Patent Application
20150251407
The present invention relates to masks or stencils used in painting wherein the indicia remain visible even if covered with paint.
It is known to use stencils or masks when painting surfaces. Sometimes the stencils or masks (collectively from here forward, “stencils” or “stencil panels”) include indicia, such as numbers, colors or shapes explaining where the stencils are to be located on the surface, located relative to other stencils and/or what color paint will be applied to each opening in the stencil. Indicia may also be used to locate one stencil panel relative one or more other stencil panels to show the position at which the panels overlap. A problem arises when a stencil has more than one (and sometimes many) coats of paint applied to it because the surface to be painted will have multiple colors. In that case, the first coat of paint, or multiple coats of paint may cover the indicia, as shown in
Current stencil panels may be printed with solvent or UV curable inks and then have the shapes (or forms) through which paint is applied cut into them. Or, the stencil panel has the shapes (or forms) cut into it and no printing is applied.
These current methods of paint-masking require searching for the shapes after the first coat of paint has been applied. Sometimes painters will pre-mark each color shape with tape, but this is time consuming and impractical.
This application incorporates by reference U.S. application Ser. No. 13/605,902 filed on Sep. 6, 2012 entitled “STENCILING DEVICE AND METHOD” and invented by Heath Moore.
A stencil panel used when multiple paint layers are applied to a surface has indicia that (1) indicate the final paint color to be applied to the surface, and (2) are visible to a user even if covered by layers of paint. The indicia may be raised or comprised of a material that can be seen through the paint layer(s).
Turning now to the drawings where the purpose is to describe preferred embodiments of the invention and not to limit same,
Each form 2 has one or more indicia 3 that is either raised (as shown in
In a preferred use of a stencil panel 1 according to the invention, the stencil panel 1 is applied to a surface to be painted and the one or more forms 2 for a particular color are removed from the stencil panel 1. The first color is then applied. Afterwards, the one or more forms 2 for a second color, which can be identified through the first layer of paint, are removed and the second color is applied. This process is repeated until all of the colors of paint are applied to a surface using the proper one or more forms 2 for each color. Additionally, before applying subsequent layers of paint, the surface which already has paint applied to it may be remasked in any suitable manner such as by using masking tape, additional paint masking, or liquid paint mask. This prevents one color of paint from covering or partially covering a surface that has already been painted a different color. After the completion of painting the surface, the stencil panel 1 is removed.
Having thus described some embodiments of the invention, other variations and embodiments that do not depart from the spirit of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art. The scope of the present invention is thus not limited to any particular embodiment, but is instead set forth in the appended claims and the legal equivalents thereof. Unless expressly stated in the written description or claims, the steps of any method recited in the claims may be performed in any order capable of yielding the desired result.
