View Single Post
  #934  
Old 23-10-22, 23:38
David Dunlop David Dunlop is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Winnipeg, MB
Posts: 3,384
Default BOXES, Tool, No. 1 WS Cdn. 52. ZA/CAN 4727

Bob raised a couple of interesting points last week regarding the use of stencils and to be on the safe side, I decided to double check both factors before proceeding further with work on the tool box.

The first potential problem was the use of rubber cement on flat paint, or even semi flat paints.

Years ago I restored a pair of M38 CDN’s and painted them both the original semigloss factory green. I was lucky at the time a company called Rondex here in Winnipeg, still had the original paint sample catalogs for Dulux paints and it covered all the Canadian Military Vehicle colours from the factory new M-Series back to 1944-45. When it came time to apply the CFR Numbers I used stencils mounted to the vehicle with rubber cement with no problem at all, but the paint in question was an enamel semi-gloss. Today, the term ‘semi-gloss’ seems to have disappeared from paint terminology, being replaced with names like ‘Eggshell’ or ‘Satin’, and most paints today are latex or other water-based variations.

So my first test last week was to coat a small piece of oil board with rubber cement and stick it to the bottom of the tool box, wait five minutes, peel it off, let the cement dry completely and rub it off to see what happens. As per the first three photos, the solvents for the rubber cement did not alter the finish on the satin latex paint at all. Good to know.

The second point Bob mentioned was the use of those small foam paint brushes to apply the stencil paint. Debbie happened to have quite a selection of these in her crafting supplies so I borrowed one of the small, black rectangular ones with the chisel tip to test it out.

The last photo shows the results of this test in the lower left corner after the stencil had been glued down with rubber cement and the excess cement cleaned off prior to painting. Directly above that test is the sample done with the 3/8-inch stencil brush on the same glued down oil board and off to the right the same brush on an unsecured oil board. After looking at the results for a bit, my quality ranking would be the top left result with the small stencil brush is best, followed pretty closely by the foam brush below it and a distant last place is the unsecured stencil and small brush to the right side.

I think the problem with the foam brush test is more a factor of the small size of the stencil cutouts, rather than the foam brush. With the narrow openings of the characters, too much of the foam is on top of the stencil and the foam has difficulty getting in close to the edges. As a result, the sections of some of the characters have varying widths to them. With the small stencil brush, some of the bristles clearly hit the face of the stencil, but not enough that they still flex and allow the other bristles to reach down inside the cut-outs and fill it more evenly with paint.

I think with larger sized stencils, a foam brush could easily hold its own with a bristle brush for stencil work.

So with that out of the way, and thanks again Bob for raising these points, the next step will be to apply the required stencil to the tool box.


David
Attached Thumbnails
Stencil Test 1.JPG   Stencil Test 2.JPG   Stencil Test 3.JPG   Stencil Test 4.JPG  
Reply With Quote