Vintage Windmill and Wind Generator Forum

I’ve got an 8’ Samson open gear I’m needing a stencil for the tail. Anyone got anything? Or any ideas on going about recreating one.

I've been using Photoshop for years to create stencils. It is very time consuming but worth it in the end. a few examples:

Jim is that really you?

It's really me

JK Windmills wrote: ↑Tue Dec 25, 2018 8:45 am It's really me

Hope things are going well for you Jim, Merry Christmas.

I've made stencils using magnetic material like sign shops use for removable signs on vehicles. Material cuts well with heavy scissors or utility knife.
Cut letters or image to suit, stick magnet to vane, and use Tremclad spray bomb from a distance of about 6 inches. Works well for me. Harvey near Wingham, Ontario

I've made stencils when I had an original vane to copy. I take a digital photo of the original vane with a tape measure laid on it. Then I print the photo and measure the image of the tape measure in the print. Let's say that twelve inches in the image measure three inches on my desktop ruler; then I know to set the printer to print at 400% to get a lifesize image (spread or "tiled" over several pages). Of course, then I have the fussy and time consuming job of cutting out each letter and taping the stencil to the vane and painting the logo. The suggestion above to use magnetic sign material sounds like a great idea, especially if one is making a stencil they plan on reusing multiple times.

I have taken a picture off the computer and blew it up on my big screen TV, the transferred to paper

How do you get them thumbtacks in the tv screen to hold the tracing paper?

Thanks for all the reply’s I’ve been tinkering around with a few different free programs on the net where I can upload the picture of the tail to the program and blow it up to the dimensions that I want then decide what size paper I want to print it off on. Haven’t printed Anything yet but slowing making my way towards that. I’ll let ya all know how it works out.