Van Halen paint scheme?

[Eyeguy41]

I am interested in painting a rocket with an 80's Eddie Van Halen themed paint scheme (solid color base with thin curvy stripes).

Any advice on getting masking tape to make those curves?
I thought I remembered seeing someone here have repeated success with this type of masking off.

Any advice or techniques would be welcomed.

 

[cw's wife]

I have not tried this technique on a rocket but it worked on another craft project I did. That was a flat surface so I am not sure how it will translate to a rounded one.

Take a piece of wide masking tape and put it on a clean cutting mat. Then, use a very sharp x-acto knife to cut along the curve of an object that has the desired shape (I used a bowl). The sharper the x-acto the better so that you get a smoother cut. This makes a sort of stencil with the tape. Now, just peel the tape off the mat and place where you want to mask off. Pay special attention to getting the edges of the tape to stick.

You want tape that is not-so-sticky so you can get it off the mat without tearing but also sticky enough that it can be on the mat and then stick to the surface you want to paint. I used a blue painter's tape.

 

[James Duffy]

I am interested in painting a rocket with an 80's Eddie Van Halen themed paint scheme (solid color base with thin curvy stripes).

Any advice or techniques would be welcomed.

Don't overthink the project, as the prototype was/is an absolute mess. If you study photos of Eddie's original "Frankenstein" guitar, you'll see that the quality of workmanship is very, very low. Note also that it began life as a simple black body with white stripes, and that the red was added at a later date. Here's a high-res image that may be helpful:

https://www.sweetwater.com/images/closeup/xl/1600-Frankenstein_3.jpg

There's even a wiki page on the guitar which will fill in some more history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstrat


I suggest that this is arguably the most famous single guitar in history, with Stevie Ray Vaughn's "Number One" following as a close second:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevie_Ray_Vaughan's_musical_instruments

Both Stevie and Eddie considered these guitars to be tools, not art. That seems to be reflected in the emphasis of function over form in both instruments.

Hope this helps,
James

 

[UPscaler]

Easy!

Braden

 

[Eyeguy41]

UPscaler,
You have hit it right on the head.
Those are the photos that i remembered seeing in the past and the inspiration for my project.
Any words of wisdom?
How soon to remove the tape? Drying time between coats? What has worked and what has not?
The more detailed the better.
Thanks