How to get the PERECT rail PINLINE?

General Discussion
1

OK, sorry again for all the silly questions. I got the blank, and made a rail tool from the archives. Looks MUCH MUCH better than my freehand attempt. Not 100% perfect, but pretty decent.

NOW, when I do the pinline over it, I want to get it PERFECT, but is that possible? Yes, the tool may lay down the PERFECT line, BUT if you still have to laydown tape by hand, it seems nearly impossible to get it perfect, because you are still relying on your skills of laying down tape (which is flexible). I feel much more comfortable doing it the Harbour surfboards way, where you tape it off, leaving a little gutter/trough and fill it in with pain and squegee it off. Seems like a great way, but I need to get the perfect line 1st.

Ideas?

2

Only made one board so far and am far from being a pro but I did get some really clean pinlines using the cut lap tool : I laid a large tape over the lap line and cut it twice using the cut lap tool leaving the desired space(width of the pinline) beetween the two cuts… pinlines came out really clean with the same width all the way.

3

www.finessepinstriping.com

I tried the tape out, works great, it is thin and does not stick.

if you paint, use tinted resin

do the pinline in several very thin layers maybe 4, this demands patience…

work in between the tape spaces

make sure resin hardens well

remove tape

sand off bumps with 400/600 or whatever you like, long strokes in the line direction

clear coat with resin or whatever you like

and do a few attemps on your doors, cupboards or car first to see how it works

do not attempt it on your board straight away.

It is quite tricky to join the lines at nose and tail, so my advice is to do one side first, so there is no need for cutting the tape, and possibly down into the lam, then remove tape and follow up on the other side to join the existing line, use marking where the lines join, so it is easy to tape up.

Should be perfect if you try it this way

Cheers W.

4

Hey, I really like the concept of this product. Hopefully I can find some around me.

Is it fairly stiff or is it really flexible? If its flexible, how do I manage to get it perfect along the rail VS a little squiggly?

5

i’ve tried that tape before…it was pricey, and tough to bend around curves.

i prefer the “cutting tape with the rail tool” method.

6

It comes down to a perfectly prep-ed surface.

Too much wavy,lumpy,swirlly,diggy,dusty,gummy,holey,crustys…and you’ll never get a great pinner.

Second…it comes down to having," The Eye" and " The Touch".A big chunk of knowledge and aquired skill helps as well.

Thirdly…don’t be in a hurry…take your time… or you’ll just make yourself more frustrated than you are already.Herb

7
Quote:

i’ve tried that tape before…it was pricey, and tough to bend around curves.

i prefer the “cutting tape with the rail tool” method.

I elected to not go that method when drawing the original rail boarder and I am sort of glad I did. Believe it or not, I managed to not even get the pencil line down perfect as the tool would move a bit. It is pretty good, but not perect (certainly good enough where the pinline will cover my mistakes). If I did the blade instead, I think it would have done more damage to the blank and been a bigger pain.

This is what sort of scares me about doing the pinline as well, if I use that method and screw up, then I have to sand it down and start over. I already have a line there now (I just got done doing my paint base (paint swirl on the deck which will also get a lite resin swirl on top) so I already have a bit of a line/boarder, if the TOOL method doesn’t line up perfectly. it seems like it could get real frustrating??

8

what Herb said.

I’ve pinlined ever since my first reshape of a broken board in '68. Pinlining is as much art as technique. There are likely a dozen points which have to be just right, and a mess on one can put you back to square one, sanding off the whole mess.

Some of the art aspect can be aided by technique or technology, but there are a lot a little things to get right, then to get right more than once.

Like Grubby Clark supposedly said of his ability to produce thousands of quality blanks, it’s just a lot of five cent tricks all thrown together.

The archives have lots of information about pinlines. Go there.

Question: is the “perfect” pinline one that you can’t feel with your finger on the finished board, or can it be a detectable ridge?

Hm… this seems to be a “mature” forum, in which nearly all the techniques have been beat up dozens of times and are in the archives. What’s the future, then?

9

Sorry Brother,

After you do it a few dozen times. There are no secrets, or special tools. Practice.

10

Try searching for pinstriping on Google.

11

Hello Rod ,

Please forgive me for being so rude in the last PM. Three people flaked out on me Sat afternoon and I was fed up with tring to help people. In your honnor I did a paint swirl on a scrap

The first pass with the four inch squeege is closest to the rail. Without cleaning the squeege I made the second pass next to the paint bottles. I can see some things going on and already have some ideas for a future project. This scrap is on Clark foam…Any one tried it on EPS?

I do my pinlines on the sanded hotcoat and then gloss coat on top of that. I spray the pin lines with a small airbrush. Light coats. After the paint dries and the masking tape/paper is removed I run my finger tip over the line to knock off the edge. My fingers will be rough from all that hand sanding on the rails…

I’m buying my tape at Finish Master in Vista ,Ca

1220 Liberty way ste A

Vista Ca ,92081

(760) 758-3700

They should have the fine line tape mentioned above. I don’t use the fine line tape but have used it in the past

Where’s the waves?

Ray

12

Pinlining is all about practice. However, if you don’t do it a couple of times a week, the learning curve is pretty long. Good practice is to get a longboard with good pinlines and tape along these. That way you’ll get a feel for stretching/not stretching the tape. I recommend using resin pinlines for beginners because then you don’t compound the problem with bleeding tapelines using paint. The way I show others is to first use a rail marking tool to establish the line. To use the tool, keep the guiding edge vertical so that the angle of the pencil doesn’t change as you go around. If the lines look OK, lay down some 3/16" wide tape over the line, being carefully not to stretch it along the long straighter sections. You want to use only one length of tape on each side. Check and correct any wavy areas (you may need to start all over). Once these “cheater” lines are done, use 3/4" tape and tape along the outsides first. The wider tape will give straighter lines, but as you approach tighter curves you’ll need to splice in 1/2 or 3/8" tape. At the tip of the nose and tail, you’ll need to form a wishbone shape or use a point. Look at some factory pinlined boards for this feature. Do the inside taping last. Remove the cheater tape, burnish both sides of tape with the edge of a mixing stick. I use a lot of pigment for resin pins and set it hot (4%). Use a pointed brush and recoat as needed as soon as the first coat gels. You want to not see the edges of the tape so that you’ll have a heavy enough layer for sanding later. Pull off the tape as soon as the resin is hard enough to not leave strings. Before you sand the tops of the lines, wrap a small piece of 220 around a razor blade and sand any areas where the line is messy. I do the tops very carefully using 220 wrapped around 6" of a paint mixing stick. Once you glosscoat over the pinline, the edges will fillet and it won’t be very high; so don’t sand them down too low.

13

I have to agree with Herb… spend some time prepping the surface to give you the biggest advantage in a good looking pinline. The rest is all up to your own skills… in the hands and in the eyes.

I rough sand the lap line area of the lam and paint on a very thin filler coat just in the area to be taped off. Then I lay down tape just over the outside of the lap line on th rail side, and give it a good eyeball to make sure it’s going down in a smooth curve. Once it’s down and perfect (it gets easier with practice), lay down the other peice of tape on the deck side of the lap line. Eyeball it again to make sure it’s uniform width.

Once the tape is down and perfect, press the edges down tightly with your finger, or better yet, a wallpaper roller with a hard plastic roller… the 2 inch kind used to roll the edges of wallpaper flat. The pressed down edges of tape will adhere tightly to the smooth, unsanded filler coat and prevent any bleeding.

Oh… and use good tape. Green or blue works equally well for me. Pull the tape as soon as you can, but make sure it’s totally dry/cured before hotcoating.

You’ll have a little bump you can feel under the hotcoat when the board is finished, but I’ve learned to live with that.

14

Use the back edge of a razor blade to burnish the tape down. If you are spraying a pinline, first shoot a thin layer of Future acrylic to seal around and under the tape, this way you will have no bleeding what so ever. The attached picture isn’t a pinline, it’s a close up of the nose of the full deck spray. The concept is the same: paint over a hotcoat & try to get no bleeding.

15

practice is what it takes…but there are a few tricks to speed the process up :slight_smile:

if youre doing this straight by hand, lay down your OUTSIDE tape first, use 3/4" tape or so, the stiffer it is, the straighter the line will be, if you use a thin tape for your first line, itll wiggle all over the place…using 3/4" or something like it is important in getting it straight. (you can use thinner tape on the nose and tail if your 3/4" wont make the curve w/out creasing.

now that youve got your outside line down, youll put in a spacer line, that will be taken out before you paint…use 1/4" if you want a 1/4" line, 1/8" if you want a small line, etc…its HARD to lay this one down straight, w/out putting gaps between this line and the original, so here is where the trick comes into play:

lay down the first few inches of your spacer line, then, once its stuck down, spin the roll of tape in your hand TOWARDS you, or towards the first line…spin it a few times, so you have a twist in the tape about every 2 inches (i hope this is making sense)…now lay down your tape…the twist in the tape will make it spin itself toward your previous line, since the original line of tape is high point, the thin tape will butt itself up against the original line PERFECTLY.

practice the trick, it takes TONS of time off of your pinlining job…after yovue got the first two lines down, go ahead and do your outside line with the same trick, although it doesnt work well w/wider sized tape, ive successfully used it up to 5/8".

if some of that didnt make sense, ill post pictures of the techinque later if requested…good luck!

16

Also RodH,

If you always have 18 to 24 inches of tape out. Meaning keep the tape roll / feeder hand away from your presure / applying hand, you will have far less wobbles than if you bunch both hands up tight…like 6 to 12 inches apart. the less angle the less wobble, the tighter the angle the more wobble.

Use this for your first 1/8 in cheater line then all you have to do is apply 3/4 to each side and burnish down.

17

Howzit Pete, There’s a trick that a lot of us older glassers use where after the resin pin has kicked we then do the gloss without sanding the pinline. It’s about prepping and knowing just when the pinline is hard enough but the gloss will stick to it. Knowing when to pull the tape so the edges lay down with no ridge so the gloss will flow right over the pin. It’s a process that takes some time and practice to get down unless you have a knowledged glasser show you the ins and outs of doing it. Aloha,Kokua