Stencils are reuseable. The problem is they can tear in thin areas when you lift them off after spraying. As long as you are careful with them they can be used over and over again.

No stencils are not reusable. They are cut usually from a thin stencil vinyl and are intended to be a one time application. It's impossible to remove them without stretching or tearing them at some point and even more unlikely you'd ever successfully put them back on the backing paper you would need to reinstall them.

I used stencils on 2 cabinet restores. There was no way I could have reused either of the stencils. I was trying to be carefull when removing them but between paint build-up and stretching it would just be easier to buy new. Not saying it's impossible, just wasn't happening for me.

Stencils are NOT reusable....I have done 14 Cabinet restorations and never would have been able to reuse any of the stencils!

Pinballmike217 is right, You can reuse stencils, but I don't think more than 3 times.
I bought one stencil set to paint this game.
But I must say that it's extremely hard not to stretch the venyl film, it's also very hard to apply the stencils a second and third time well to prevent bleeding, but with that said, it'a possible.

P1030557.JPG

Bummer, I guess I'm wrong because everyone says so. I wonder how I stenciled this cabinet and then reused the stencils again to customize the inside of the cabinet.

10.JPG43.JPG

Good luck, stencils can be tricky. They are probably not intended to reused but if you're careful it is definately possible.

From my experience, you definitely will have a hard time reusing any of the Classic Arcades stencils. The vinyl is super thin and you couldn't even remove it from the cab without tearing it.

I'm about to finish a Space Shuttle with Twisted Pins Stencil, maybe that will be easier to remove...

-Wes

I know there is stencil software out there where someone can pick apart artwork, I'm sure there is a way to transfer it and to start making a solid form of stencils for re-use. Not sure why anyone hasn't attempted this yet.

There is no way you will be able to reuse Twisted Pins stencils. The adhesive is so strong the stencils need to be ripped off-in some cases removing paint!!

What did you make in this photo? You have a video?

I would tempted to think that no one attempted a solid form of stencils now a days because they would lose money, it's cost affective for the customer but not for seller.
I'm curious to know how the games were factory painted back in the 70's and 80's?
Did they use solid stencils?
I would think so, otherwise it would'nt be very cost affective.
They made 19500 Williams Flash pins, that's 72 games a day if you count only week days in a 1 year spand, imagine stencilling and painting 72 games a day with venyl stencils, all of the labor it would take.......

Yep!
Here it is:

Now that is one nice paint job.
Nice work.

I have recently cut stencils from MDF board using tracing paper, affix the trace to the MDF and cut out with jigsaw per the early EM factory process. It was an easy process and reusable continuously.

Did you have a post on this?

removing a few bits of a stencil to put in the bottom of a cab is a far cry from a whole cab The amount of time you spend futzing with trying to reuse something like that is just not worth it even if you consider your time worth minimum wage.

I wish a truly reusable stencil was cost effective, but it's far from it really. By the time you pay to cnc metal or wood as opposed to plotter cutting vinyl you're at a cost greater than 2 sets of stencils to begin with, so unless you're one of that less than 2% of people that do more than one restoration of a particular cab the value just isn't there in a reusable version. However, i'm sure if you really do need to do 3 or more of a single cab it's worth it to ask one of the stencil makers to get a set laser cut from metal for you.

Not my post but I commented it:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/triple-head-to-head-jungle-lord

Another post on another forum made a few years ago when the game just got finished, sorry for the few french posts but most are in english.
http://www.maaca.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6268&hilit=Jungle+Lord+Gold+edition&start=25

That was awesome! I can read French ok so no problems. Super cool!!!

Thanks.
I had been thinking of making a triple head to head pinball machine for many years before making it, I owned every single head to head pin that exists and loved those games, so this was my top notch "mind" project, I examined every 80's pins carefully to choose the one that would perfectly fit what I had in mind for this project and decided that Jungle Lord was the perfect candidate.

That is awesome. Amazing job. Why not start another thread and let everyone see it? That is too good not to share.

Maybe you should reread the title of this thread. The OP simply asked if it was possible to reuse stencils. It is. He didn't ask if it was worth the time or not. And for the record I did not remove a "few bits" I saved the entire set. You have no idea of what I did so don't attempt to speak for me. I saved my stencils. If it's not worth your time to save yours that's your choice. I think the quality of my restorations speak for themselves, so for me it's definitely worth the time.

The stencils that Pinball Pal sold could be used multiple times, with very little effort. I used a Playboy set 5 times.

I needed to do 3 Eight Balls and did not want to spend the $ for 3 sets. I made my own out of thicker adhesive vinyl using tracing paper and a stencil cutter. It took me 10 hours to make the set but they can be reused multiple times. Had to apply spray adhesive after the first time. Cost to make the set was around $50.

Plan to do the same thing for a Pinbot since I have 3 to rework.

Best of luck, Bob

Is that a double header JL? I need to see more, please!

No, it's a triple header JL.
Check a few posts further in this thread and you'll have more info.

I used poster board to make stencil for Gottlieb Dimension EM. After I did my pin they were used 2 more times w/out problem.