Hand Lettering

The benefits of selecting hand painted lettering:
  • More creative flexibility.
    • Hand painted lettering and graphics can allow for a wide variety of one of a kind designs and unlimited creative options.
    • We can work together to create designs based on photos, drawings, or your imagination.
    • Murals, mascots, and other designs can be incorporated into the lettering & logo.
    • I can can change and customize the outcome on the fly.
  • Easy to touch-up.
    • If a scratch or chip appears, it's possible to touch it up with out redoing everything.
  1. Longevity.
    • Logos, lettering, and pinstriping, painted with top quality materials, will offer a very long lifespan to your personal project.
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Peterbilt Tractor
The lettering, pinstriping and graphics on this beautiful new Peterbilt are hand painted. Go to my homepage here at Ddaydesigns.blogspot.com if you would like to see a few more pictures of this truck.
 
 
 
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Utility Truck-Hand Lettered And Pinstriped
Here is an example of a relatively conservative and traditional lettering and pinstriping job on a utility truck. A hand painted easy to read lettering job on a commercial vehicle such as the truck below, along with just enough pinstriping to ad a touch of class, serves as a rolling billboard, advertising for the company wherever it goes.
 
 
 
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Freightliner Tractor
Here are a few more photos of the Freightliner which can also be seen by clicking on the "home" tab above.
 
 
 
 
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1965 Shelby GT-350
When this cool 1965 Mustang was purchased by the Walls brothers, Walter and Robert, in June of 1965 it looked like the picture below.
With the blessings of American Shelby and Harr Ford the brothers built it into a drag car which looked like the pictures below. The car was raced from 1965 until 1972 and Walter "Snooky" Walls was the driver.
 
In 1985 the car was repainted to factory appearance. When Walter passed away in 2010 the car was left to his two sons, Bob and Steve. In 2014 the brothers decided to have the car re-lettered to look like it did when it was drag raced in the '60s. Because the lettering on the car was handpainted back in the day,  and wishing to keep the car authentic, they asked me in the summer of 2015 to handpaint both the lettering and the graphics on the car. Below are pictures of the finished product.
 
 
 
 
 
Seen below is the car at the 2015 Orange Drag Strip Reunion at Sterling Airport, Sterling, Ma
If you scroll down to the bottom of this page you can read a history of the car as written by Bob and Steve Walls.
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KENWORTH LOGGING TRUCK
This Kenworth belongs to one of my good longtime loyal customers.  He runs a logging company. So he asked me to paint something small and simple on the doors of the truck that had something to do with trees. I came up with the idea of the pine cones and needles. All of the artwork on the truck is handpainted.
 
 
 
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PETERBILT RAMP TRUCK
Here are some more pictures of the Peterbilt that can be seen on my homepage. The logo on the door is hand painted with airbrushed highlighting. And of course the pinstriping is also hand painted.


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OAK RIDGE FARM STAND, LANCASTER
Here’s is an example of period correct traditional hand painted lettering and pinstriping on this newly restored old milk truck.



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A LATE 70's MACK  "CAB OVER" 
This Mack truck was restored by it's owner in honor of the memory of his Grandfather, who I was lucky enough to know and letter trucks for years ago. The Grandson primarily has fun displaying it at vintage truck shows. That explains why he had me pull out all the stops and go all the way with decorating it to the fullest. And once again, and I know this sounds redundant! But with the exception of the airbrushed highlighting on the lettering, I hand painted all of the lettering and pinstriping with brushes of various styles. He and I put our heads together to come up with the design and colors. Sometimes you can learn a lot by listening to the customer's ideas. In a good way!



Below is the rear of the cab.


Below is the roof, above the rear window.


The fuel tank. It doesn't really use rocket fuel! 
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2016 Dodge Utility Truck
Here are some pictures of a utility truck that I hand lettered and pinstriped for a very good customer of mine. I think the photos show a pretty good example of just how much can be done to really detail and "dress up" a commercial vehicle to maximize its advertising potential. 
 
 
 
 
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Hand Lettered Peterbilt Truck With Pinstriping And Graphics
Over the years I've painted many different types of vehicles and construction equipment for Bourgeois Wrecking. They are very good customers as well as very good friends. As time passes I will be posting more pictures of work I've done for them.
 




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B-Model Mack Truck
A freshly restored early 60's Mack Truck with hand painted lettering and pinstriping. My customer's request was for me to letter it exactly like it was lettered when their family bought it new. They told me who "Cookie the Pig" was, but I can't remember it for the life of me!
 
 
 
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Another B-Model Mack Truck!
This beautiful early 60's B-model Mack truck was painstakingly restored and customized by New England Truck Design in Sterling, MA. They asked me to letter and pinstripe it in the classic construction company style of the era.



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Handpainted Lettering On A Commercial Van
Here is an example of a pretty straight forward traditional lettering job on a company van. It's not overly fancy, but I think it's a nice tasteful piece of advertising for Bob's Turkey Farm.
 
 
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Utility Truck Lettering...
A Rolling Advertisement
Hand painted lettering and pinstriping presents an image of quality and excellence when your company vehicles are seen on the road.
 
 
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Hand Painted Boat Lettering
Yes, I paint boats too. I'll even drive to the cape to do it! Or beyond!
 
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A SMALL HAND CRAFTED SIGN
My customer built this beautiful little sign and he gave me the pleasure of painting it for him.

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KENWORTH TRUCK, TEMPLETON, MA

 The lettering and graphics on this Kenworth truck are hand painted with a brush and the highlights are airbrushed over them. The cartoon characters, which are always fun to do, were requested by the customer, and are also hand painted.









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LETTERING ON VAN WITH A PICTORIAL
Here is an example of a lettering job with a fairly large pictorial. The shark attracts a lot of attention and adds some fun to the advertising on the van. The shark as well as the lettering is hand painted.

The photo below shows the back of a second van I painted for this customer. This picture shows that I hadn't yet painted the black outline around the blue part of the "Nine Ball Billiards".
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FORD UTILITY TRUCK
A lettering job for another very loyal customer. It comes complete with pinstriping and pictorials of some of their heavy equipment, showing them hard at work. A rolling advertisement! All of it hand painted.








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 FORD F-550 TOW TRUCK
This Ford tow truck has pretty straight forward hand painted and airbrushed lettering and pinstriping with a little bit of graphics. Sometimes a little bit is all it takes to make a vehicle look complete. 
   


                  
Below is a before picture. A well designed lettering and graphics layout can make a big difference when you want to make a good impression for your business.
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KUSTOM FABRICATION, RUTLAND, MA
 Hand Painted lettering with airbrushed highlighting and hand painted pinstriping.
 
 
 

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COGSWELL SPRINKLER CO., WORCESTER, MA
 I have painted the lettering and logo for Cogswell on over 60 trucks and vans over the years. Thank you to the Cogswell family for being so great to work with and for the repeat business!
 
 
 
A close up of the lettering

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 1941 CHEVY -VINTAGE LETTERING
A slightly different type of lettering job...this is a 1941 Chevy Sedan Delivery in original condition. The customer asked me if I could letter it with an "aged" look so that it looked like it was lettered when the truck was new.   Time consuming... but a great challenge!
 
 

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STINGRAY AUTO BODY, WORCESTER, MA
Hand painted lettering and graphics with airbrushing to achieve the shadows and highlights. Pinstriping added strategically to provide a balanced and completed look to the truck.
 
 
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TERRANOVA AUTO BODY & TOWING
This past summer I lettered this nice old Ford truck. As with the '41 Sedan Delivery above the customer asked me to do a retro-style lettering job to fit the era when the truck was new. (Early sixties.) It too was pretty time consuming to make the lettering look weathered, but again, I love a good challenge.

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W.C. CRANSTON & SON, WEST BOYLSTON, MA
Classic lettering job with pinstriping all over truck, plus the "Semper Fi Bulldog" for a personal touch (at the clients request)...
  
 
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BIBS AUTO REPAIR, STERLING, MA
Even though my work sometimes carries me far and wide, working with local businesses is my specialty. No job is too small. All lettering and pinstriping for this project was painted freehand, with the addition of some airbrushed highlights.
  
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BOLTON  ORCHARDS
A fairly large job that was all hand painted. The customer provided me with examples of his existing logo to be hand lettered in multiple places on the truck at different sizes. Another satisfied local client!

 
 
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A 1930's DINER

I was honored to be able to letter this diner. It was painstakingly restored, inside and out, by master craftsmen. The owner bought it because of his love for Americana and his desire to see that it didn't fade into obscurity.
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FUN LETTERING FOR A SERIOUS BUSINESS!
Just some hand painted fun with a logo on a hard working truck with some pinstriping to finish it off!

 
 
 
The History of the Walls Shelby GT
1965 Shelby GT-350
SN#: SFM5S127

In 1964, The Walls Brothers (Robert Walls and Walter “Snooky” Walls) owned a gas station in Worcester, MA called the Summit Mobil. At the time they were racing a 1964 HiPo Ford Fairlane. Bill Fisher who was the high performance sales manager for Harr Ford and a Shelby Representative invited  Bobby and Snooky out to dinner to discuss the possibility of purchasing the new Shelby GT-350 specifically for drag racing. After a long evening of little food and a lot of liquor, these talented salesmen convinced the young men in their 20’s to purchase the Shelby GT-350 they could not really afford.  At the time, very few Shelby’s were being drag raced and the deal was that Shelby American and Harr Ford would provide replacement parts for the car in exchange for drag racing feedback which would later be used for the development of the factory Drag Cars.

The car was purchased by Robert and  Walter Walls (Walls Brothers) on June 15th.  1965 from Harr Ford, Worcester, MA for the amount of $4,200. Three days later the car had its first run on the dragstrip at Sanford, ME Airport.

After running the car for several weeks Bobby and Walter were in the gas station discussing what they should call the car. One of the employees was reading the comic strips in the newspaper and suggested they call the car “Snoopy”. The car was soon lettered up with the Peanuts character.

Snoopy was raced by Walls Brothers in 1965 and 1966 and in 1967, the brothers dissolved their partnership and as a result of separating the assets, Walter gained full ownership of the car.

Snoopy had its best ET of 12.03 seconds at 118 MPH. This was accomplished by running a .30 over 302 Cubic-inch block with Hilborn Injection and 5:14 rear gears. Although the car often broke axels, it still has the original aluminum Borg Warner transmission after losing 2nd gear one time.

The car was raced from the purchase date (June 1965) until 1972 at the following drag strips:
                Sanford, ME Airport (Sanford, ME)
                Orange, MA Airport (Orange, MA)
                South Glenn Falls, NY Drag Way (South Glenn Falls, NY)
                Lebanon Valley Speedway (West Lebanon Valley, NY)
                Connecticut Drag Way (Colchester, CT)
                New England Drag Way (Epping, NH)
                Bristol, TN Drag Way (Thunder Valley) (Raced at the 1966 Spring Nationals)

Walter continued to race Snoopy on his own and retired the car from racing in 1972. The lettering was soon buffed off the car and it rarely ventured out of the garage for the next 11 years.

The car was registered for the first time in 1983. Previous to that, the car was always driven on Dealer Plates. Walter had to pay Excise Tax to the MA Registry with penalty’s going back to 1965 as he had no proof of ever paying the tax originally. The 289 HiPo engine was de-tuned and the open headers were plated off to make the car more streetable. The next two summers, Snoopy was driven to local cruises and shows and the locals were happy to see the car out of the garage again..

In 1985 Snoopy was disassembled and stripped down to bare metal. Although the sides of the car had been lettered up with several different paint schemes over the years, the top of the car was still original paint. After a fresh coat of paint, Snoopy was re-assembled using mostly the original parts with replacements where needed. The undercarriage has never been touched to this day

After the new paint in 1985, Walter continued to attend local events as well as SAAC (Shelby American Automobile Club) events over the next 15 years. Snoopy had secured two second place awards and one third place award in concourse in addition to several popular vote awards with SAAC over that period. From 2000 to 2010, Snoopy was relegated to local cruises and car shows.

In 2010, Walter passed away and Snoopy was left to his sons, Robert (Bobby) and Steven . Bob and Steve often talked about hand painting the lettering back on as it was originally done in the ‘60s as Snoopy as a tribute to their Dad. The decision was finally made to do just that in the fall of 2014. After speaking with countless friends and other car enthusiasts, we narrowed down the painter to Dennis Day of Sterling, MA. (DDayDesigns.blogspot.com). We also spent several months tracking down the correct decals and having them manufactured to match the 1966 scheme. The car was finally lettered up in the spring of 2015 and the car community feedback was very positive and many of the old timers have told us the car should not be presented any other way than what it was intended to be…a drag race car.


Bobby and Steve have decided when they do a rotisserie restoration, they will present the car as Snoopy and not just another wimbledon white 1965 GT-350.






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2 comments:

  1. I'm interested in having my van pinstriped, how do I get in touch?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Simple Google searches like “hand painted pinstriping near me” would show you the best professionals in your area. But that information is not enough.
    Head over to their website or store and look at the work they have done. Their work will help you make an informed decision about how experienced they are and whether or not they are the right choice for you.

    ReplyDelete