Stripe template

While I stripped the paint on the driver's side, I thought I'd play around with making my own stripe template. I'm a draftsman by trade so I'm used to laying things out to insure they work before making them. I'm also very anal about details and one thing I wanted to be sure of was that the stripe was exactly the same on both sides of the car, so I decided to create the stripe full size in my computer and then plot it out and trial fit it on the car until I had it exactly like I wanted it. Then it would be just a matter of mirroring the design to make the other side exactly like the first. It took me a few attempts to get the swoop similar to the TV car but I think I got it pretty close.

Here are some shots showing my template progressing toward the final design......

I pulled a revised swoop using 1/4" pin striping tape and stuck the side moldings on with tape to form a base line design for me to enter into the computer...
















With the baseline design loaded, I plotted off the first pattern and then kept modifying until I had the swoop like I wanted....





























































Once I had the swoop like I wanted, I plotted out the final template and started forward....





























































I was now pretty happy with the way the stripe looked. Was still a bit difficult to imagine the full effect because the old stripe was still visible, but once I got the passenger side stripped, it became pretty clear....























































































I originally did the point like the factory Limited Editions, but after seeing the stripe against the solid color of the bare metal, I reminded myself I was cloning the TV cars so I went back and tweaked the point to match the season 2-4 cars.......































I have plotted out the new point but haven't trimmed it nor attached it to the car to verify it's 100%. I'll be pulling the fenders off in the very near future so I may go ahead and trim the fender template and stick all the other templates and trim back on the car to have one last look before I knock off the nose. I'll post a picture of the final design when I do.

Until next time........

ZEBRA 3 OUT!