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Basketball court lines and graphics

laserman70

New Member
Had a call from a company who is putting in a new gym with wood floor.

They are looking for lines and graphics put on the gym floor for basketball.

Anyone know the process or people that may do this type of work?

thanks
 

fresh

New Member
yes. if you want to be nice and refer them to a company who stripes gym floors, I can give you a referral.

It's done with careful measurements, masking tape, and a specific paint. Logos are done with paintmask stencils.

I do gameline drawings & provide stencils for a hardwood flooring company, and we've helped out on installs in the past, too. (but not the striping, just the logos.)
 

Gino

Premium Subscriber
Many years ago, I worked at a place and we did some interior gymnasium floors. The stencils were all supplied and we painted them on. Like mentioned, the measurements were spelled out quite accurately. When we were finished, a few days later someone else came in and put a lotta clearcoat over the whole thing and made it shine and glisten like I've never seen before. Someone said it was kinda put on with like a broom setup. If I'm not mistaken, they lasted a long time and the only way to change them out is to completely sand the floor down to bare wood and start over.
 

Andy D

Active Member
This may not apply to you, but I know college's (and maybe high school's too)
Have very stringent codes to what can and cannot be used on basketball floors,
this is why it's more of a specialty, and the only thing some companies do.
 

signbrad

New Member
I've striped high school basketball and volleyball floors down through the years. The flooring contractor or the school supplied the diagrams. On wood floors, no special paint was required. We always used lettering enamels, double coating certain colors. On the rubberized floors a special paint is required. I never did a rubberized floor.
Some places spec'd certain paint manufacturers but when I matched the colors with One Shot and showed them, they were usually okay with it. It gets buried by a clear coat anyway.

If I had it to do over again I would have invested the money in one of the tape machines that lay two lines of tape simultaneously. They have wheels and a handle.

The three point line for high school is 19'9" measured from the center of the hoop by dropping a plumb bob and driving a small nail for a wire to pull the radius. The floor taping machines have an attachment for this. On floors where they did not want me to drive a nail I used a piece of plywood with a protruding machine screw, taping the board to the floor.

I would think any capable sign painter could do the work. It is hard on your knees, so a young sign painter is a better choice.
If a logo involves two or three colors, working off a pounce pattern might be a lot quicker than a stencil, since you can lay wet next to wet with lettering enamels. Sometimes stencils tend to allow leaks, too. Masking tape should be high quality and squeegeed down just prior to painting or it, too, can leak.

I did well at this when the logo required some skill to produce. If it was just lines and nothing else, I was consistently underbid by the guys that did this type of work and nothing else.
 
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