The Types Of Jobs You Perform Will Drive Your Walk-Behind Striper Choice

Guns can also be positioned in the front or the back of the striper.

"On our upper three models we have both a front and rear gun mount position, so you can choose whether you want the guns back by you when you're operating or out front so you can reach up to the curb," Knutson says.

For contractors who stripe circles and curves on sports fields, airports, or in other areas, Airlessco offers a swivel front wheel with an adjustable turnbuckle.

"So, for example, if you're striping soccer fields and you've got a 10-yard radius for the center circle, you can set a turn buckle to that length, that size diameter circle, and just put tape around it so that it stays fixed, throw it in your toolbox, and when you go to do one of those jobs you just snap that turnbuckle on and your machine is already preset to do the right sized circle, as opposed to having to draw it on the ground with chalk and a tape measurer or freehand it over the old one," Malloy explains.

Airlessco also offers a quick flush adaptor, which allows you to use water pressure to back flush all the paint out of the hose and the pump back into the bucket.

"When you start to flush the machine, you're flushing a machine that has already had the paint removed out of it," Malloy says. "So it makes the cleanup a lot quicker, and it's just like everything else - time is money. And 10-minute cleanups are more productive than 30-minute cleanups."

Why walk when you can drive?

Pushing around a walk-behind striper all day is a tiring job. Self-propelled, sit-down units for walk-behind stripers have been in the industry for nearly a decade. With travel speeds of up to 10 mph and an average striping speed of about 5 mph, along with the ability to carry extra paint or glass beads without the fatigue associated with pushing that extra weight around with muscle, contractors can easily increase their productivity and ultimately their bottom lines with one of these units.

"Prices are going up on machines, products, and labor, but contractors are having a hard time raising the prices they charge for their services, so the only way to make more money is by getting the job done faster," says David Hay, operations manager at Fine Line Industries, which makes the Lazy Liner. Hay estimates that the addition of a self-propelled, ride-on attachment to a contractor's walk-behind striper can help increase production by 80% to 100%.

Increased productivity and going home at the end of the day without being physically fatigued are only a couple of the benefits contractors report about their sit-down units.

"Another thing we hear from striping contractors is they feel when they're driving they're able to put down straighter lines because effectively they've expanded the length of the wheelbase of the machine," say Jon Knutson of Graco Inc., manufacturer of the LineDriver. "So the wheel base gets longer and your lines are straighter. They also indicate that they can drive at a more consistent speed than they can walk, so that's a benefit for line quality and efficiency."

The addition of a self-propelled, sit-down unit on a striper also allows contractors to take on jobs they may not have wanted before, because the amount of work that went into them with the walk-behind striper was too much for the profit they could make.

"It's an easier transition into the larger jobs, because as you move into the bigger jobs you're getting into roadways or airports where the physical amount of stripes applied is greater, either longer distance or just the sheer lineal feet of line that's applied," Knutson says.

Steep, angled parking ramps, park paths that often wind through rolling hills, or other jobs that are difficult with a walk-behind striper also become more attainable, profitable goals.

"I've talked to people who have expanded into those types of striping applications because they have the LineDriver, whereas before they would let it go to someone else," Knutson adds.