We have two Army boxcars. We're getting ready to letter them, and I'm looking for some ideas on how to align the letters across the braces.

I was thinking of building some type of wooden frame/box for the stencils, and possibly clamping it to the braces.

These are at the Bluegrass Railroad Museum, in Versailles, KY.

Thanks

James

Are you going to space the letters to avoid the braces? If so just tape on the stencil for each letter separately. Below is a picture of an outside braced automobile car lettered several years ago by Bob Kutella at IRM

Since a car shop would have many cars of a certain type to letter and would want all the cars looking identical, their approach would be to do as you state and make up a stencil that could do all the lettering at once. As you say, a box that has cutouts to avoid the ribs, and then attach the entire box stencil to the side. You could do it piecemeal but if you are off a little bit it will stick out, and it will bug you to no end. Besides, with two cars if your spacing is off a little bit that will stick out as well.

Making a proper stencil would probably take a couple of hours at most.