Stencils

[Jake79]

Hi All

Though I'd have a try at making some stencils, what's the best material to use...


Thanks

Jake

[billpe]

What are the stencils for? Tactical numbers?

[Jake79]

sorry should of mentioned that..yep tactical numbers...


Cheers

[billpe]

Some thin cardboard works. Not tried 1mm plastic card but I would expect that to work as well.

[jackalope]

I've had good luck using 3M painters masking tape. Pull off a piece of tape large enough to make what you want and stick it to a smooth, clean surface like a mirror, or a ceramic tile (I've used both). Draw what you want and then using an X acto knife cut along the lines you have drawn. Now you have your stencils! Just pull the tape carefully off of the mirror or tile and stick it to what you want to paint and smooth the tape down very good and start your painting.

Note, you MUST MUST MUST use HIGH quality tape such as blue 3M automotive masking tape. The better the tape the better it will be able to re-stick after you remove it from the mirror of tile. If you use cheap masking tape you WILL get a lot of bleed around the edges.

You may still get a small amount of bleed depending on the surface, the stencil is going onto, how you paint, and what type of paint you use, but then it would be no more then you would get with any stencils.

Hope this helps and I can't wait to see what you come up with, good luck!

[dgsselkirk]

One other material, and the one that a lot of stencil makers use, is called vellum paper. It is very thin yet strong and is translucent so you can see through it pretty good for alignment. It is also not that expensive to buy.

[Jake79]

Thanks fella's for the ideas, that's a good one Jack, I'll have to get hold of some 3M tape...want to try to avoid any bleed, so I'll make sure I buy the 3M as it sounds like that helps...dgsselkirk, vellum paper, never heard of it, but hey I'm willing to have try if I can get some..always good to experiment with a few different ways and see which one works best, thanks..

[dgsselkirk]

Promise, if you walk into any arts and craft store they will have it. It's basically used for making tracings and it is very inexpensive...