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First time asking for help. Looking for supplier of military type stencils for spaying equipment like tool boxes and such. Size of 12"long4"high 2 lines Thanks first-hope to get replies.
-------------------- Burris Custom Painting 203 Brown St. Tewksbury,Ma. 01876 Posts: 96 | From: Tewksbury, Ma 01879 | Registered: Jan 2003
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By "military type" do you mean the letter style?
I occaisioinaly need stencils, I make my own. Larger ones that I need to re-use a bunch of times I make out of magnetic sheeting. Those letters are between 6"-12" tall, and obviously used on steel.
Smaller ones I make out of thin sheet plastic, cut with a tool that's alot like a soldering iron, but the tip is skinny and bent to the side. Works real well on the thin stuff. Problem is, if the material comes on a roll, the stencils don't lay perfectly flat, and you can get some overspray, which isn't so bad on some of the knock out work I do. The alternative would be to buy thin plastic in flat sheets instead of a roll.
I've also used various other things to cut stencils with an x-acto knife.
There is a guy in this area that will custom make stecils for you. He makes them on that thin cardboard stuff like they traditionaly were made with. I don't have his number, but he has an ad on the wall at the local sign supply place. Their telephone # is (865) 523-0304. Probably have to wait 'till Monday. His work is really clean, lazer cut, and I think it's the letter style you're looking for.
With the volume of stencils I was doing at the time, I thought of offering to buy the guy's machine. I mentioned it to the owner of the sign supply place, and he said he thought it was a $40,000 machine. Ow!
-------------------- James Donahue Donahue Sign Arts 1851 E. Union Valley Rd. Seymour TN. (865) 577-3365 brushman@nxs.net
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what's for lunch, Benjamin Franklin Posts: 2057 | From: 1033 W. Union Valley Rd. | Registered: Feb 2003
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Interesting: I forgot to mention before that I've seen railcars come in from Mexico that had stencil lettering on them, which appeared to have been painted with the old time stencil brush, instead of spray paint.
-------------------- James Donahue Donahue Sign Arts 1851 E. Union Valley Rd. Seymour TN. (865) 577-3365 brushman@nxs.net
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what's for lunch, Benjamin Franklin Posts: 2057 | From: 1033 W. Union Valley Rd. | Registered: Feb 2003
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Back in my Central Pennsylvania days (before I moved out here to sunny Arizona), I used to buy a majority portion of my supplies from Pioneer Supply in Pittsburgh.
In their catalog, they had "Brass Interlocking Stencils". These things were great if you needed to stencil alot of items with all different messages. You can build your message letter-by-letter and then change it for another message.
Check them out, they will ship anywhere:
PIONEER SUPPLY COMPANY 1-800-545-2233 1-800-762-6337 fax
If, on the other hand, you are looking for a stencil that is made permanently as one message so that you can stencil the same thing over and over, I recommend that you get one routed out of plastic. If you don't have a CNC router yourself, hopefully you have a relationship with another sign shop in your area who can do this kind of work for you. I would recommend that the stencil be cut from polyethylene or polypropylene sheet. It is a milky white plastic that paint will not stick to permanently, so you can keep it clean between uses. As far as thickness, that depends on the size you need. Commonly they range from .035 up to .125. Generally, the larger the lettering, the thicker you want the stencil material.
Hopefully this helps. If you can't find anyone in your area to make them for you, give me a call or e-mail me. I can make them for you.
-------------------- Brian Hinkle Hincor/Sign Blue Book Mesa, Arizona Posts: 13 | From: Mesa, Arizona | Registered: Jun 2003
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