Custom Stencils

A custom stencil is the answer when the marking has to go on directly and has to be repeatable. No label to lift, no plate to fix, no adhesive to fail: the paint is the marking, and the same stencil gives you the same result on the hundredth item as on the first.

What people use them for. Pipe and equipment identification where a marker or nameplate will not survive or will not stick. Floor marking and bay layout. Structural steel identification. Tank, drum and vessel marking. Pallet and crate marking for despatch. Kerb, bollard and parking bay numbering. Site hoarding and safety lettering.

Materials, and how to choose. Aluminium is the general-purpose reusable stencil, light enough to handle one-handed up a ladder and stiff enough to hold a clean edge through repeated cleaning. Stainless steel is the choice where the stencil lives in a washdown area or will be used for years rather than months. Coated board, sometimes called oiled board, is the single-use option: cheap, flexible enough to bend round a drum or a pipe, and disposable when the job is done.

How they are cut. Laser cut or CNC cut from your artwork. Letters, numbers, symbols, logos and complex shapes are all achievable, at any size you need. Send a drawing, a logo file, or simply the wording and the dimension it has to fit, and we will set it out. Tie bars, the small bridges that hold the centres of letters like O and A in place, are added where the shape needs them and positioned so they read cleanly once painted.

Reusing and maintaining them. Clean metal stencils after each use before the paint cures, or the next marking picks up the last one’s edges. Stored flat, an aluminium or stainless stencil will outlast the job it was cut for. Coated board is not worth cleaning and is meant to be thrown away.

Cut to order in our own Singapore workshop, which is why a custom stencil is usually a matter of days rather than weeks. Supplied to industrial, marine, construction and manufacturing sites across the island since 1979. Where a permanent marker suits the job better than paint, see our pipe markers, custom metal nameplates and floor marking and safety floor labels.