Welcome to The Hand Lettering Forum!
This is an interactive Bulletin Board on the topics of Sign making, design, fabrication, History, old Books and of coarse Letterheads, Keepers of the craft. The Hand Lettering Forum features links to resources, sign art history, techniques, and artists profiles. Learn more about Letterheads at https://theletterheads.com. Below you'll see Mchat has been added as a live communication portal for trial, and the Main forum Links are listed below.

Rawson And Evans Type Zinc Metal Sandblast And Paint Stencil

Hand Lettering topics: Sign Making, Design, Fabrication, Letterheads, Sign Books.

Moderators: Ron Percell, Mike Jackson, Danny Baronian

Post Reply
Roger R.
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2004 9:06 pm
Location: Bessemer City, NC 28016

Rawson And Evans Type Zinc Metal Sandblast And Paint Stencil

Post by Roger R. »

After reading Rick Glawson's article on the "Original Letterheads" site about zinc metal sandblast stencils, I thought of the zinc stencils I seen made about twenty five years ago. Rick explained the process to make zinc metal stencils that Rawson and Evans may have made and used.

Rick's method was to apply frisket or plotter cut vinyl to zinc metal, then remove negative areas of frisket. Coat entire area of metal with asphaltum, back side also. Remove positive areas of mask to expose clean zinc metal. Pour mixture of 1/2 water and 1/2 muriatic acid ( 28%) into plastic tray and immerse zinc metal into solution for 20 -25 minutes. The acid would etch away all exposed metal. After cleaning, wires were soldered across design or letters to hold centers in place.

The stencils that I seen were made a little different. The zinc metal was first coated on both sides with "tire blacking", which was probably thin asphaltum. A hand cut or machine cut stencil made of "oil board" was placed on the metal. Oil board is thin cardboard used for stencils.

A sharp scribe was used to scribe around the stencil. The metal was then placed in an acid solution like Rick described. After 15 - 25 minutes, the worker would pry up one edgd of metal to see if etching was complete. The pieces would simply fall out after etching.

The metal was then removed, cleaned, and wires soldered across stencil to hold letter centers in place. The etching of the fine lines made the letters look as if they had been machine cut.

I saw a number of metal stencils that were made this way. Some of them were very old. Zinc metal can still be purchased, but is expensive.
Post Reply