Help with stencil supports

[mark.young]

Using inkscape, I managed to make a stencil for personal use of calvin and hobbes this past weekend.

I wanted to be able to whiteboard ink through it so that I could leave the image on a whiteboard.

First problem was that the paper I bought curled badly, which is when I found out about oiled paper (ordered), but I also found that the detail in the design made it hard to keep it flat.

This got me thinking about (somehow) gluing some sort sort of mesh to back. I’ve looked for things I could use, but come up empty handed. I was thinking a mesh grid of thin thread, say with 1/4" squares that I could glue to the back of the template to hold all the pieces in place.

Figured I’d drop the idea off here to see if people had suggestions.

The result using a normal small spray bottle.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/083BWltC7wNT1XLA3nj0XY0tA

[evansd2]

I’d recommend a couple of things:

One is using mylar as your stencil material. Lots of threads about this:

https://community.glowforge.com/search?q=mylar%20stencil

It keeps its shape pretty well.

Second thing is that if you are having trouble keeping it flat as you cut it you might want to look at seklema mats or even a vacuum tray:

https://community.glowforge.com/search?q=seklema%20mat

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