Making your own stencils?

Steelhorse

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I need to do the sides art on the head on my High-Speed and really dont want to pay the 100+ dollars for a full stencil set from Bay area amusements. So what I was planning was going to a craft store and buying there stencil making stuff and trace paper and trace the art and transfer to the the stencil and cut it out. As you probably know theres not much to the heads side art on the High-Speed so I think it will be easy, though I never done this before. Any help ideas for this attempt I'am going to do would be appreciated. Thank you. Jeff
 
You could just tape the artwork off (using painter's tape) and re-do it that way. Looking at the pictures on ipdb.org, it looks like it's black background, big swatch of yellow trimmed in red, and a Williams logo. You might want to do a hybrid approach: make a stencil for the logo in the middle, do everything else with tape and paint.
 
PrOk used to have a nice tutorial on his site that I followed to do a Pac man a couple of years ago. Not sure if it's still there. You use acetate film to make the stencils. Worked out ok, but the pac man side art was pretty complicated and it was difficult to get neat edges on the very small details. If your side art is simple, you shouldn't have any problems. Here's half way:

PC260031.jpg



And here's the completed side:

200612xmas034.jpg
 
PrOk used to have a nice tutorial on his site that I followed to do a Pac man a couple of years ago. Not sure if it's still there. You use acetate film to make the stencils. Worked out ok, but the pac man side art was pretty complicated and it was difficult to get neat edges on the very small details. If your side art is simple, you shouldn't have any problems. Here's half way:

PC260031.jpg



And here's the completed side:

200612xmas034.jpg

omg that looks awesome. great work. :)

what do you guys use for taping off round objects? just cut something to size and tape it on?
 
I use an X-acto blade.

Put the tape on, then use the blade to slice the tape however I need it to go around curves. If you use light colored masking tape, you can usually see the art right through it which makes it easy to cut exactly.
 
You could just tape the artwork off (using painter's tape) and re-do it that way. Looking at the pictures on ipdb.org, it looks like it's black background, big swatch of yellow trimmed in red, and a Williams logo. You might want to do a hybrid approach: make a stencil for the logo in the middle, do everything else with tape and paint.


I tried this method already. I got the best painters tape the blue kind, and when I was done and removed the tape it took off the paint from the cabinet...the tape was barely press on, and made a small touch up into the whole side art needs redone. So this is why I must make my own, just the sides of the head unit not the whole cab. What grit sand paper shoul I use to get all that old paint off? Where can I get this stuff "acetate film" to make the stencils. The graphics are basic if you even call them art/graphics, so is the stuff see through so I can trace and cut my stencil, take me through this please? Craft store carries acetate film? expensive? Thanks
 
That thing looks freaking great.

My pacman had little blue specs all over? Did yours? Was that standard?
 
It was standard on Pac, and the speckle was standard on MANY pinball paint jobs. My Future Spa has a gold speckle.

Joey
 
That thing looks freaking great.

My pacman had little blue specs all over? Did yours? Was that standard?


Looks really good, but it looks like you used the artwork on localarcade. Lot's of inaccuracies in that and a lot of the little details are gone. Compare the area at the end of the pac-man lettering for an example
pacman_sideart_detail.jpg

200612xmas034.jpg

(but like I said, it still looks good)

Pac's came both with the blue specs and without. I can't remember if the early ones didn't have it or the latter ones?
 
I need to do the sides art on the head on my High-Speed and really dont want to pay the 100+ dollars for a full stencil set from Bay area amusements. So what I was planning was going to a craft store and buying there stencil making stuff and trace paper and trace the art and transfer to the the stencil and cut it out. As you probably know theres not much to the heads side art on the High-Speed so I think it will be easy, though I never done this before. Any help ideas for this attempt I'am going to do would be appreciated. Thank you. Jeff



The best way to do it is obviously with Stencils, you get the straighest lines and the roundest circles, I tried the acetate way before I started doing stencils and like it has been said, the lines are never straight. I cut stencils too and Im sure if you asked the guy at gamestencils.com he would sell you a partial kit. I would do it, the hard work is already done.

AF
 
do you have a pic of the area you want to fix?
I have wide clear stencil masking you could apply and cut yourself in 1 piece
what size you need?
 
for a repair of an existing art, I'd say yes on making your own stencil, but with a full side art replacement, $125 is worth the straight reliable lines and your time. In the end, if you have several hundred dollars in a restoration, making cost cuts shouldn't be in the most obvious of places, hence the side art, CPO, marquee etc...
 
Just the head area of high speed is a small stencil, could work from tracings on that if the accuracy is not expected to be *perfect*. The whole reason I got into doing the stencils that I do is because I was originally doing them the acetate and photo mount method and while it was pretty good, it was a LOT of work and difficult to get any real detail. In the end, cutting your own may save a couple bucks but you'll spend a lot more simply in time and frustration trying to hand make them.

Give me a few mins, perhaps I can whip something up. This is of course not to scale, based on a photo but can easily be adjusted. I can cut these for you or thisoldgame can you can take them to a local place and get it done too.

OK, been a few mins.. perhaps this will help:
highspeed.png


http://www.gamestencils.com/pics/highspeed.ai

/b
 
Last edited:
Just the head area of high speed is a small stencil, could work from tracings on that if the accuracy is not expected to be *perfect*. The whole reason I got into doing the stencils that I do is because I was originally doing them the acetate and photo mount method and while it was pretty good, it was a LOT of work and difficult to get any real detail. In the end, cutting your own may save a couple bucks but you'll spend a lot more simply in time and frustration trying to hand make them.

Give me a few mins, perhaps I can whip something up. This is of course not to scale, based on a photo but can easily be adjusted. I can cut these for you or thisoldgame can you can take them to a local place and get it done too.

OK, been a few mins.. perhaps this will help:
highspeed.png


http://www.gamestencils.com/pics/highspeed.ai

/b



Awesome Brian! nice job..


AF
 
Just the head area of high speed is a small stencil, could work from tracings on that if the accuracy is not expected to be *perfect*. The whole reason I got into doing the stencils that I do is because I was originally doing them the acetate and photo mount method and while it was pretty good, it was a LOT of work and difficult to get any real detail. In the end, cutting your own may save a couple bucks but you'll spend a lot more simply in time and frustration trying to hand make them.

Give me a few mins, perhaps I can whip something up. This is of course not to scale, based on a photo but can easily be adjusted. I can cut these for you or thisoldgame can you can take them to a local place and get it done too.

OK, been a few mins.. perhaps this will help:
highspeed.png


http://www.gamestencils.com/pics/highspeed.ai

/b

Man that looks great :) Now what do I do now? Increase the size and print it out or what? I have no experience in this kind of thing, help please? What is thisoldgame?
 
Man that looks great :) Now what do I do now? Increase the size and print it out or what? I have no experience in this kind of thing, help please? What is thisoldgame?

Go to a printing source to print out that file. Thisoldgame.com is a reputable source. They do all kinds of printing, stencils, etc. for artwork.

You technically could go to kinkos, but I can't say I've heard of anyone raving about their results, instead was along the lines of, 'well, I got a print I can use.. and it was expensive...'
 
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