Only buy Scotch brand masking tape from an auto paint suply shop.
The stuff that is sold in hardware stores doesn’t make a good edge and is so thin it tears when trying to trim it with a razor. If you are going to go to all the trouble of laying out a complex checker grid, use good tape that will work and leave a nice clean edge. You get what you pay for.
One idea you may want to try is to wrap the tape in a spiral and cut the squares so they are on the bias (diamonds).
Well i got masking tape at a hardware store, do i really need to go get some from a Auto Paint place?
ohhh, you know what would be cool? it wouldn’t be checkered though, it’ be squares. but still. just put horizontal strips of masking tape on the frame, about an inch apart from each other or however big you want the squares to be. then when you do that completely, put vertical strips of masking tape about an inch apart, so you have a whole bunch of squares. and actually ya know what, if you wanted checkers still, you could do that, then take the masking tape off and put more masking tape on how I just said, but in a slightly different way, so the squares are in different places. then it would be checkered!! wow I’m smart.
ooooh, that’s a good idea too…and combine it with mine, so in mine instead of putting horizontal and vertical, put them slanting to the right and to the left. that’d be sweeet.
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i like it
I’m thinking of painting my sun 20" with b/w stripes on the fork and the upper part blue, but I’m using spray paint
Looks nice, I love custom frames. My custom muni frame (soon to be made, although I know I’ve been saying that for months) will be all white. 
Andrew
Hey ya’ll
I made up a sample of the checker pattern made by wraping the tape around the tubing in a spiral.
the lines smudged because I didn’t have the patience to let the paint dry before removing the tape.
Woah, that pattern on Al’s tube is smart!
Hmmmmm. (thoughts of paint and tape enter the mind)
And Evan, is that the frame finished or are you going to do vertical stripes too?
T.
Nope, im leaving it striped like it is, going to touch it up then clear coat it.
i like it evan… i like it a lot.
Chase
Its a zebra cycle!
And I like it a lot
Its nickname is “The Jail House Summit”