How do I stencil on rough surfaces?

[KMinAF]

I was thinking of stenciling the Walker name on my repainted jack handle but am unsure how to do it without having paint bleed trough and making it all fuzzy. I thought of using vinyl "stickers" but wasn't sure if they would last. Here is what I had in mind:

 

[NUTTSGT]

Well, you could have painted the letter color (yellow) first. Then added your stick on letters (spelling walker) and hit it with the blue paint. Once the blue paint was dry, pull off the stick on letters.

 

[NUTTSGT]

Check and see how the vinyl letters would react with some clearcoat. If they hold up to it, apply your letter and hit it with a couple coats of clear.

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

The vinyl you use has to be UV resistant of it'll ever be exposed to the sun or it will fade badly.

 

[Zeke]

The vinyl you use has to be UV resistant of it'll ever be exposed to the sun or it will fade badly.

I think most is these days.

To the OP: if you have the stencil, put it down as well as you can and hit it with spray paint. Hold the paint source away enough to avoid a real wet coat.

Rinse and repeat.

 

[machine_punk]

Well, you could have painted the letter color (yellow) first. Then added your stick on letters (spelling walker) and hit it with the blue paint. Once the blue paint was dry, pull off the stick on letters.

+1 on that...

Or...

When you use stencils inside the house on rough paint, you use a short, round brush (1.5 - 2" in diameter) and 'stipple' or tamp with the brush, instead of 'brushing' with the brush. (a tapping motion, with very little paint on the brush, with the tips of the hairs on the brush).


M_P

 

[Kevin54]

Check with someplace like WallyWorld in the craft section for a paint pen. Some of then come with a chisel tip or a finer tip than the regular paint pens you normally see with the round tip. Put your stencil down and trace your letters with a sharpened pencil, then very carefully color them in with the paint pen.

 

[bajones238]

You might have the company that does the stickers produce a set in "reverse". That is, they will produce the masked area with a light adhesive backing that could be used as a stencil, then removed. This is how we used to put lettering on military vehicles when we restored them to WW2 configuration.

 

[Jack Olsen]

Well, you could have painted the letter color (yellow) first. Then added your stick on letters (spelling walker) and hit it with the blue paint. Once the blue paint was dry, pull off the stick on letters.

For this application, and your experience level with painting letters, NUTTSGT's advice is great. It will give you much better results than painting the letters on top of the existing paint. Producing a negative stencil (like bajones238 has done) and painting the actual letters is quite a bit harder to set up and to execute well, in a lot of situations. But it depends on the size and the detail of what you're working on. (He was matching something that was already pretty crudely done, I'm assuming.)

If you've already had the thing powdercoated or painted by a pro, then I'd say the second best option is a vinyl decal and some sort of clear coat.

If you paint it, you'll definitely want to do a couple of practice runs on something else that has a similar texture. You'll see how close to the look you want on the first hit with the paint, and then how much can be cleaned up with a little brush after the first pass dries.