How To: Finish a Dice Box Using Vinyl Stencils

December 23, 2019

How To: Finish a Dice Box Using Vinyl Stencils

Last post I wrote on how to take a "found" wood tray and turn it into a dice tray. Obviously the same techniques can be applied to a wooden box, which has the advantage of being a storage device in addition to functioning as a dice rolling tray. A wooden box also provides some extra opportunities for decoration, and that's the topic of today's post.

In this (much shorter) post I describe a few additional techniques that allow you to take finishing that dice box to a higher level. Specifically, I'd like to address how to deal with hardware like hinges and latches, and how to make use of a vinyl stencil. I made a dice box for my son for a holiday present, and this is the example I will be using. I purchased the box at Amazon. I would recommend keeping the bottom box depth to under 3 inches if you wish to use it as a dice tray as well. Deeper than that and it becomes a bit awkward.

Box Hardware

You will want to remove all box hardware before staining and polyurethaning. I can hear you complaining already, "OHMYGOD WHYYYYYYYyyyyyyy. It's so much woooooooork." Yeah, it is. But I'll be blunt. Staining with the hardware on makes for a half-assed looking box. The stain pools around the gaps between the hardware and the wood, and more importantly, it often stays tacky, extending your drying time out by days (if it ever dries at all). Stain and polyurethane can freeze hinges and latches, making the box difficult to open. If you want that "grime around the hinges look", I'm inclined to have you use acrylic wash instead after the stain has cured. It'll dry within an hour, and won't be tacky and attract real dust and grime.
Make sure you remove the hardware with screwdrivers that are appropriately sized. (You will need small ones!) These screws are often soft metal and if you use a screwdriver that is too large you will strip the head, making reassembly a pain, and potentially compromising the integrity of the box.
Save those little screws and hinges in a ziplock bag. Once they fall on the floor, they're gone.
Fill the holes left by the screws with wood filler. You want those screws to have something to bite. Let the wood filler cure and then lightly sand to smooth it out.
Replacing the hardware is the very last step in this project.

Vinyl Stenciling

There are a ton of vinyl stencil tutorials out there... but I'm guessing my audience doesn't intersect with the crafting/scrapbooking/wedding planner audience all that much. (I don't use my cutter for that stuff, either, for what it's worth. I'm a printmaker, and I use it for collagraphs, mainly.) So I'll go over the basics here, but if you want a video tutorial all you need to do is look up "vinyl stencil" on YouTube. If you understand silk screening, you'll understand this technique, too, for what it's worth.

There are two inexpensive digital cutter brands out there: Silhouette and Cricut. These machines are used to precisely cut paper, vinyl, and fabric. You may be thinking of simple shapes like squares and circles, but these machines are much more sophisticated than that, and can cut extremely complex shapes, including lettering. Vinyl is sold in "sticker" format. In other words, one side is sticky and is adhered to a paper backing. These machines can be used to cut out vinyl sticker shapes - similar to some of the vinyl bumper stickers you might see on cars. But stickers are not the only use of this vinyl. They can be used to create extremely complex stencils, which is how we will be using the vinyl. Think of the vinyl as a mask. You will be using the vinyl to prevent the paint coming into contact with the wood. In other words, you will be creating a "negative" of the image you want.

A note about typeface choices - I personally like to build in a bit of "wiggle room". In other words, I don't choose typefaces that only look good when pristine. In the example case here, I chose Berylium, which is a free font loosely based on Garamond, with its high X-height. The high X-height means that the majority of the counters (enclosed spaces) are substantial in size, making it easier to pick out and less likely to be accidentally filled by the stenciling process. But what really distinguishes Berylium from Garamond is that it has "ratty" edges, intentionally faceted and scalloped such that it looks worn, like old lead type that is past its prime. As a result, any minor errors in stenciling will simply blend in with the intentional roughness of the original typeface.

Your first task is to get your hands on a digital cutter. Whether you go out and buy one or just sweet talk your cousin into letting you borrow theirs is up to you.
You can buy images to cut or create your own. These digital cutters generally use vector graphics, and you can often import svg images. There are a lot of free clip art options out there, and of course, there's always text. For my project, I went with the text of a stanza from a poem in The Lord of the Rings.
Your second task is to prep the surface. Make certain the surface is sanded to your liking, because once you paint with the stencil you will want to keep your sanding to a minimum. If you are going to stain the wood, I recommend staining it before you paint. Stains contain solvents, and you don't know what that solvent will do to the paint you use to stencil. Personally, I like to paint on wood that has at least one coat of polyurethane on it. This is because acrylic paint is water based, and so is wood. There is a chance for "wicking" on wood that is not dense, and the polyurethane basically waterproofs the wood, preventing this from happening. You must let that polyurethane layer dry completely, because it is coming into contact with adhesive and it's very thin. So this will add a day to your prep time, but in my opinion, it's worth doing it this way.

I'm most of the way through weeding out the letters
in this stencil using a dedicated weeding tool, shown.
Set the knife depth on the digital cutter such that it will cut through the vinyl but not the paper. In my case, that is a setting of about 5 on my older Silhouette machine.
Now it's time to "weed". Using a pin or a dedicated "weeding tool" you are going to remove the vinyl that exposes your design, leaving the background in place on the paper backing. Note that I am leaving the centers of letters with "counters", a.k.a. open spaces, such as the letters 'O' or 'B'.
Now you will need to apply a layer of tape over the top (non-sticky) side of the vinyl stencil. You can use regular masking tape if you wish, but the dedicated "vinyl transfer tape" has some clear advantages. (Did you see what I did there?) Not only is it clear and gridded, allowing for really accurate placement on your final object, the tack is exactly perfect. The tack must be sufficiently sticky to hold on to the vinyl to transfer it, but not so sticky that you have trouble getting it to let go when you have the stencil in place. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, place the layer of tape over the top of the vinyl. If you care about placement, be conscious of the grid marks so that you attach the vinyl to make those useful for placement. Make sure the tape is well adhered to the vinyl by scraping the edge of a credit card or a hard squeegie/scraper across the surface, removing all bubbles and avoiding wrinkles.

The transfer tape is clear and gridded, which allows for
precise positioning. My stencil is still attached to the transfer
tape as it is being positioned on the wood in this photo.
Remove the paper backing from the vinyl. Do this slowly and carefully, because small independent pieces have a tendency to lift up with the paper. If that happens, roll the backing paper back down in contact with the vinyl, and from the front side, use a credit card or your fingernail to ensure that the small piece adheres to the transfer tape and not the backing.
Place the vinyl onto the surface you wish to paint, being careful to position it exactly as you wish. Lay it down lightly until you are certain. Once you have it positioned correctly, you are going to use that squeegie or credit card once more to scrape the vinyl flush with the surface, ensuring a complete seal between vinyl and wood. If there are any gaps, paint will leak through and your image edges will not be crisp.

I use a magnifier when painting to be sure I get in all the
nooks and crannies.
Reverse the process with the transfer tape. Now you are going to peel back the transfer tape, leaving the vinyl adhered to the wood. Do this in a slow roll, in the same way you removed the paper backing. Reverse course if small pieces stick to the tape instead of the wood, using your credit card or fingernail to get the vinyl to stay on the wood. Once the tape is removed, go back over the vinyl carefully, inspecting it to make sure that it is fully adhered.
Paint through the stencil using artist grade acrylic paint and a small stiff brush. Pay attention! The detail on these stencils can be incredibly fine, but if your brush hairs do not get into those fine gaps with paint, they will not show up on the wood! It is really easy to miss narrow sections. I actually use a magnifier lens/light to make certain that I have genuinely gotten paint into the narrow sections. Younger eyes may not need the help, but they will need to pay attention to detail. If you don't realize that the paint is sitting on top creating a bridge rather than going into the gap, there's virtually no way to repair it once you've removed the stencil other than free-handing it. (Lay off the coffee and good luck!) I use artist's grade because it is the densest amount of pigment - less binding agent. It gives a richer color in a single pass, and reliably mixes with other colors, giving consistent results.

Look at those razor thin serifs at the top of the 'w'. Or the
crossbar of the 'e'. They're out to get you. Don't let them lull
you into complacency - get your brush bristles in there!
Let this dry thoroughly. Most acrylic colors dry within an hour but some pigments (some whites, some earth tones like terra verde or ochre yellow) may take longer. You're safe if you wait overnight.
Carefully peel back the vinyl. All of the 'counters' will be left behind. (The center of the 'O', the triangle of the 'A', etc.) With a pin or weeding tool, pick off those centers as well. This is why you needed to wait to have the paint dry. Be aware that the paint on the vinyl is not adhered and your tool or pin will scrape it off and deposit it on the wood if you are not careful. You can often get that smudge off if you try, but it's just a whole lot easier to be careful from the get go than to try and repair that stuff.
I let the wood dry out for at least a few more hours. I have a feeling that's not necessary, however I think about all those edges of the paint that were in contact with the vinyl and figure there's no harm in waiting a little bit for the next step.

Picking out the vinyl from the counters in the letters.
And that next step is polyurethane. I do at least 4 thin coats of satin oil-based polyurethane, each coat taking approximately 8 hours to dry, more if it's rainy weather. If you have 4 or more coats on there you can buff out any egregious bumps or roughness with super high number sandpaper. I use 600 grit or 1000 grit. I'm extremely careful around the stenciled area - you can accomplish a lot with a single pass of sandpaper, and it's best to err on the side of caution. If you do buff out with sand paper, it's best to add another coat or two of polyurethane. If you want a really smooth application I find a small piece of cotton t-shirt rag wrapped around your fingers is the least likely to leave streaks.
Once the polyurethane is cured, apply the felt to the bottom and top of the inside of the box as per my instructions in the previous How To. I don't bother with felting the sides for a couple of reasons - the most important of which is that a raw edge of felt along the "mouths" of the box will get ratty quickly. Another reason is that it will be far more likely to pull away from the wood than the inset tops or bottoms.
The last step is reattaching the hardware you took off before you started.