Making a panelled door in stencil card

Recently I was asked by a friend to cover for her on the ‘Foundation in Art & Design Diploma’ course at Central Saint Martins. The day was intended to deal with aspects of model-making relevant to a project the students are currently working on. Each is designing an enclosed space with particular emphasis on the doorway leading into it, so we took the opportunity to focus on doors and the different methods of simulating surfaces.There was no budget available for materials so I had to devise a short practical using whatever small leftovers I could spare. The most promising idea seemed to be working with stencil card since I had a lot of small pieces, and stencil card was available at the CSM college shop if the students wished to take it further.

So I spent a bit of time working out the easiest way to make the traditional panelled door above. I’ve already looked at layering stencil card to create the wall panelling effect below and I also discovered some time ago that stencil card could be scraped with sandpaper leaving a fairly convincing ‘woodgrain’ effect, but I hadn’t combined them much. Also, the panelling below was made by carefully marking out and cutting the layers separately, then just as carefully aligning them while gluing. This is quite demanding! .. I wanted to make it more achievable.

The improved method involves four layers (but as yet only dealing with one side) and the only ‘graining’ done is on the top layer and on the bottom layer where the ‘panels’ are seen. Everything is led by the ‘second layer down’ .. the one shown first in the line-up below, on the left. This is the one which needs to be carefully measured, marked out and cut. These doors are 1:25 scale and I’ve rounded off the UK average for a traditional interior door as .. 198cm high by 76cm wide. If you want to be either very specific or if you’re working in feet and inches, it’s properly 6′ 6″ by 2′ 6″! What happens within that outline is more a matter of taste .. there are no similar ‘standards’ for the size or arrangement of the panels. I’ve cut the first piece of card according to what looks right, but also I’ve observed with 4-panel doors that the top pair are usually longer than the bottom and there’s most often a broader strip across the base of the door for strength. The long thin panel in the middle is not meant as a letter box but it could house one, and the handle or doorknob would be positioned roughly halfway up the door which makes it on average a little less than 1 metre up.

The drawing below should print out on A4 at exactly 1:25 scale and if you’re using this design as a template only the first one needs to be traced or pasted, as I’ve said .. the others are just there to illustrate each stage of layering. It goes like this .. after the first is cut out it should be stuck down onto another scrap of stencil card leaving a small margin around it. Spraymount works well, as long as you don’t intend to treat afterwards with a spirit-based medium because this will dissolve the glue .. otherwise superglue applied with care (very thin lines or dots) works perfectly. Pva wood-glue will grip but not bond very well with the stencil card surface. Trim around the outline of the door using the top stencil layer as a guide then judging by eye cut out all the panel areas a little inside the top-piece outline all around making a little ‘step’ .. as illustrated by stages 2-3 above and below. It may take some practise to get an even strip but it’s too slight to measure/mark. I’ve used the smallest division on the 1:25 scale ruler as a visual guide.

This piece is then stuck onto another piece of stencil card and the outer edge trimmed again as before .. before doing this the stencil card which comes underneath needs to be ‘grained’ first because this will show. For these examples I’ve used a small piece of 120 grit sandpaper to grain, pressing firmly down and straight along, using the edge of a metal ruler as a guide. Once all three stencil card layers are stuck together and the door outline trimmed around once more (stage 4 in the line-up above), the fourth and final layer comes on top. This one is applied differently though, in separate pieces. It has to be because the grain of each strip must follow its longest edge .. essential for a convincing look! The task becomes a bit like marquetry in wood, but much easier because the stencil card is easier to cut. I grained a much larger piece of stencil card first and cut the strips from it, and I made these a little narrower to form a final ‘step’ around the panel areas.

There’s almost no end to what one can use to stain or paint stencil card because, in spite of the linseed oil waterproofing, it will accept both water-based, oil or spirit-based media. I’ve detailed a number of these already in my post February 2015 The art of alternative staining where I’m working with wood, but all will work well on stencil card. In fact many will work better because although a fine-grained wood is often the best option for a good ‘wood’ look when it stains well, it can also be difficult to eliminate the scattering of light specks where the polish or stain has failed to penetrate. Generally stencil card accepts stain a lot better and more evenly.

For the two samples above I used Letraset ProMarkers. The alcohol ink in these covers well and dries quickly, though it stains so well that the lighter scratches tend to disappear. These are ideal if you want something subtle. The ProMarker ink itself dries matte but there is a very slight sheen from the stencil card.

If you’d like more shine or even brighter colours another option is using Marabu Glasart glass paints above, or ‘vitrail’ as they’re often labelled. These are spirit-based and, in the case of the Marabu, can be diluted or cleaned up with white spirit. One has the choice of either a silky or a glossy finish dependent on how much is applied. Here for example I brushed the vitrail on thinly and also went over with tissue and cotton bud to remove the excess collected in the raised edges .. if I’d just left it the effect would have been more glossy. Vitrail doesn’t work well as successive coats, because like shellac a further coat just starts to dissolve the one underneath and the results could be patchy.

As shown above, if you’re intending a worn or ‘distressed’ effect I would recommend either a liquid shoe polish (which are almost always water-based) or a water-based wood varnish. These will tend to sit more on the surface rather than staining, and with each of these samples I started to rub or gently scrape after only a few minutes, before fully dry .. achieving a properly ‘chipped’ look fairly easily. These are, from left to right, Wickes ‘Quick-dry Woodstain’ mahogany; Cherry Blossom brown shoe polish, Kiwi ‘Wax Rich’ black shoe polish. Stencil card will warp a little with water-based media but not as much as other cardboards and, once dry, it is easier to bend carefully back into shape.

Conventional wood-stains also worked well .. both spirit and water-based. The middle one has a light coat of Colron ‘Georgian Oak’ and to the right I have used a water-based ‘Dark Oak’ wood-stain from Flints in London. The spirit-based stain has remained fairly matte whereas the water-based dried to a slight sheen. Spirit-based stains will also infiltrate quickly to the other side, even when more than one layer .. worth bearing in mind if this will be seen.

Lastly, for the pale sample to the left I tried Osmo Dekowachs ‘Transparent White’. This is a specialist wax-based paint I was using in Germany which I still have some of, though these paints are also available in the UK. Like Humbrol enamels I’ve found that these paints will fix on almost anything. The first coat of Dekowachs is always matte and one has to build up a shine with further coats.