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Mike wrote:
.......BRASS STENCILS!
>I have several questions -
>FIRST - A good friend of mine just sold me a huge brass stencil set . ......
>Problem is, many of the stencils are heavily painted and some are slightly
>corroded. What's the easiest and cheapest way to remove all this paint!
Easiest......Go to a good hobby shop and buy a bottle of "ScaleCoat"
paint remover. This stuff is used to strip paint from model trains. I use
it to remove paint from H.O. brass locomotives and it works fantastic. Just
pour the stripper in a glass jar or small pan and drop the stencils in. In
about 10 to 20 minutes the paint will just drop off. Then just rinse them
in water as this stuff is water soluble. I've used this stuff for years and
they have a formula for plastics also. Takes off the paint and does not
harm the plastic. Oh yea, it's reuseable, so just pour it back in the
bottle for next time.
>SECOND - What's the correct way to use these things? Are you supposed
to
>buy file folders and draw the words you want to make masks of, then cut them
>out? Or do people regularly just use the brass stencil as a paint mask,
>then clean the paint off? I have blanks and blank end pieces (no locking
>seam on one side) so it looks like direct paint over is the way to go, but
is
>that right?
No. These metal stencil are not for vehicles although you can use
them that way. The proper stencils are cut from a stencil cutting machine
on a oil paper. In the WW II era they used stencils that had a gummed back
and were stuck right on the hood. Then, after you had painted the numbers
(usually using a stencilling brush) and let the paint dry, you cleaned the
surface and (NOTE) painted in the webs (spaces) between the parts of the
numbers.
This is explained (with photos) in the TM on painting military
vehicles. Also note that the shapes of the numbers are different depending
on what time period you are dealing with. Of course I'm talking about the
factory and proper military way to stencil these numbers. If we're speaking
about this being done in the field, then anything goes......
Jim Gilmore MVPA # 5843
Member Ist Michigan AOD Chapter MVPA
Great Lakes Chapter MVPA
Ohio Motor Pool Chapter MVPA
Red Ball Chapter MVPA
Ontario Military Vehicle Association
Midwest Military Vehicle Assocation
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Apr 04 2000 - 21:57:13 PDT