once I get to the end of the tape, it's freehand.

This is a professional model Beugler striping tool.  The cylinder is filled with paint, a tight plunger pushes the paint to the roller, and the roller lays the paint on the surface in an even width and thickness.  Most of the time.  It still takes practice.

I've just invested in a couple of books to learn more techniques for layout of designs, etc.

You can use the tool by either "pushing" it, or "pulling" it.  To use the tape guide, I found it easiest to push the tool from the end nearest the felloes, toward the hub.  To push the tool, it has to be in a vertical position, like this.

I began my point just as the striper's wheel hit the end of the tape.  There are some setup skills for marking the point out if I feel I need to, but right now, I have so much work to do to get the tension out of my hand that waiting for the books to arrive is a good thing.

You can see the straight line is drawn alongside, but not touching the masking tape.  The photo at the top is the stripes with the tape pulled away.

The stripes survived long enough for me to take pictures.  Then I wiped them off, in anticipation of practicing again this evening.

My old eyes don't see well enough to do this work unaided (glasses?  Pffft) So I used this Opti-Visor and it was a great help!

This has given me a whole new incentive to get a really nice, smooth paint job on the current project's wheels!

I also have two other four-wheel carriages out there that would love to have their wheels striped, as well as two carts that need their wheels re-painted AND striped!

This could be a whole new creative outlet for me!  Better than going to classes and learning how to paint fruits and veggies!