Reusing stencils?

Scucci

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 6, 2003
Messages
4,497
Reaction score
94
Location
Nashville, Tennessee
I've been tossing around the idea of repainting my Jungle Hunt cabinet to the Taito Black/Blue theme.

But I hate buying stuff I can only (easily) use once.

Has anyone tossed around, or actually done, the idea of transferring the stencils to something more sturdy (thin wood, etc etc) so that they could be used over and over again?

Is that possible, has it been done... and if so, how did it work for you?

Granted, I know that cutting the stencils on something thicker would, most likely, rule out using a roller...
 
i've visited this one countless times. never found a way that works worth a damn that would be reasonable cost wise to produce. In most cases, something 'reusable' ends up costing 3 times what the disposable ones do.. who paints 3 of the same cab anyway? Most people do one cab once and that's it.

Taito is an especially difficult one to even consider a reusable for. The letters in taito for example float.. there's nothing there to hold them in a stencil in the correct position to paint. Also consider that many games had very sharp lines, taito is a perfect example.. a stencil that loosely adheres to the cab allows for unsharp lines and underspray. Not a good result.

Another odd thing is using stuff like 'fathead' material (the stuff printers use to make those repositionable football player graphics)... polyethelene films like the pin stencils. Sure, it's removable but you'll experience distortion and the process of cleaning the stencil for a second use will usually pretty much kill the adhesive so there is a certain amount of unrealistic expectation there. I've cut stencils from stuff like Sintra PVC sheet before but it requires the CNC to make and you have to ship flat so the shipping gets nuts :)

I guess my thought was always wanting a good final result is more important than having the ability to reuse something that in all reality i'll probably never actually reuse.
 
stencils

Vinyl is probably the only material that would be cheap and reusable. A lot of places have vinyl cutters these days. OR if you have the stencil in a digital format just have them printed to scale on paper at kinkos. Cut out the stencil. Use Super 77 adhesive for the back and spray it. Next time you need the stencil you can reprint it cheap.
 
Kinkos don't print that wide - already tried that route.

You might want to get a hold of the KLOV that has the CNC machine that reproduce the cabinets for forum members. He may be able to cut you some stencils (provided he has a file) out of something sturdy. I believe the manufacturers like Midway used brass sheets for their reusable stencils.




..
 
i've visited this one countless times. never found a way that works worth a damn that would be reasonable cost wise to produce. In most cases, something 'reusable' ends up costing 3 times what the disposable ones do.. who paints 3 of the same cab anyway? Most people do one cab once and that's it.

Taito is an especially difficult one to even consider a reusable for. The letters in taito for example float.. there's nothing there to hold them in a stencil in the correct position to paint. Also consider that many games had very sharp lines, taito is a perfect example.. a stencil that loosely adheres to the cab allows for unsharp lines and underspray. Not a good result.

Another odd thing is using stuff like 'fathead' material (the stuff printers use to make those repositionable football player graphics)... polyethelene films like the pin stencils. Sure, it's removable but you'll experience distortion and the process of cleaning the stencil for a second use will usually pretty much kill the adhesive so there is a certain amount of unrealistic expectation there. I've cut stencils from stuff like Sintra PVC sheet before but it requires the CNC to make and you have to ship flat so the shipping gets nuts :)

I guess my thought was always wanting a good final result is more important than having the ability to reuse something that in all reality i'll probably never actually reuse.

+1
I guess parents just dont understand...:D
 
Back
Top Bottom