Spray painting and stencil - dos and don'ts???

[Les Paul Lover]

I've got a couple of builds that i'm hoping to start this weekend.

For one of those I want to paint a frog catch a fly (the fly being the LED) in stencil. So that one need to be multi coloured.

Any tips? What materials did you use for the templates, how do you ensure the paint doesn't get sprayed underneath?
Will it be easy to lift it off after the spraying with damaging the paint work done?


What's worked for you in the past, what hasn't?

[duck_arse]

mmmmmm, me too. I've got some painting to do. I use all water based acrylic. I'm planning on spraying the colour, with an airbrush, putting a clear or "medium" coat as I usually do, then using schoolkids "gum" adhesive to glue down paper stencils. then spray colour, 1200 grit sand the excess from the stencil cutout (if there is any), then just soak the paper and gum off. more clear, and maybe finished.

if I can motivate myself to start the painting, that is.

[StarGeezers]

  We cut stencils out of Contact clear shelf paper  (adhesive backed ) ... Draw the design on the C-paper , cut it out with an Exacto knife , place masking tape over the cuts , then remove the backing paper and   transfer the whole thing to the surface to be painted , and stick it down ...  peel away the masking tape carefully and only the cut out bits will come away , leaving a nice clean stencil to paint on ... And that works too with etching paste for glass or metal ... 

[davent]

I use acrylics too and cut stencils from frisket film which is a thin low tack plastic sheet made for this job. After sticking the stencil to the box i usually spray acrylic clearcoat over the stencil to seal in the stencil edge, you want the clear to fill any tiny gaps between the stencil and the surface, it fills the bleed spaces first. If the box is a simple single colour you could sparay that colour instead of the clear or i sometimes paint the edge with GAC200 which is a clear acrylic medium.



dave

[StarGeezers]

  Super paint job Dave !!!   

[duck_arse]

stop taunting us, davent, you know we can't do that stuff.

[davent]

It's solely patience and a fresh #11 in the xacto,  started from scratch three times, first stencil i cut took me an hour, peeled it from the backing tried to place it and there was no adhesive, got a refund for the film but still...

Thanks guys!
dave

[Ice-9]

That looks just great Dave, wonderful job. 

[Les Paul Lover]

Thank you for the answers, this base echo looks really good!!!!

One thing I don't understand - did you put your template on the black pedal, spray the lettering and then back ground colour or the other way around ?

These transparent sheets look exactly what I need for my reverb pedal, where I will need only one colour to be sprayed on.

For my fuzz factory clone though, I want to do a frog with 3 different colours for body, eyes and tongue, so I don't think a one off template is doable as will need to replace 2 parts of the frog  every time I paint one part. I reckon I will need a totally fixed template to ensure it remains all firmly in place....

[duck_arse]

hmmmm, again. I've also been thinking of "shadow" methods. shifting the stencil for each colour, oversizing the stencil cut-outs and blocking with the cut out parts. I think it'll end up trial, error and mess.

[davent]

!

One thing I don't understand - did you put your template on the black pedal, spray the lettering and then back ground colour or the other way around ?

rog  every time I paint one part. I reckon I will need a totally fixed template to ensure it remains all firmly in place....

Sorry for the confusion on that, i'm fumbling along, learning on the fly... lots of trial and error, fail and sandpaper.

The black eventually was deemed fail and sanded off to start again, second effort... fail/sand, third... i kept. I usually have an idea of where i want to get to but not much of an idea how to get there.

For the final go, that echo base was primed then a white base coat. If i remember correctly the stencil was partially/mostly cut out like Stargeezer describes then moved to the enclosure. With the frisket film, the backing is transluscent so you can lay it over your printout and see through the film and backing to cut or lay your printout over the film and cut. Backing peels away very easily.

Peel backing off position the film on the enclosure, finish cuts, peel off lettering surround and save it, i stick it to a piece of wax paper. Clearcoat over the stencil letters. Paint the enclosure orange.

Remove the letter stencils from the enclosure, save them you need them again, to keep track of the little letter bits i tape a piece of wax paper to another printout of the top and stick the pieces to that in the positions they occupy. Left with an orange enclosure with white lettering.

Replace the large stencil of the letters on the enclosure, clearcoat. I probably hit it with white next to hide any orange in the letter spaces that wasn't covered by the large stencil. Paint the green letters.

Drop shadows are next  just like duck_arse describes.
Remove the large stencil, save. Replace the letter stencils, clearcoat.
Replace the large stencil but offset it slightly. Clearcoat. Mist on some transparent black for the shadow.

Lots of little glitches along the way but you learn. Mostly airbrush but i need much more practice with that, touching up with tiny brushes was needed here and there.
dave

edit. Got back to my computer to see the pictures of the pedal evolution, black photo Feb.2009, finished photo May 2012, patience. Final painting sequence was a bit different then i recalled. Paint enclosure orange-> stencil & lettering -> covered letters to shoot orange flake-> mask for drop shadow...

[Les Paul Lover]

Thanks again for the replies.

I've bought something that ressembles that ressembles that clear plastic and will be experimenting shortly - err
... Within the next 12 month I suppose, depending on how much free time I get!!!!

[Les Paul Lover]

Here's how I got on so far...

After cutting too much of my stencil template a couple of times, my 3rd attempt was deemed good enough:


I tried spraying from close but the paint was getting everywhere underneath the stencil because of the power of the spray paint.

So I settled on the fine mist from high up technic:






I'm pretty happy with how it turned out so far

Now that box is going to host a way huge red llama clone. I built it this weekend, it sounds great!

Now have to wait a few days until I can clear coat that one!!!



I must say I will look again for that clear sticking plastic - mine had to be put on with masking tape, probably why all the paint kept getting underneath the template.

[davent]

Looks really good!

Seal those edges are your worries are over, and like you discover, mist those coats on.
dave

[Les Paul Lover]

I think I have further trials to do.

Once you "seal" your frisket in place, when you peal it off, are you left with obvious borderlines? If so did you sand them off?
I've been using metallic sprays, they don't like being sanded very much - they lose most of their shine in the process. (done had, had to respray..... I've learnt a lot!!!!)

Is the frisket easy to cut? Do you cut it in situ or before to apply it on the pedal?
Both the frisket and shelf contact paper actually look like better materials than what i found - my material is an A4 semi rigid plastic transparent sheet. Thin enough to be cut, but I'll have to see if I can make better use of it and if clear coating could help prevent leakages underneath the stencil.

[duck_arse]

I used to use book-covering sticky backed plastic, but I've found it too hard to use. I always have trouble getting the cuts to meet in corners, so I end up pulling and stretching the mask when I remove the blanks.

[davent]

Frisket film is very thin(~2.5mil), very light and easy to cut, releases easily from it's backing paper, low tack so you can reposition it if needed and retains the tack so you can use it i few times if you're careful. You do end up with a small edge with the sealing but that will be there anyways because it's a stencil on a smooth surface. I clearcoat before sanding back.

For cutting i tape the film with backing, onto a b/w printout of the art. You can see through the film and backing well enough to cut accurately. You could tape the art down on top of the film and cut through the art/film but i find it easier to have the film on top. (Under it all a cutting mat.)

Usually cut it out in it's entirety first but sometimes will leave it partially attached, move it to enclosure then finish the cuts, for example if your using multiple stencils and they need to accurately register to each other.

And definitely experiment/play, find out what methods and materials work best for you.
dave

[Soup39]

Once stencil is in place mist it with the base color (the masked color).  This will seal the edges and should prevent the top coat from getting under your stencil. 

[amptramp]

I have wondered what kind of stencils work for sandblasting a finish.  You could get the equivalent of an etch in seconds without any kind of chemistry involved.  Scientific American used to carry ads for a very fine-grain sandblasting unit used in laboratories where you could cut a pattern into an egg shell or something similarly fragile and you could wield it like an airbrush.  It might not meet the resolution of the finest etches, but some things don't need it.

[Les Paul Lover]

Alright - further progress / misadventure to report.

So I tried to do something "simple", and cut out simple symbols for volume and gain on my acrylic plastic sheet.

Put it in place and sprayed some clear coat, waited 10mns, sprayed the colour on. Took and deep breath and removed my stencil......
Drum roll....

It was almost perfect - but only almost. No leakage at all this time, which is great. totally contained to where it should have been. The only hitch being that the stencil template had clear coatingunderneath it, which had dried to the pedal AND stencil, ad the removal took small amounts of paint away. I'll try to post pics later.
Have you ecountered that problem too? Did I spray the clear lacquer too close up?

I can totally live with the pedal as it is, but I'd really like to get my next 2 spot on, so any advice / feedback appreciated!!!!!