Creating alignment holes in a stencil

[Richard Rumancik]

I'm trying to make a stencil for an artist to trace some words on a wall - she wants a stencil set of the Dauphin font.

I recall the old paper stencils that I used many years ago had alignment holes in the top left and right of each character. This allowed you to space the characters consistently. (I realize this does not always give optimum kerning and sometimes you need to cheat, but it would be a start.) The question is, what would be the easiest way to locate the proper horizontal position of these alignment holes?

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

I'm not sure if this will work, but at the moment, it's the only thing my brain can come up with.

What if you type the alphabet as artistic text in Corel. Then select the Shape Tool as if you were going to edit the nodes. Once you see the nodes in the lower left of the characters, Print Screen to capture the image and then paste that image from the clipboard into your document. (Working with layers will help.) Then use the character control nodes in the image as your guides to create alignment holes.

Hope that makes sense. I lost my train of thought mid-way through typing this.

[David Lampitok]

Just cut them out to size and have the artist spray mount them to the wall and trace them from there, Positives not negatives will allow the proper spacing. It would be a fools errand to try the method you suggest, as the overlap necessary to align the holes would obscure the glyphs, making accurate spacing a nightmare. Plus you will get more letters from your material

[Richard Rumancik]

What if you type the alphabet as artistic text in Corel. Then select the Shape Tool as if you were going to edit the nodes. Once you see the nodes in the lower left of the characters, Print Screen to capture the image and then paste that image from the clipboard into your document. (Working with layers will help.) Then use the character control nodes in the image as your guides to create alignment holes.

Well, you gave me a good start, Mike; thanks for the help. I couldn't remember how to make the "character control nodes" show up. They are a bit hard to work with because you can't snap to them or keep them showing on the screen . . . (as you probably know)

But instead of the print screen method, I dragged vertical guidelines to visually align with the nodes. (You have to zoom in and estimate the center, because as soon as you let go of the guideline the node disappears.)

I also dragged one horizontal guideline and then put the index holes at the intersections of the guidelines.

I did realize that this only provides a rough kerning of characters, because the space between characters is dependent on the adjacent characters. But it is at least a start.

I used clear mylar so the artist can adjust kerning "by eye" if needed.

David, there may be other ways - but my customer wanted a stencil and you know what they say about customers . . . She was putting a large amount of text on a wall, so her method was to stencil the letters and hand paint them in. Works for her!

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

A little too late now that you're finished, but you could have turned on Snap to Objects and Snap to Guidelines to make it a little easier. You could have then selected the shape tool and created a horizontal guideline and have it snap to the very first control node on the far left side. Then you could select your text and Arrange, Break Apart into individual characters. Time-consuming, but you would then have individual control nodes that you could then drag a new vertical guideline and Snap to Object and at the same time, snap to the horizontal guideline. (If you had not selected the Break Apart option, you would only be able to snap to the very first control node on the left and none of the remaining control nodes to the right.) This would allow you to have the guidelines centered perfectly for the index holes.

Glad you worked out some sort of solution to keep your customer happy.

[Richard Rumancik]

I tried what you suggested i.e. breaking the artistic text apart into individual characters and yes, this would have been a bit more accurate. Maybe next time. . .

I just typed the characters in alpha order, but when I realized that the kerning was somewhat dependend on adjacent characters it did not bother me to have to approximate the node centers.

If you placed a W followed by an A you would probably want different kerning than say W followed by a E. I decided to just give a default kerning using the index holes, but in reality, kerning needs to be adjusted by eye for best appearance.

Thanks again.

[Dee Gallo]

When I was a wall dog, we always used pounce patterns. You simply print the letters with dotted lines - so you would laser small holes in paper which follow the shape of the letters.

Use ruler to draw a baseline under the words and make sure you extend them to the edge of the paper.

Then, you tape the pages up on the wall, lining up the underlines. Tape only the top edges so you can check your design by peeking underneath.

Take some blue chalkline chalk onto a rag, rub it over the paper and your outlines are transferred. They are easy to wash or brush off. You can either freehand the painting or pencil them first if you're not expert enough.

Easy as pie! :) dee