With just an exacto knife, Spray adheasive, computer/printer and spray paint, you can make your own stencils.
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1. There are lots of options to buy top quality pre-printed stencil board or stencil masks for your jeep. Vendors have high quality and superb laser cutting. But, it is easy to drop $75 for just a few stencils for your jeep. Here we are going to show you how to do it yourself for less than $10. |
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2. First, create the graphic you want in a paint program. Here, I use an old version of Paint Shop Pro. With paint programs you can decrease or Increase graphics easily on the computer to fit on a page. |
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3. Once your graphic is ready, print the graphic on a thick piece of Cardstock paper. This paper is much thicker than normal printer paper, and will cut well with an exacto knife. |
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4. Place your printed card stock on a surface that will allow the knife to cut through. In this example, a particle board is used. Note, you don't want a surface that will dull the knife quickly. With your exacto knife (which are $3.99 at Harbor Frieght), you start cutting out the letters on your page. |
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5. You want to be extremely careful and cut *slowly* around the tight letters such as O. Here you see that when poking the letter out the top of the O tore. It will still work, but you only get so many of these foo-paus. |
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6. After you cut out your letters, go back and re-trim some of the rough spots as shown here. |
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7. Take a look at the back side of the page and clean up rough spots as well. |
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8. When your stencil is complete, you are now ready to apply to your jeep or trailer. |
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9. Before you can apply the stencil to a clean surface, you will need to spray the backside with Stencil Adheasive spray. This spray is a sticky rubber surface that will not harm your other dry paint surface. |
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10. Prior to applying the stencil, remove any bolts or nuts so that the stencil can be applied on a flat surface (for best results). |
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11. Be sure the surface is clean and dry prior to placing the stencil on the surface. |
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12. On the backside of the stencil, apply the Stencil adheasive all around the letters. You will be pressing this on, and you want all of the letters to be firm against the surface. |
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13. Now line up your stencil in the position that you want on your jeep and press firmly all around the letters. You want the stencil to be pressed firmly pressed against the surface. |
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14. Now tape paper coverings around the stencil so that the overspray will not land on your jeep. |
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15. Now spray the stencil with your flat white paint. One light coat to start, and another coat, a few minutes later. Note: it is better to spray multiple light coats than it would be to do one heavy coat, as the heavy coat can cause runs. |
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16. After a few minutes of drying, pull the cover paper over and start peeling the card stock page from the surface slowly. Be very careful as you peel lightly the stencil off the surface. |
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17. When the stencil is removed, you might see some overspray around the stencil. This is normal. You will need to go back and some OD to touch up this section. You will also notice that some of the adheasive is still present. Don't worry the adheasive will eventually dry an will fall off, probably on your next wash. |
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18. After a little touch up of OD around the stencil, it looks great! |
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19. Here you see the same stencil can be used and added to a jeep trailer if wanted. So this stencil will be filed away for the next project it is used on. |
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20. What is great about using your computer, is you can use any font you like. Here I named my jeep "Ginea Pig" because this jeep is used in all the articles on this site. Therefore, it is the Ginea Pig! |
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21. Here you see another custom stencil painted on the jeep trailer. I can do this all day, at a cost of about $10 and I can stencil to my hearts desire. |
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22. When you are all done, create a file, and file your stencils away and use them again on your next project! |
