Motion Pictures The Steady Hand of Von Dutch...

How did he come by the name Von Dutch?

 

I remember reading somewhere that it simply meant By (Von) German (Deutsch).

 

While in high school I work at a large body shop one summer. One of my duties was to pick up one of the painters, every morning. He was always drunk and usually on the hard stuff. But he could really paint, smooth and glassy and this was when we only had two types of paint. One time he was showing me how to paint and he fell on to the hood of the car, I will never forget that. So much talent and he could weld just as well. I think that sometimes the pressure of being the best really takes a toll on our ego.

 

McQueen knew him well.
It was Von Dutch that fabricated the hinged lid for McQueen's Jag XK-SS to convert the open cubby hole in the dash into a glove box.

 

Hello,

There has to be a way to utilize every aspect of being steady to do a fine line of paint in a single stroke. The secret seems to be the ever popular baby finger splayed out. Having watched plenty of local So Cal artists doing fine pinstriping at shows and paint shops, it does take a lot of skill. It was one of the first things we wanted to do as little kids. We drew scallops on our Pee Chee notebooks that turned into modified flames. Then actually drawing flames of all kinds on the countless school notebooks and papers.

But, to watch an artist do a fancy design on glass or a car’s painted surface is a miracle for us. My old pinstriping brushes have not been used in many years. The old one got used a lot in the early days, but it was a trying experience. The newer brush was purchased at a better art store and thought it would help in doing a better job.

Jnaki

Someone as skilled as Von Dutch or any of the great old guys are to be applauded as that skill stays as long as the hands are steady. When I was little, I jammed my baby finger playing sand lot football in the muddy rain one year. It was sprained and looked awful for many weeks of support bandages. Then, in high school varsity football, I jammed it again and had to wear a fine tape job on my right hand. Luckily, both hands were used to catch a ball. Now, all of these years later, compensating for the permanent damage to the little finger, I can see why it bothered me in doing something simple as drawing a curved line with those brushes.

It was the baby finger for stability that was the cause of not being able to do a curved line at a steady rate!!!


The only thing it did was to give me an advantage while playing or plucking the strings of an acoustic guitar. Until I realized my stubby hands were not for that scene, either.
1960 and 1970 versions of pinstriping brushes still sitting in my tool box parts drawers. Waiting for some action...

So, kudos to those great pinstriping artists that have come and gone through the whole hot rod/art world. As well as those that are still able to use that little finger for stability.

 

Similar to my missing glove box door. The former owner of my merc said when he had the merc striped Von Dutch would stripe a little and drink a little. He said it took almost all day to stripe the dash and glove box door.

 

Amazing stuff.
Had a sign painter that lived by my grandmother who's moniker was 'A business without a Sign is a sign of no business'. I'd watch him freehand paint in awe, as a youngster, because he'd shake so bad he could thread a sewing machine while it was running....until his brush touched the surface he was lettering....

 

I did my first pinstriping job when I was 16. A friend at school was always bugging me to draw cars and Monster rods for him. When he got his drivers license his Dad got him a 67 Chevelle SS with a 396 and we ended up getting in trouble with the law street racing in it. He convinced me to pin stripe it while his dad had it locked up for a few months. I had been adding pinstriping to my artwork from inspiration by guys like Dean Jeffries, Tommy Hrones, Ed Roth and of course Von Dutch. His Dad owned a garage/body shop and raced modified stock cars at Chemung speed drome. He liked what I did on the Chevelle and commissioned me to pin stripe and letter on his new race car. It was my first paying paint job on a car. I striped the outside and inside, painted the numbers and all the sponsor lettering and his name over the drivers door. I made 25 bucks. It took me almost a week. I did quite a bit of striping and lettering on cars, bikes and helmets but honestly didn't like it much. It was too nerve racking for me and I eventually gave it up. I always envied the guys that made it look effortless though.

 

Original Talent....

 

I worked for 18 years at a Harley Davidson dealership in s. Texas. Owning at least 6-8 old Ford hot rods(all pre 48) and several H-D motorcycles over 40 year period, I have seen my fair share of painters and stripers. There was a kid(about 20 years old) that was a student at Texas A & M that worked part time in the parts dept. He overheard me mention that I looking for someone to show my wife(who thought striping was “easy”) just how difficult it really was. He claimed he would be glad to come over and stripe something for us. I went to WalMart and purchased a dark blue piece of glass. He freehanded the striping right b4 our eyes only inches from his work. I was impressed enuf to reward him with $100 for his work. He signed it as BIG JOHNSONand shortly thereafter went off to pursue a fellowship in his field of study. I never saw him after that but I thought his freehand artwork was beautiful and still have the glass. I often look at it and marvel at the skill it took for him to do that! I took 3 pics noting the camera in my I.pad would not ever center the image to my satisfaction. If you really “studied” the work, you can notice subtle differences, but damn,he freehanded this in a relatively short time.

 

I have the sticker Kenneth Howard Hates You on my laptops. I get a kick when people ask me who is Kenneth Howard.

 

I make sure anyone I have striped for understands I am human. It won't be perfect. If you want it to look like a decal, I'm not your guy. But if you want something done by hand, with all that means, OK.

 

I heard when he was a kid they started calling him Dutch or the Dutchman because he was so stubborn and hard headed. He changed it to Von Dutch for some reason of his own, probably thought it was funnier. When he worked a steady job at Brucker's he sometimes used the name J.L. Bachs. Short for Joe Lunch Box in honor of his new status as a wage slave.

 

Sometimes the club my dad was in would hold their meetings at The Cars of the Stars/Planes of Fame in, if I rembember right, Buena Park. Von Dutch was the caretaker of the place and during our meetings which was after business hours, he'd be sweeping up or woking on displays. That was pretty cool because even as a 14 year old I knew who he was because my dad grey up in and around the neighborhoods where his shop was in the 50's.

I still have my first blue metalflake dirt bike helmet that VonDutch stripped flames in white.