Laser-cut Mylar stencils for repainting geometric designs

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geofflove
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Laser-cut Mylar stencils for repainting geometric designs

Post by geofflove »

I recently created the artwork needed to respray the cabinet on a 1958 a Roto Pool pinball machine. Sent the artwork off and got the laser cut Mylar stencils back today. Look pretty good. Never been through the process of creating vector art for this before so all new. Now to see how they work with a couple of cans of spray paint.....
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special when lit
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Re: Stencils

Post by special when lit »

Looks good, will be interesting to see the result.
geofflove
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Re: Stencils

Post by geofflove »

Well it’s almost done! It’s not perfect by any means. I had the machine outside to do the spraying and I felt like I was racing against the weather all day, so didn’t take the time I should have really. I also ran out of paint, which is why the back box isn’t done on this side yet! At least I can take this part out more easily to finish it once the new paint comes.

For those interested the cab base coat was just done in a regular satinwood water based paint with a roller. The stencilling was done using Molotaw Belton spray paints which come in a huge range of colours. They work pretty well, seem very run resistant and cover well. I just used one spray coat for all of this. The stencils were pretty effective. I used them with repositionable spray mount. Once applied, the trick was to wait a couple of mins for it to go tacky before applying the stencil. If you do it immediately while still wet it leaves a bit of residue on the cab when removed.

I couldn’t make a single stencil for the side as the limit on the stencil length was just under 900mm. I therefore had to reverse the stencil to get the other half. This worked but was one of the causes of imperfections, getting it lined up, and also due to my lack to patience/time in waiting long enough to properly dry the stencil or clean it properly.

Cleaning the stencil wasn’t easy. It can be done using thinners etc., but takes quite a while. I don’t actually think it’s necessary for a single use like this but when reusing/reversing, you need to wait a good while (couple of hours) for the paint to fully harden, as the spray mount can cause some pickup otherwise. This was my other problem as I didn’t wait long enough.

It was a warm day and the paint on the cap dried within a few minutes.

There was a bit of overspray in a few places where the stencil lifted slightly. I could have spent more time getting really sharp edges, but didn’t want to as the originals were pretty rough and ready anyway and mostly had this shadowing in places from the brass stencils they used. An interesting process, and worth looking into if you need to do some design on a cab. Especially if it’s small enough to do it in one piece. I’m guessing you could do some pretty intricate designs this way if needed.

The two sheets of stencil I needed for the sides and back box cost £75, supplying them with the ready vector artwork from illustrator etc.
I don’t have a before pic of the cab, but basically it was black and grotty with graffiti scratched into it and rusting legs.
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pennymachines
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Re: Stencils

Post by pennymachines »

Thank you for the detailed description of the process. I've moved the topic to Tips & Tricks because I'm sure it could prove useful to others attempting something similar. Clearly it can produce a very satisfactory result. !THUMBS!
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special when lit
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Re: Laser-cut Mylar stencils for repainting geometric designs

Post by special when lit »

Looks great. I refinished a Buckaroo cabinet a few years ago. Used professionally made decals that were completely out of scale, spent hours cutting them about.
Never again!
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