Stencil sheets

Re: Stencil sheets

John K Jordan

What kind of paper is it? If I went through a lot I'd think about buying it in rolls and making a dispenser to tear or cut off just what was needed. (I made one for my son when he was in architecture school.) I saw 600' of 20# bond for about $35.

If using the same pattern over and over I might consider plastic sheets - I still have frosted mylar sheets from my drafting days - very durable. However, I know nothing about making such patterns so I don't know if these would work.

JKJ

Re: mylar or plastic

Ken Vaughan

My wife is a fibrer/fabric person wh did lots of quilting. Mylar or flexible polyethlene sheets held up much better than paper. I got to make the patterns and used an electric skew blade to follow the lines. (Cheap pyrography hand held with a sharp hot skew blade.)

Paper patterns needed to be cut also and for complex patterns needed to be replaced much much more often. Cutting out one paper stencil with exacto knives was enough.

Now days with laser cutters, the job might be done differently......

Re: Stencil sheets

John McGaw

The frosted mylar drafting film is excellent for many purposes and if I was making patterns or stencils for multiple uses I'd certainly use it. I'm assuming that it is very expensive though. I still have a bit left over from a previous life and will probably never need more than that.

Oh, BTW, two layers of this stuff makes just about the best light diffuser for photography you can imagine - when shooting small items it can be formed into a three-sided (top, left, right) tent and a single light can be shined through it at whatever angle you need and the reflection from the inside does a perfect fill.

Re: Stencil sheets

Thomas Skaggs, Foothills of Mount Level

I use scraps of 1/8" or 1/4" plywood. They give me a good edge to scribe. T.

Re: Stencil sheets

Jack Guzman from Maine

I buy large sheets of posterboard from the craft or school supply section of walmart for patterns. It's heavier than card stock and holds up pretty good as a pattern. For more durable patterns I use 1/8" plywood. Curtis Buchanan uses mylar for some of his chair patterns. When I first started out,I cut my patterns from a roll of building paper.---Jack

Re: Stencil sheets

JL

I use two types. Poster board (95 lb?) and quad-ruled 20 lb (which I have in a large pad).

After a while, the poster board gets sort of ratty - as does the 20 lb.

I use both as a layout pattern for seats - where to drill for legs, spindles, arm posts, hoops, etc. I have small pieces that I use to mark out where I want to bevel the seat blanks in a "shield" style seat.

Ideally, I would like something that is about 1/16" or so in thickness - hence the stencil sheets. I figure I could use those for the rest of my woodworking career.

Lamp shade polystyrene or vinyl