smd4

Thinking about hand pinstriping or lining my lugs. I have artistic talent, in oil painting on canvas, but no experience with lining. Any tips? Free hand it with a good brush? Use a “paint pen?”

Thanks.

rccardr 

I’ve used a paint pen and it looked pretty good, but would not do so with that gorgeous Cinelli of yours.
Instead, get the right paint, (Hot Shot?) the right brush, and take your time. Practice on an old frameset.
You’ve got skills, use ‘em.

smd4

Thanks. I made the “mistake” of looking at the pictures of the Bottecchia Professional in the May 1987 Bicycle Guide. Chrome lugs lined in contrasting red and white. Insane.

rccardr 

I owned an 87 Record Professional. It didn’t look that great closer than five feet away.

arex

I used a paint pen on a Raleigh Sports. The results were passable, but not awesome. The tip got mushy pretty quick, and the lines got too heavy. Next time I'm using a brush.

RustyJames 

I think I mentioned this here but I bought one of these to try out;




I haven’t had a chance to play around with it but I like the idea of it.

bikingshearer 

Calling Andy_K . . . .

I am thinking about doing the same thing. Andy_K used Sharpie paint pens, and got good results so I have some. Ed Litton suggested Hot Shot paint (it's intended for sign painters) and a Kemper Fluid Writer pen or something similar. I may get some.

I, too, suggest experimenting on an old, preferably trashed frame. I found an old Trek 400 for $10 at the local co-op. If the results look terrible, I will not have schmutzed up a good frame.

I actually want to press my luck a little further: for lugs, I got some chrome-looking paint that may or may not work on metal. Hey, that's what the test frame is for.

Keep us posted on your progress. I do not expect to conduct my experiments until it warms up and stops raining around here.

ehcoplex 

I used a paint pen on my Valgan resto- worked well enough. For the next thing I do I think I'm going to try out a Kemper Fluid Writer.

PilotFishBob 

I've done it using a ruling pen. Very good results but it takes practice to get used to the thing.

smd4

That paint applicator Rusty posted looks interesting.

I wonder if it wouldn’t be too expensive to have it professionally done? Lugs aren’t very big.

Andy Antipas 

I have done it a few times now with a Kingart inkline painting pen. It takes some practice and getting the paint to the right consistency can be tedious. If I made a mistake, I would wipe off the paint with a rag and a little mineral spirits.


1972 Moto-Gugie

1969 Urago

1982 Woodrup Giro Touring

smd4

Looks pretty good to me.

Luckily, the original paint has had a few decades to dry, so wiping away goofs shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

obrentharris 

One Shot.
If gold is your color be sure to buy the "metallic gold" not the "imitation gold" which is just an orange/yellow.

I've had good luck with the extra fine Sakura Pen-touch gold paint pens.



I would like to have a wider range of colors available so I bought two of the Kemper fluid writers shown by @RustyJames above, one fine line and one normal. I've tried out the fine line and it is indeed very fine, maybe half the width or less of the Motobecane above. I haven't messed around with the wider tip yet. One Shot has a handy online formula calculator to allow you to mix their paints to match many of the Pantone C (coated) colors.

Any method takes a little practice. Pick up a cheap lugged frame at your local co-op or craigslist and practice on that for a while.
Brent

smd4

All good ideas! My frame is silver with chrome lugs, so it might be cool to set them off a little with some lining.

Kilroy1988 

I did my Mercian Campionissimo with a brush and automotive pinstriping paint. Next time I do it I'll use a larger brush as it's best to be able to load the paint on so that you can do more without lifting off the surface, so I wound up with quite a few little jagged lines in places where I couldn't begin re-applying evenly.

-Gregory

smd4

You can do my frame!

Kilroy1988 

I'm also a painter and it certainly requires a different skill set to lay down a smooth line like that... Ha. Have fun experimenting, I definitely suggest trying a brush if you're already used to using one for other mediums.

smd4

II’m definitely curious to try it myself. Lots of options here.

Andy_K 

It might be worth noting that I used the Sharpie pen on a Centurion that I spray painted, but it came out pretty good. I didn't practice or redo or clean it up or anything. Once, maybe twice around the lines with the Sharpie paint pen (I think the "fine" point one).



I had a frame painted by Jeff Bock, and his extra cost for lug lining was pretty low. I think somewhere around $50, which is like a rounding error if you're having a frame painted. It was much more subtle and refined than what I did to the Centurion.



One last point of reference, just to complete what I know, I had Groody Bros do lug lining on a frame they powder coated for me. I think it was around the same as Mr. Bock charged. That was higher relative to the cost of powder coating, but still pretty cheap for the results.



Of course, if you do it yourself you can choose whether you want a subtle accent like the two professional jobs I posted or heavy outlining like I did to the Centurion or anything in between, depending on your skills.

bwilli88 

I used a cheap paint pen from Hobby Lobby on my Super course turned out ok, should have cleaned up some of the messy lines.

Aardwolf

I've got this arriving today: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09ZQCGX...roduct_details
basically a Fluid Writer clone in 2 sizes (0.5 + 0.7) for £16.
I've also got a test frame to try it out on

Apparently One Shot gold isn't as good as it used to be (possibly removing lead)
and Alphanamel Metallic Gold might be the way to go https://www.sabrepaints.co.uk/produc...metallic-gold/.
Paint suggestions are welcome.

Update:
If you're in the UK there is also Paragon Matallic Gold Lining Enamel
https://www.paragonpaints.co.uk/Meta...ng-Enamel.html
Which is a lot cheaper and made for painting on tractor engines so I'm guessing it doesn't come of easily.

They also do a lot or colours for specific tractors, which I know some people (not me) will find interesting
https://www.paragonpaints.co.uk/Trac...y-Colours.html

smd4

My bike is sliver, so I would be doing either white or black (most likely white).

CV-6 

Done with a paint pen.

012 by L Travers, on Flickr

repechage

the silver and gold pens can be found with decently thin tips.

black is I think a problem, too thick.

smd4

That came out pretty sharp!