Syrah - Day 38 - Label Stencil Cutting

Made a little progress on the stencil for our wine bottle labels this week. Went shopping for some stencil supplies. Couldn't find the plastic that's recommended for screen print stencils, so went with some quilt pattern making supplies (mostly because it's the only flexible plastic I could find). Not ideal, the material is a little thicker than it needs to be and is designed to be cut with scissors, not a knife blade. This has complicated the cutting out of the stencil, since more force is required to punch through the plastic with the razor blade. The markings on the plastic help make it easy to line everything up and will make using the stencil easier since ensuring the stencil is straight on the bottle is as easy as lining up the marks on the back side.

My first attempt to print the stencil design directly onto the plastic sheet didn't dry-out and ended up being a smeary mess that needed to be wiped off. After that failure I opted to print out an image of the stencil and tape the plastic for the stencil over the image and cut through the plastic onto the image. The going's been slow, but I'm working on being careful and trying to get all the little plastic shards and shavings that the exactoblade leaves behind. I did have one part of the stencil that broke during cutting. I patched it up with scotch tape and am optimistic that will holdup. We'll see if that's true after I finish the stencil and do a couple test paints.

The stencil still isn't finished yet. Though one good tip I picked up was to start in the intricate cuts in the middle, since as you work your way out the stencil becomes more delicate as the supporting pieces are cut away. Starting in those spots allows you to manhandle the delicate parts a little more without fear they will come apart. Still a little ways to go. Hopefully I'll finish it up Monday or Tuesday next week. Then comes the opportunity to play with spray paint.

I still have 4 more sheets so if this one doesn't work out, I can do a few more attempts before I need to head back to the store. I'm also interested in maybe making a few different designs, either ones that can be overlaid/underlain with the one I am currently making or that can be used one their own to give us a few more label options.