can you make a good living sign painting striping?

I did a a few searches and didnt find what i was looking for.does anyone here earn a good living sign painting and pinstriping it seems like everyone makes the tradeoff of a good income for doing what they love am I correct or way off?

 

way off....
like car building... if you are good you get by.
If you are awesome you live well.

many who just do dealer work... straight lines....
make more than enough.... and earn every bit.

pinstripermafia.com if you are interested in learning.

 

You can make agood living from striping if you go after it like there is no tomorrow by doing it everyday, for friends, starving, keep practising, starve, never give up, go broke a few times, and starve some more. That was my exepreince when I strated in 1978, because I quit my job and went head first. Never knew anything about keeping a job and doing it on the side until I built a name for myself which is the key to success. But and this is a BIG BUT, once you learn it and think you are ready to maek the big money, then you have to do it in front of an audience. That is where most people get screwedup.

As for making money, I had years when I made over $10K a week and I've had many weeks and months where there was no work. In this business you gotta save for a rainy day. The day I quit being an artist and focused on marketing myself, then the big bucks came. Iknoiw Pinstripers who stripe for dealers only in Houston and make $500K to ove $1 Million but the ***** themselves to the dealerships. I did that gig and after ten years I focused on my private clients and car shows. Of course going to the shg hows is a **** shoot, never knw the mood of people. You maydo 2-3,000 and the next one nobody loves.

Mikey
www.MikeysPinstriping.com
I wouldn't recommend insanity,rebelliousness or dysfuctionalism, but they work for me"

 

I pinstripe but new to Tulsa and you need clientele...........

 

Seems like the market's getting a little flooded in the past couple years. I've been to shows where there will be like 2 dozen stripers running around with their carts. To make a good living at it and not have to work another job, reputation is everything, which means you gotta be head and shoulders above the rest of the pack. I'm just doing my thing, making a little pocket change when I can, but then again, I could never claim to be as good as some guys who REALLY work it like Charlie Decker or Mikey, but I get a little work here and there, enough to pay for the supplies and buy dinner. I still gotta have a job, though.

 

my good friend here in minneapolis cliff Anderson makes a good living striping but he also does signs which i think helps out alot. As far as" whoring yourself out to a dealership" thats bs work is work make money when you can no all projects are gonna be your personal favorite sometimes you just gotta pay the bills

 

I have a small ,on the side vinyl bus. and would love to do pinstriping , it's where it all started ,and seems to be coming back around ! I have a couple buddies that pin stripe and do very well ! But as far as signage money , I will stick to my cutter !

 

if you work 6 days a week, 52 weeks a year, 500 grand works out to over 1600 bucks a DAY !?!
and if those are 12 hour days, that's 133 dollars an hour...hmmmm

 

I'll call B.S. on that one as well...

 

Do it for the love of the art, not the money.

You can make real good money if you want to spend many years practicing and perfecting YOUR style.

 

Yes chopperjeff you gotta hoe yo self out to pay the bills and I did it for many years at dealerships, running 50 to 75,000 miles a tear while I built my car show circuit and private client list. it is tough but you gotta hustle and do what it takes to eat.

There are lot's of stripers at some shows, but I started getting exclusives at car shows more than 20 years ago. Now I have 20+ shows where I'm the only striper. I've had others try to ride my tails by getting in but the promotor won't let them. And that is what you call dog-eat-dog and protecting what is yours that you've worked for. I have stripers who hate me because of it, but hey, I got ther first and protected my domain. I have a few shows where there are other stripers but I can do 8-10 cars a day so I do a more cars than them. No I don't charge cheap prices to get more work, over the past 30 yrs I've made a name for myself and that has payed off by picking my jobs.

Miey
www.MikeysPinstriping.com
"I Do Bad Thing to Good Cars"

 

you get to stripe some pretty interesting stuff....meet some pretty interesting people and can make some pretty good money , if your in the right area...i have fun doing what i do , but i also do a bunch of other stuff ...as they say , whatever it takes to pay the bills. and i think you've probably heard the old saying...about the starving artist... have fun and have a back up plan........brandon since 1990

 

Hey Mickey thats a great story, paying you dues to be successful at what you love didn't mean to come at ya just saying I'm self employed and do alot of jobs i don't really care for sometimes but do get alot of jobs i love through referalls and it all works out

 

Running your own shop can be very rewarding. Twenty years ago when I first got started my work was welcomed with opened arms even though most of it ****ed. My customers new I was learning and seemed very forgiving. The longer I worked the better I got at it. With that my customers expectations went up. It gets to a point were every job can put alot of stress on you to be pefect. On that note, My business has been good to me. I pay my bills and live comfortably. Like I said it is rewarding when your work is well received by your customers. That is what keeps me going. If you are just getting started do it on the side and keep your full time job, feel it out as you go.
Being self employed you need to keep health insurance and retirement in mind. They do not come cheap. Nobody puts that money away for you and after all your other bills it may not leave much left.
I guess I would recommend to do it on the side and keep it for enjoyment and a little pocket cash.

 

What little stiping I do,I do for my own enjoyment. The Tacoma Wa. area we have Bob Davidson and Junior Nelson. Two legends here in the northwest. So I have a real high standard to work up to. But I personally wont ever make a living at it.




I need more practice........




lots more.....

 

Around here we have several good sign painers. I think they are hurt some by the vinyl guys but still do well. One i used to use was a meat cutter by trade but started sign painting as a hobby and it turned into a decent business. Unfortunately his life style wasnt good and he died in a blaze of gunfire in a battle with police in downtown Belleville. He did my race cars and i thought he did a wonderful job. To talk to him one would never have suspected his wild side. He made a decent living for about 20 25 years. Enough to support himself and his family and some really bad habits. Srtiping, i guess i would see that as a sideline to signpainting.
Don

 

Define good living?

 

Depends on where you are, and how much you want to hustle.
Being able to do the work is only part of the equation.

 

A buddy of mine had his car done here at a local show. The guy did very little. My buddy told him to do what ever that would look good. He charged him 175 dollars before starting. My buddy walked away and i happened by in less than an hour and the car was done. Very little striping. I call 175.00 an hour pretty good money.

 

well there are also the full timer stripers and the part timers. i have been a full time striper for the past 5 years now and i can pay all my bills, keep the shop open, and still have money left over. to me thats a good living...but another thing that some people forget is not only do stripers pinstripe but we also do vinyl work, gold leafing, signs, some do airbrushing, and other like me we do full one off paint jobs on bikes, cars, etc. and i have to agree with IAN. if you want to make it in my area, you better huslte your *** off and want to be better then me or you wont make it.

last year i was at a bike night or car cruise 4 times a week just bustin out local shows, not to count the winter indoor shows for the autoramas i do. i do work for dealerships both motorcycle and car and i also do alot work for tattoo shops. the more people see your work you do become an exclusive artist at shows and thats how you build your clientel. they see the luckystrike under the artwork and they know the artwork is top notch and who did it.....then all of sudden people come look for you.

lastly about the money vs the love of the art. i live and breathe pinstriping i stripe everyday, but ill be the first to tell you....it ****s doing it for free. if you want a stripe job for 25 bucks you get 25 bucks worth. i might charge alot for a stripe job but you get top notch work and i stand by it. i have been busting my *** and paying my dues for awhile and i can charge 100 bucks an hour for a stripe job but like i said i give you 100 dollars worth. i agree with alot of what mikey is saying sometimes i mike a killin' sometimes i loose my ***. its just part of the game.

 

When I was doing dealerships back in the 70's and 80's,I did all my striping AFTER my regular day job and made a pretty good living of it.On a good week I could make about 1100-1300 dollars and on a not so good week about 500.

I had considered quitting my regular job and just concentrate on striping full time but the medical benefits were too good.Glad I didn't as after about 7 years my back started to REALLY give me problems and a couple of back operations and months off work convinced me I did the right thing.

I retired officially 3 years ago although I haven't been able to work full time since 1993.I still do a lot of striping on just about anything and the ever increasing amount of lettering jobs keep me busy 3-4 days a week.The body shop repair and dealer work I find are the most profitable.Even figuring in travel time it still works out to around $100/hour.

So can you make a good living doing this? No doubt BUT.......
A lot of factors will enter into the equation:location;number of people in the area doing similar work;and a hundred others.Be prepared to spend a lot of time away from your family,work long hours,and put on a lot of miles soliciting business.Be fair with your pricing,be good at your work,and the most important:BE THERE AND BE ON TIME! The worst possible thing you can do is tell someone you will be at their shop at a specific time and either show up late or not at all.

Just my take on the situation.

 

And how long did it take that guy to get good enough to charge that much ?


Factor in travel time, hotel, fuel, rental on the space, etc, and it all adds up.
Show prices don't always reflect what a person can make every week.

 

I'd like to see the job. If it's tasteful and the right stuff then it's well worth it.
I'm tired of seeing overstriped cars...

 

I get that at my shop. Some customers don't feel like they are getting thier moneys worth unless the striping covers the entire vehicle. I tell them that the stipes should accent the vehicle not overpower it. You want people to first see your car. Then look a little closer and say, Oh wow look at the nice stripes. overdone striping alot of the time is the sign of a inexperienced striper. You have to know when enough is enough. It's a fine line, and a real nice job can be ruined by going to far.

 

I sold my retail/wholesale paint business a few years ago which included a full line of One Shot enamels and I did a lot of business with sign painters within a 30 mile area,,,

In the 50's through the 80's the sign painting business was good for the guys that did it full time,,but in the mid 80's vinyl graphics started taking over and the local sign artist had to change their way of thinking.

The guys that had lived on their talent as designers and artist were being replaced by people that didn't have a talented bone in their bodys but they had a computer that would do that for them and the days of the sign painter was numbered.

I'm not saying they are gone,,,but at one time there were probably 12 old time sign painters that were sought after to design and paint signs,, there are only 2 guys that I know of that still try to preserve this art form,,,and they are doing it part time and have full time jobs now.

Here in this town,,,,sign painting is sadly,,,a dying art. HRP

 

You are so right! When I got started in the sign business in the 80's, we handpainted everything. If you put out 10 jobs a week you had a productive week. With the arrival of vinyl and computer generated graphics alot has changed. I use to have most one shot colors and a good selection of brushes and I was off working with minimal investment. Now I have graphic software, multiple vinyl cutters and digital printers just to try and stay compe***ve. The overhead is ten times what it use to be. Oh Yah, dont forget about stocking thousands of dollars worth of vinyl and digital printing material. I still try to hold onto traditional striping and lettering techniques. Most of the time if I use vinyl on a sign I will accent it with hand painted shadows and highlights.

 

To all the doubtersabout making that much per hour when I'm working, my mentor Raymond Milburn out of houston was charging 250 per vehicle for custom stripes at dealers way back in the 1980's, then the dealer would put $995 on the cars because he was considered a celebrity and the stripes increased the value. Yesterday I went to Austin car show and did several cars during set up, I got there at noon, did $900 bucks and left at 5:30. When Coachman pintriping was doing dealers in houston the owner could stripe two lines down the side of a car in less than 2 minutes. He easily did 50 to 100 a day with a crew. Of course his crew already had the cars ready and all he had to do was drive around all day in his Porsche. The month he died, in his own private jet, he did over $80K. He did the straightest lines I've ever seen and thats all he did, never knew how to do anything artisitc. I worked with him for a few das and one thing that led to his suuccess was he was very charismatic and did whatever it took to get the business. After he died his bro took over, he made so much money he lived in a gated community next door to a Pro basketball player.

By focusing on your specialty and charging what you worth, or what the customer thinks you are worth you can make over $100K a year and still take 3 days off a week, if you know how.

Noiw I'm not saying that we are in it to get rich but live life, have fun and survive, but for me I grew upo dirt poor, the oldest of 12 kids. So my main goal was to make enough to become financially independent. But I do live a very simple life without worrry but the best thing is, I have no alarm clock.

I gave a striping cl*** last year to 14 people and there were a few there who doubted my claim to that kind of money, but once they saw how I did my business and of course they remember seeing me at shows and all the cars lined up, I had them convinced that if you know what you're doing, market yourself like a business and have the clientele, $300 an hour is possible and I'm living proof. But it all averages out for me bec***e after 30 years I do not want to work every day.

There are a few HAMBers on here who will vouch for me when it comes to speed. accuracy and making the big bucks because I've striped their cars. I think if more stripers who want make big bucks would focus on marketing, they will worry less and puit more $$ in there pockets. Because in the end that stripe job may look good going down the road, but if the wolves are beating your doors down, it ain't so cool after all. But thats just me. I'm greedy for a reason.

Mikey
www.MikeysPinstriping.com

 

thanks for all the posts!

 

The above is your WORSE ememy as a painter. It cannot pinstripe a vehicle but it can letter a truck or a sign ... way cheaper and faster than a " SIGN PAINTER "

The vinyl cutters have all but killed the sign painting business here in my area. Easy to run, inexpensive to buy ... and profitable ... because of the repeat ability of the machine. MOST businesses could care less about " STYLE and cl*** " on their commercial vehicles. They just want to be seen and be able to read the copy. They want all their vehicles to look the same ...

Pinstripe is a different story ... but ... it is not enough to make a " GOOD LIVING " ... at least in my area. The local detail guys have gone to tape also ... for the dealership add on jobs. $20 a vehicle ...

 

I've had my shop Miracle Design Motorsport Grafics in Santa Ana CA since '73 and I'm still going strong . I started out just doing pinstriping and lettering ,and over the years have honed my craft to include all types of leaf work , airbrush , complete custom paint and most recently woodgraining. I've had several projects featured in many different magazines and been on a couple of car related TV shows . So , the answer is ,yes you can make a living in the custom paint / pinstriping business.