Ahoy,
White backgrounds on logos/decals have been discussed over and over, from spraying the back of ricepaper to finding a printer with white ink, …
or just having it printed by someone who has the means, there are many options to get great results.
One technique that I have not seen mentioned and I would say it is probably the most tedious of them all is to achieve a white/blank colored background by doing a negative stencil of the logo area.
Should you do it? Definitely not, or at least not if you want to use it for anything more intricate than lets say, a circle.
Did I do it? Yes, and it looks fantastic!
My approach, based on zero experience no research and no help was the following:
I printed a couple of White-fronted Terns (birds) on ricepaper and cut them out precisely.
Next I positioned them on the board and very faintly and crudely marked them on the naked blank.
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Afterwards, I thoroughly taped over the the marked areas and positioned the birds again where I had them before.
Using a scalpel I cut out the exact outline of the birds and removed the surrounding excess tape.
Voila, a flock of tape birds on a white blank.
After double checking that the tape corners were all neat and flat, I foam stained the board and removed the tape birds just before the stain was fully cured.
Voila, a flock of ghost birds on a colored blank.
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To make sure the birds would end up in there dedicated positions and without any bubbles, which can be tricky without the weight of fibreglass, I did the following for each bird individually. I brushed some resin into the white outline, carefully placed the respective paper bird, covered it with pieces of plastic film (!choose the right plastic!), taped the film corners down and weighed it down with a piece of soft foam on which I placed a small weight.
Voila, ricepaper birds on a white background surrounded by a colored blank.
From there everything was easy, I removed tape and film and did a regular clear lamination.
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Would I do it again? Not for me or anyone else other than my partner.
I am sure others have done this before and to be honest the process is fairly simple if it is just one decal and the outline not too intricate.
At the time I did this I did not think or know of simply spraying the background of the ricepaper white.
However, I have to say it does have a really unique slightly “Papier collé” like look when seen in detail. Also, there is no hue of the colour shining thorugh as can sometimes be seen on white backed logos so the contrast is very rich.
Anyhow I figured since there is hardly a more comprehensive repository for anything surf DIY than swaylocks it might be nice to post this here be it a deterrent or an instruction.
Best regards,
Tim